Samsung VR Headset Spotted; Tipped to Launch With Galaxy Note 4

After months of speculation, Samsung's virtual reality headset might finally have been spotted, according to a report that shows images of a headset.

A report by The Verge on Tuesday shows images of the modular VR headset that's codenamed Project Moonlight. The headset is essentially a box with lenses that is attached to your phone, which acts as the display. There appears to be a focus dial and a micro-USB connection to connect to the phone.

The headset is expected to launch alongside the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 at IFA 2014 in September, which makes sense, considering the Galaxy Note 3's display is being used in the Oculus Rift, according to a teardown by iFixit. The headset pictured in the leaked image appears to be a mix of Google Cardboard and Oculus Rift.

In July, screenshots of the Gear VR companion app were leaked and tipped a modular design.

Samsung's been rumoured to be working with Oculus on its own VR headset for a while, which previous reports had suggested will be launched at IFA 2014 this September.

After the meteoric success of the Oculus Rift Kickstarter, there has been a growing revival of interest in virtual reality. Earlier this year, Sony showed its VR technology, called Project Morpheus and there have also been a number of other Kickstarter projects for VR.

In March, Facebook acquired Oculus for $2 billion and at I/O, Google showed something it called Google Cardboard, an inexpensive cardboard cutout that can turn any phone into a VR display.

(Also see: Sony's Project Morpheus: Will 2014 be the year VR goes mainstream?)

While gaming is an obvious use for this technology, the various programs coming up for the Oculus Rift show that this could be used in a number of other ways - such as a virtual theatre experience, 3D tourism, and even educational uses; and unlike the Rift, which also requires a fairly powerful PC, this headset could easily be more of a "mass" proposition.