Now a prototype that’s being tested in Europe, the product was made out of a thoughtful, but at the same time a little disturbing idea, as it conjures up a rather dystopian scene where the parents ditch the nightly rituals of lying with their child and reading out from a book for a headset-powered virtual world.
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It’s created to give parents the ability to read bedtime stories to their children within the boundaries of a virtual reality environment. “The child will even hear their parent reciting the story and be able to interact with their parent as though they are in the same room”.
As the name implies, this is an app designed for virtual reality and for Samsung’s Gear VR headsets. With both sat on a magical bed, they go in search of “The most wonderful place to be”.
The children’s headsets feature playful designs decorated with three characters – Jen the Penguin, Dan the Dinosaur and Jo the Robot. “But longer working days and hectic schedules make this harder to do”, explains Samsung on its Bedtime VR Stories app page. However Samsung has decided that maybe bedtime stories could be taken to whole new levels and have since launched the Bedtime VR Stories app.
Samsung’s new Bedtime VR Stories uses a combination of VR and VOIP, with each story taking between 6-7 minutes, and requires a Gear VR and Samsung Galaxy smartphone for the parent, and a special cardboard viewer for the child.
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One of the most overlooked aspects of the emerging virtual reality space is its ability to bring people who are located many miles apart together in one virtual space. It’s still in development, with Samsung yet to launch Bedtime VR Stories.
