While Samsung’s Gear VR headset launched just a few weeks ago, so far experiences with the headset has been limited to playing games, accessing certain apps or watching videos that you either download or stream through a downloaded app.
But now, Samsung is hoping to begin opening up the Gear VR to the much wider world of the internet through its own VR-optimized web browser for the headset.
Called ‘Samsung Internet for Gear VR’, it’s essentially a VR web browser that you can use to surf the net and visit websites like YouTube without having to jump out and go to a dedicated app, making it one of the first official apps available that let’s you access the internet through a typical browser-like experience in a VR setting.
It’s a virtual world
Besides letting you access the internet in general (to visit sites like techradar.com), it also lets you import your browser bookmarks from your smartphone and easily access different browser tabs.
The Gear VR app also supports “both 360-degree and 3D video streaming, as well as any HTML5 video from the web,” according to Samsung, meaning you can watch a normal video or explore 360-degree and VR videos available on sites like YouTube without having to access a dedicated app.
The browser also supports voice recognition and an on-screen keyboard, which can already be found in other Gear VR apps, like Netflix.
There’s also “gaze mode”, which can also be found in other Gear VR apps, and lets you choose things by just staring at it rather than using the Gear’s side trackpad.
The Samsung Internet for Gear VR web browser app will be available in beta starting tomorrow, December 2 through the Oculus Store.
[“source-techradar”]
