The foldable cardboard VR kits Google gave away at I/O 2014 weren't just a one-off stunt. Today, in its developers blog, Google had some big announcements for the home-brewed virtual reality viewer.

First up, Google has grouped a handful of Cardboard-compatible apps into their own collection on the Play Store. The Cardboard app itself has also received an update, with the ability to discover cardboard apps on the Play Store, and launch them directly from the viewer.

Google has also introduced new Cardboard SDKs for Android and Unity in an effort to make developing for the cardboard box a little bit easier.

You might have noticed that, following I/O 2014, several companies (including Dodocase) started shipping Cardboard-inspired viewers. Google is embracing the accessible nature of Cardboard's form factor, and has released tool-specific specifications for anyone producing VR viewers, from mass production to one-offs.

Google is also planning to release a calibration tool to make sure your custom viewer works just as well as the original.

Finally, the blog entry teases that Google's working on "a few projects" with VR, and points readers to some job openings with the Cardboard/virtual reality team.

Source: Google Developers Blog