Google reportedly working on an Android-powered virtual reality platform

Virtual reality seems to be the new craze in the tech world, and it’s been growing in popularity ever since Oculus created its Rift headset. Samsung has offered up two different variants of its Gear VR headset, and we just saw HTC’s new Vive headset, created in partnership with Valve. Even Google made its way into the space with the launch of its Cardboard platform last year. But according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal, Google is developing a platform to reach more users than Cardboard ever could.

According to “sources familiar with the matter”, Google has assembled a group of engineers to bring Android to the virtual reality world. The report states:

Those people said Google has “tens of engineers” and other staff working on the project. Google plans to freely distribute the new operating system, they said, mimicking a strategy that has made Android by far the most popular operating system for smartphones, powering more than one billion phones.

At MWC 2015, Google’s Sundar Pichai commented on the virtual reality space, explaining that he thinks VR has many use cases in our world today. Pichai didn’t comment on Google progressing into the VR field, especially with Android. But still, considering Pichai’s enthusiasm on the topic, a more advanced move to the virtual reality world might make sense for the company. Just over the past few years, Google has brought its OS down different avenues like Android Auto, Android TV and even Android Wear.

But for now, Android VR is just a rumor, so we’ll need to wait and see what the company presents in the future.