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Mattel's new View-Master offers an easy-to-use and affordable platform that will enable users to take engaging field trips where they can explore famous places, landmarks, nature, planets and more in 360 degree 'photospheres'. By pairing the View-Master's 'experience reel' and app with an Android smartphone, kids will immediately experience an imaginative and interactive learning environment. "The View-Master was first introduced at the 1939 World's Fair in New York, giving consumers access to spectacular 3D worlds by simply selecting a reel and looking through a device," said Doug Wadleigh, SVP and Global Brand General Manager, Toy Box at Mattel. "By working with Google's Cardboard platform, we are now able to take that experience even further bringing the discovery and immersive viewing experience of the View-Master to the digital age. Combining technology and innovation with this classic toy gives kids an enhanced experience allowing for play opportunities not yet imagined through new, digitally curated content." "We developed Google Cardboard as an open platform to inspire companies like Mattel to rethink how to deliver new user experiences through technology," said Mike Jazayeri, Product Director for Google Cardboard. "Many of us on the Google Cardboard team grew up playing with View-Master, so we were excited to collaborate with Mattel and to see the viewer evolve and work with Google Cardboard." Available fall 2015, consumers can purchase the View-Master viewer and a sample experience reel for SRP $29.99. The sample reel (when paired with app and smartphone) provides a glimpse of the full View-Master experience, including a gallery of classic View-Master images, a journey into space with a tour inside a space shuttle, and a chance to explore a unique destination in 360 degrees. Additional experience reel packs will be sold separately at retail for SRP $14.99, and each pack will feature four themed experience reels — with themes such as nature, adventure destinations and science — and each experience reel will be loaded with multiple areas to explore. To continue to expand offerings on the View-Master platform Mattel will begin to curate and create new experience reels with other Google Cardboard developers to offer users even more unique content to enjoy. | ||||||||
| onesmallstep | Cool! View-Master enters the 21st Century  | |||||||
| Cozmosis22 | Some of the first widespread commercially available images of a rocket launch from Cape Canaveral were produced by Sawyer's Inc. of Portland, Oregon in 1958. Long before the days of digital photography and even before the days of mass produced lithographs; this view-master reel was filmed on Sept. 26, 1958, about a week before the official birth of NASA on Oct. 1 of that year. This round 7-image (14-frames) 3-D reel of "full-color Kodachromes" is commonly available these days. Unfortunately its nice original paper information sleeve seldom survives the decades and is usually hard to find. It states that "View-master cameras were sent to Cape Canaveral to record the actual launching of one of these rockets, the SLV-3." Notice that it goes on to state that these are "Official U.S. Air Force photographs." Apparently they had an USAF photographer "C. Rogers" use their Sawyer's 3-D cameras?  | |||||||
| Rocketman! | Befitting Independence Day, my latest blog post shares a vintage View-Master reel featuring a famous blue dog rocketing into the night sky powered by fireworks. | |||||||
| micropooz | quote:Here are the space related reels I had as a kid in the '60's and '70's.  | |||||||
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