This week at the I/O conference, Google presented a new version of their Daydream VR platform.

In addition to the original Daydream that uses a smartphone for display and processing, there will be fully standalone wireless VR headsets. Google advertises their new ‘WorldSense’ technology will add positional tracking to these standalone headsets without any external sensors. The headsets themselves will be manufactured by other companies, with HTC (VIVE standalone) and Lenovo already on board.

While these headsets are clearly not intended for graphically intensive games, they might be an interesting option for smaller games and media consumption if priced correctly. Meanwhile, Oculus Research have announced their submission for SIGGRAPH – focal surface display. Current VR headsets simply project two images on a plane at a fixed perceived distance away from our eyes. While this is enough for the stereoscopic 3D effect, it does not properly simulate different focusing distances and thus nearby virtual objects appear somewhat unnatural.

Oculus’ focal surface display prototype tries to fix that by warping the image to appear at different optical distances from our eyes. While the image quality of the prototype is far from optimal, it shows the potential for much more immersive VR visuals using already existing optical technology, which can’t be anything but a good thing in the realm of Virtual Reality going forwards.