Samsung wants you to feel, not just see, VR with these headphones - CNET

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Virtual reality can make you think you're racing down a speedway in a zooming car. But if you can see the scene all around you, why can't you feel it as well, taking in the motion as you hug the tus?

That's what Entrim 4D headphones, unveiled this week at the South by Southwest tech, film and music festival in Austin, Texas, try to deliver. The prototype device is from Samsung's Creative Lab, a startup "incubator" that lets employees take time out from their full-time jobs to develop product ideas.

Unlike most headphones, the main purpose of the Entrim 4D is not to pump out sound (though it does that too). Instead, the marquee feature is that it sends an electrical signal to the nerve of your ear, which regulates balance and motion. That tricks your brain into thinking you're moving.

"Most VR demos, you're in a chair," Steve Jung, the 32-year-old head of the project, said in an interview Tuesday. His point is that motion usually isn't part of the VR experience.

If he can make it work, it could add a crucial element to VR, making an already immersive experience even more sensory. In fact, Entrim, is a shortening of "enter the immersive world," said Jung. Anything that can add to the experience is key, given Silicon Valley's recent obsession with the medium. Google, HTC and Facebook -- which Samsung partnered with for its Gear VR headset through Oculus, the social network's VR company -- all have their own efforts in the works.