Dodocase: A chunk of cardboard might be the biggest thing at Google I/O

We picked up something at Google’s developers conference that has been inspiring squeals of joy and delight. No, it isn’t a smartwatch. It isn’t even a gadget. It’s a cheap piece of cardboard, and it’s getting even the tech-jaded people here excited.

The premise is simple. A cardboard contraption you can assemble in about 45 seconds. Just drop your phone into the little cardboard viewfinder you wind up with, hold it up to your face, and you’re immersed in a virtual reality world comparable in resolution to the first version of the Oculus Rift, if not better. Turn your head to scroll through a row of apps, and on the left side there’s a metal washer that’s held on by a magnet. Flick it down to click on something. It’s incredibly intuitive, and equally impactful.

Facebook has Oculus. Sony has Project Morpheus. So why, it was fair to wonder, wasn’t Google getting into the VR game? Well, it just did, and the way it’s going about it is absolutely genius. Rather than relying on an expensive piece of equipment, Google Cardboard essentially gives virtual reality to everyone who has an Android phone. For free. The implications of that are tremendous. It’s the first time that virtual reality — good virtual reality — has ever been so ubiquitous, cheap, and readily available.

Less than 24 hours after it was announced though, Dodocase is already making and selling pre-made kits online for $20 (RS 1,200). Essentially, it can instantly be as ubiquitous as Android phones. You just have to install the Cardboard app on your phone, and be running a recent-ish version of Android.

So anybody could have made something like this at home, provided they had a bit of coding knowledge. The difference is that Google had the wherewithal to make an easy-to-use app that already has a bunch of great examples of how Cardboard can be used, and, of course, they’re making the development platform open so that anybody can make awesome apps that leverage this technology. It’s the instant democratisation of virtual reality, made dirt cheap and readily available to literally hundreds of millions of people.