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Google is building a new augmented reality device and operating system

arstechnica.com

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Re: Google is building a new augmented reality device and operating system

#61

Post by egypturnash »

bsanr2 wrote: post #23
Andrex wrote: post #14

Whenever I transpose my comments to HN, I usually do some light editing. The following comment is unedited because this headline kinda fired me up. Considering how Google’s treated AR and VR in the last 10 years, hyping people up then quietly pulling back support and finally cancellation after just 2-3 years, I don’t see this going well. They had a toehold 6-10 years ago which they could have easily kept iterating on…

Tango did, 7 years ago, everything ARKit does today. All they had to do was loss-lead on a showstopper of a phone with one killer app. They basically stripped down Tango to create ARCore, and lost the SLAM space to Apple and Niantic. No one realizes it yet, but this is about as bad as Microsoft losing the web to Google.

Isn't Niantic something from Google?

checks https://nianticlabs.com/en/about/

Keyhole made what got renamed Google Earth when Google ate them, ten years later the core of that team started Niantic Labs inside Google, made Ingress, a few years later Niantic left Google (with funding from Google, Nintendo, and Pokemon) and made Pokemon Go. Niantic has acquihired a few companies working in related spaces.

Re: Google is building a new augmented reality device and operating system

#62

Post by moksly »

dmitriid wrote: post #29
moksly wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those glasses have been used in elderly care here in Denmark for quite a while. Nurses who treat wounds use a set of glasses to document the process so they don’t have to switch in and out of gloves a million times. I wouldn’t too much about the big American advertisement companies getting a lead on it, considering how little they are trusted outside the US in anything related to enterprise. Those glasses I mentioned…

> I wouldn’t too much about the big American advertisement companies getting a lead on it, considering how little they are trusted outside the US Given how much Apple is leaning on healthcare, they might actually be able to break into this market if they ever release their own glasses.

Are they breaking into healthcare in Europe?

Re: Google is building a new augmented reality device and operating system

#63

Post by valine »

lancesells wrote: post #58
jlarocco wrote: post #40

Augmented reality from an advertiser? No thanks. Sounds like something straight out of a dystpoian sci-fi story.

I totally agree but VR from an advertiser that's about as moral as a cigarette company seems to be doing ok and a market leader.

Facebook didn't make oculus, they bought it. So far their main contributions have been to require a Facebook account, and halt development on the next generation flagship PC headset in favor of budget android based VR.

IMO racing to the bottom on price when the products still have FOV issues and low frame rates is a huge misstep. It doesn't matter how compelling Facebook's metaverse platform is if the hardware sucks.

Re: Google is building a new augmented reality device and operating system

#64

Post by abstrakraft »

Andrex wrote: post #14

Whenever I transpose my comments to HN, I usually do some light editing. The following comment is unedited because this headline kinda fired me up. Considering how Google’s treated AR and VR in the last 10 years, hyping people up then quietly pulling back support and finally cancellation after just 2-3 years, I don’t see this going well. They had a toehold 6-10 years ago which they could have easily kept iterating on…

Google projects are like Rule 34: if you can think of it, someone at Google is working on it.

Re: Google is building a new augmented reality device and operating system

#65

Post by a4isms »

zucked wrote: post #60
dwighttk wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glass was not AR. It was a tiny screen you had to shift your focus to. I should change my usernames to glasswasnotar because I feel like I am always saying that when people talk about glass and ar

How is a tiny screen overlaid in an accessible field of vision, not totally obscuring your perception of reality, NOT "augmenting reality"? I agree it barely meets the threshold, but I don't write it off as not AR full stop.

AR is colloquially understood to mean overlaying your field of vision with graphics that interact with reality in your field of vision.

By way of a real-world example, military pilots have heads-up displays that overlay IDs of aircraft on the aircraft as they appear to the pilot. That's AR.

My volvo has a heads-up display that show me my speed, the current speed limit, warnings, lane guidance... But none of that points to anything in my field of vision. Not AR.

Mercedes also have heads-up displays, and while I don't own one, I saw a demonstration where when you are using adaptive cruise control, it highlights the car it is following. That's AR.

The above is my lay understanding. If you buy this distinction between "heads up display" as a general term, and "AR" as a specific use of a heads up display, then Glass was not AR. It was just a heads-up display.

Re: Google is building a new augmented reality device and operating system

#66

Post by gardaani »

It seems that Google is hiring engineers so that they will be ready when Apple launches the AR/VR device.

Within one year after the Apple launch, Google has copied and launched their own version. It won't run as smoothly, but it's cheaper. So, anyone who can't afford to buy the Apple product will buy the Google product.

And this is how the duopoly will live forever..

Re: Google is building a new augmented reality device and operating system

#67

Post by dwighttk »

zucked wrote: post #60
dwighttk wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glass was not AR. It was a tiny screen you had to shift your focus to. I should change my usernames to glasswasnotar because I feel like I am always saying that when people talk about glass and ar

How is a tiny screen overlaid in an accessible field of vision, not totally obscuring your perception of reality, NOT "augmenting reality"? I agree it barely meets the threshold, but I don't write it off as not AR full stop.

Glass had no overlay.

You don’t see reality and the screen at the same time. It is reality or the screen. (Just like a phone that isn’t running an AR app)

Looking at the screen does obscure your perception of reality because your eye has to change focus. The little prism was transparent but it may as well have been translucent because you couldn’t focus on the screen and the world at the same time.

Re: Google is building a new augmented reality device and operating system

#68

Post by harpersealtako »

gjvc wrote: post #35
jeabays wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's so important for me to choose between 16 different brands of the same thing, all owned by two massive monopoly megacorporations. Get bent.

Washing powder is the canonical example of this.

If an overabundance of detergent brands are the "canonical example" of the future-present dystopia, I think we're gonna be fine.

Re: Google is building a new augmented reality device and operating system

#69

Post by n8cpdx »

pjmlp wrote: post #19
Andrex wrote: post #14

Whenever I transpose my comments to HN, I usually do some light editing. The following comment is unedited because this headline kinda fired me up. Considering how Google’s treated AR and VR in the last 10 years, hyping people up then quietly pulling back support and finally cancellation after just 2-3 years, I don’t see this going well. They had a toehold 6-10 years ago which they could have easily kept iterating on…

Add SceneForm to it, announced with fanfare at IO and slowly forgotten.

Not just forgotten, deprecated with no notice after my team built our product with a dependency on it.

You might say, “why would you be so stupid to build your AR product on top of Google’s primary, supported, promoted, first-class way of doing AR?” And I would say Apple hasn’t fucked me over like this. In fact, Apple has continued investing in their AR offering and now makes Google’s ARCore and SceneForm look like a fucking joke.

Google Maps AR - oh yeah, that’s an API feature of ARKit now. Want to have high precision location with Google ARCore? Go fuck yourself. (I’m directly quoting Google here, don’t @ me for the language; when you’re getting gaped by Google day after day, I guess some blue language slips in)

Re: Google is building a new augmented reality device and operating system

#70

Post by emptyfile »

bsedlm wrote: post #26
Andrex wrote: post #14

Whenever I transpose my comments to HN, I usually do some light editing. The following comment is unedited because this headline kinda fired me up. Considering how Google’s treated AR and VR in the last 10 years, hyping people up then quietly pulling back support and finally cancellation after just 2-3 years, I don’t see this going well. They had a toehold 6-10 years ago which they could have easily kept iterating on…

wasn't Microsoft also in this race with the HoloLens?

What Microsoft did with Hololens is a great example of what Google should've done.

But that actually requires management with a vision.

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