While many of us might recognize Brian May as the legendary guitarist of the band Queen, what some of you guys might not know is that he is also an astrophysicist, and by looking at his education background, he is one smart dude. This is why it is not surprising to see that May has decided to hop on board the virtual reality bandwagon with a headset of his own.Dubbed the Owl VR, this virtual reality is not so much a headset but more of a viewer akin to the Google Cardboard. Users slot their smartphone in the front and peer at it through a pair of optical lenses at the other end. However as you can see, this design is very different from other headsets and viewers that we’ve seen so far.
The reason for this is because with the openness of the design, users will be able to reach the controls of their smartphone easily. According to May, “The reason I created the Owl was to recreate Victorian stereoscopy. People get fatigued very quickly with [other] VR devices, they get frustrated that they can’t reach their phone to get to their controls and they get sweaty with the eyepieces so I quickly realised that, in some ways, this was a better way of viewing virtual reality.”
He also adds that one of the added benefits is that the Owl VR will work with pretty much any smartphone, versus other headsets like the Samsung Gear VR or the LG 360 VR which works only with Samsung and LG handsets respectively. The Owl VR will be priced at £25 and will be available mid-June from the London Stereoscopic Company.
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