Skip to main content

VRidge streams VR from your desktop to Google Cardboard

Those who are on the verge of investing in an Oculus Rift headset but don’t have the confidence to get into it just yet may want to sit tight. Progress is being made on an application for Google Cardboard to stream VR from your PC to your phone. It’s called VRidge, is being developed by RiftCat, and while the company says it’s hoping to get an iOS version working soon, it’s currently limited to a beta on Android. But a lot of progress was made with the most recent update, when the company added support for SteamVR and OSVR (Razer’s open source VR project).

Despite being in beta, the potential is huge for those who don’t feel like investing in a high-end VR headset on top of the expenses for their phone and desktop. A conventional setup typically requires a desktop worth somewhere north of 1,500 dollars and either the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive. The first goes for 600 dollars, the second tops that at 800. Is your wallet hurting yet?

Recommended Videos

There’s a backside to this solution of course: It has to be streamed wirelessly, something that neither the Oculus Rift nor the HTC Vive supports. And there’s a good reason for that, since there’s a considerable delay to factor in. This simply hasn’t yet become a viable solution for commercial products. Even if we claim that mobile VR is untethered, it’s basically just solved by packing all of the mobile horsepower in front of the lenses to enable your virtual experience. Truly wireless solutions are being investigated by all major VR headset manufacturers, and the first one to achieve it will have significant leverage against its market rivals.

Then there’s the beta tag. Beta means a lot of things, and stability is usually not one of them. However, the company assures users that it’s now reached a level where it’s more likely to work than not. While problems like rendering glitches, blurry text, extra loading times, or lag are present, there’s confidence that the app now provides a relatively pleasant experience. You can head over to RiftCat’s blog post to see more details on how games like Euro Truck Simulator 2 and Elite: Dangerous work using VRidge. The developer discourages users from purchasing VR games just for VRidge.

But the progress on the VRidge app gives a lot of credence to the idea of a budget solution before we start seeing desktop specific budget VR hardware. As we pointed out earlier, most people don’t want to invest heavily in a headset when they’ve already got a decent mobile headset at home. It’s no surprise that there are problems with the app this early in development, especially when none of the larger heavy investors have presented a viable solution either.

Dan Isacsson
Being a gamer since the age of three, Dan took an interest in mobile gaming back in 2009. Since then he's been digging ever…
AMD’s RDNA 4 may surprise us in more ways than one
AMD RX 7800 XT and RX 7700 XT graphics cards.

Thanks to all the leaks, I thought I knew what to expect with AMD's upcoming RDNA 4. It turns out I may have been wrong on more than one account.

The latest leaks reveal that AMD's upcoming best graphics card may not be called the RX 8800 XT, as most leakers predicted, but will instead be referred to as the  RX 9070 XT. In addition, the first leaked benchmark of the GPU gives us a glimpse into the kind of performance we can expect, which could turn out to be a bit of a letdown.

Read more
This futuristic mechanical keyboard will set you back an eye-watering $1,600
Hands typing on The Icebreaker keyboard.

I've complained plenty about how some of the best gaming keyboards are too expensive, from the Razer Black Widow V4 75% to the Wooting 80HE, but nothing comes remotely close to The Icebreaker. Announced nearly a year ago by Serene Industries, The Icebreaker is unlike any keyboard I've ever seen -- and it's priced accordingly at $1,600. Plus shipping, of course.

What could justify such an extravagant price? Aluminum, it turns out. The keyboard is constructed of one single block of 6061 aluminum in what Serene Industries calls an "unorthodox wedge form." As if that wasn't enough metal, the keycaps are also made of aluminum, and Serene says they include "about 800" micro-perforations that allow the LED backlight of the keyboard to shine through.

Read more
Google one-ups Microsoft by making chats easier to transfer
Google Spaces in Google Chat on a MacBook.

In a recent blog post, Google announced that it is making it easier for admins to migrate from Microsoft Teams to Google Chat to reduce downtime. Admins can easily do this within the Google Chat migration menu and connect to opposing Microsoft accounts to transfer Teams data.

Google gave step-by-step instructions for admins on how to transfer the messages. Admins need to connect to their Microsoft account and upload a CSV of the Teams from where they transfer the messages. From there, it requires just entering a starting date for messages to be migrated from Teams and clicking Star migration. Once it's complete, it'll make the migrated space, messages, and conversation data available to Google Workspace users.

Read more