The second Android N preview hints at VR coming soon

[MUSIC] What's going on, Brian Tong here with everything Google that we can pack inside of a show. Google released the latest Android developer previous to last week and we've seen new tweets of the UI, support for vulcan's API for high performance graphics and more but are tech team was able to dig deeper And found that you can register an app as a VR listener or a VR helper that will allow specific apps to run in a virtual reality mode. Concrete evidence is still hard to come by and the hints are still pretty vague, but the information reported on Google working for their own Android VR platform a couple of months ago. We've also hear rumors that Google is doing their own smartphone based VR headset Like the Gear VR, as well as the Google-branded, stand alone headset. Now, Cardboard was really just an entry point for them, and there is no doubt that Google wants to be a significant player in this VR space. Launcher shortcuts were also another part of the android and developer preview. And website www.Phandroid.com was able to treat a working demo of the feature that shows of a very ios like feature. Now in the demo you can see that swiping down on something like the weather app shows an extended weather forecast and tapping on part of that drop down will take you to the specific part of the app. I know some of you are thinking 3D touch. Well Google's launcher shortcuts allow you to perform actions quicker with specific actions related to the app. Kind of like this thing we've seen called, you guessed it, 3D touch. But we knew this was coming to other platforms like Android. Also, some of those more things in the new Android Dev preview include tweaks, like folders. That still appear as a circular icon, but now show the first four apps in that folder. There's also quick access to a calculator in the notifications pull down. An updated camera app is here with slightly tweaked interface, and something as simple as a new icon on the app switcher screen. But the biggest update you all care about, Unicode 9 support for emojis and skin tone variations. Here's What they all look like. And they've even taken some of the generic, blob looking emogis, and made them actually look more like people. Alright, new content is coming to Google's Play. Music and podcasts are now available, but only in the US and Canada, for now. It might take a couple days to roll out to you and it seems a little late to the party. Since really, Most people have already found their podcast app of choice but it's still a nice addition. I'm also a huge fan of 360 video and one of my favorite gadgets right now is the pocket friendly Ricoh Theta S 360 camera. The platform is getting a huge push After Google recently announced support for 360 degree live streaming with spatial audio support, and it's coming to YouTube. This is just going to be amazing for experiences like concerts, or live events that really work well with this, and I can't wait to see how this takes off. And finally the LG G5, reviews dropped last week while I was gone, and the general consensus was that it's still a great Android phone. And it's modular design add some new and fun functionality but this feature isn't compelling enough to make it he top phone to get. So our own CNET crew that had no experience with LG G5 going to take a crack at trying out this modular design. So check this out, here's a little clip. [INAUDIBLE] okay. I can't see anything Wait, can I look down now? I can open my eyes now? Okay so wait, what's the point of this first? It's like a puzzle. I swear I'm not this technically stupid, I. Come on. Wait, wasn't it just nearly really hard. [MUSIC] Yeah. [MUSIC] People took longer than that? Cuz he's freaking Korean, it's a Korean phone. That's right you know you can trust someone who takes over a minute to Put a phone accessory together. All right let's gonna do for this week, you can email us at googlicious@cnet.com [UNKNOWN] Brian Tong, thank you so much for watching, we'll catch all next time for some more of that Googlicious. [MUSIC] Googlicious. [BLANK_AUDIO]