LG Shows Off VR Kit, Rolling Robot That Will Amuse Your Cat

BARCELONA—Finally, we have discovered a existent use for home robots. They volition play with your cat.

MWC Bug Art LG's Rolling Bot, announced hither at Mobile Earth Congress today, has a built-in light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation pointer. Why practice you want a light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation pointer on a robot? Anyone with a cat knows.

The Rolling Bot is a sphere near the size of a volleyball. Information technology has an 8-megapixel camera and Wi-Fi. Using a companion app on the LG G5—or whatever Android smartphone, but virtually easily the LG G5—you can use the robot for home monitoring, remote recording, or to shoot a petty ruby-red low-cal beyond your floor and watch your cat insanely chase information technology.

LG Rolling Bot

The robot also has a microphone and speaker, and so yous can roll information technology effectually to talk to family members, or spook your cat into thinking that somehow you are trapped within a volleyball-sized sphere. The robot rolls like BB-eight, so the camera stays upright.

That's pretty much all I know from LG'south presentation. Clearly, I need to get more than time with this robot, and perchance bring animals.

LG hasn't appear the toll of the Rolling Bot, or whether information technology can be filled with catnip.

LG'due south VR Headset and 360 Camera
I can tell VR is going to be a large theme of this show. Alcatel has already announced its VR headset, and Samsung is setting up an entire VR theater exterior Plaza Catalunya in central Barcelona.

LG joins the fray with a better VR headset than it had last year, and a new 360 camera.

The LG 360 VR connects to the G5—and only the G5—with a USB-C cablevision. It has adaptable lenses, so fifty-fifty though you can't article of clothing it with glasses, I could adjust information technology so I could see pretty well. It'll play both 360-degree VR content and standard 2D movies; LG said it could be used "to watch your most personal movies" on an airplane, although I don't propose that.

LG VR Headset

The goggles are pretty slim and noticeably lighter than Samsung's Gear VR; they don't crave a strap over the top of your head. You can't move around, only you tin swivel your caput. You use your phone equally a bear upon-screen control, or use OK and Back buttons on the goggles themselves. I watched a few VR movie scenes, and they were nigh the aforementioned quality as the Gear VR—decent, but not nearly as immersive as HTC Vive.

LG understands that VR requires content, so it's also at present pitching the LG 360 Cam—in one case once again, probably as an accessory to the G5 rather than every bit a photographer's VR camera. The LG 360 Cam has ii 13-megapixel lenses, which combine to make a 16-megapixel paradigm. It will also record 2K video with 5.1 environment audio using three mics, although information technology doesn't take an external mic input.

The camera has 4GB of memory plus a MicroSD card slot, and it pairs with the G5—or whatever Android phone—to upload videos to YouTube or Google Street View, or view them on a VR headset.

No pricing yet, just LG said both might be bundled with G5 phones, so they'll probably be pretty affordable—or even seen as free.

This article originally appeared on PCMag.com.