Cardboard Newspapers


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Google just released a new VR viewer called Cardboard and last weekend everyone with a New York Times subscription got one on their doorsteps. While the technology is clever- a cardboard viewer to watch a phone app through, the choice of content for their first video is troubling. Called The Displaced, it is a video about three children uprooted by war in South Sudan, Ukraine and a Syrian refugee settlement camp. The children profiled have no home, little family and certainly no smartphone in which to view their experiences in VR. While well done as a film, this juxtaposition between the have and have nots will hopefully make viewers consider the luxury of the way they are receiving the story.