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Google Android Programming

Google Unveils ARCore, Its Answer To Apple's ARKit (fastcompany.com) 40

Posted by msmash from the competition-heating-up dept.
Google has taken the wraps off its answer to Apple's ARKit -- a new augmented reality development platform called "ARCore." In a blog post, the company said it's releasing a "preview" software development kit for ARCore to Android developers today. From a report: Google released its Tango AR platform in 2014, but AR experiences built on that platform could run only on a few phones sporting advanced sensors and cameras. With ARCore, Google says, developers can create AR apps and games that run on virtually any Android smartphone -- existing and forthcoming. "We've been developing the fundamental technologies that power mobile AR over the last three years with Tango, and ARCore is built on that work," says Android Engineering VP Dave Burke in today's blog post. Developers who have already developed on the Tango platform, Burke says, can use that experience to help them create on the ARCore platform. ARCore games and apps will use an Android phone's camera to determine the position and movement of the phone itself within a real-world environment. The camera will determine the location of horizontal surfaces on which to place digital objects. The camera will also measure the ambient light in a given space, so that digital objects will appear to reflect light in convincing ways.
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Google Unveils ARCore, Its Answer To Apple's ARKit More

Google Unveils ARCore, Its Answer To Apple's ARKit

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  • Does it matter? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Hognoxious ( 631665 ) on Tuesday August 29, 2017 @11:25AM (#55103877) Homepage Journal

    Does it matter? They'll probably discontinue it within a year.

  • Oh yah (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    OOOO. Look. Another extraneous feature to turn off.

    Let us not fix the search in our store. Lets us not fix our apps to be less shitty. Lets add more features!!! Fucking idiots.
    I really truly wish there was a way to truly damage these companies to make them stop.

  • AR is what I want because... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Tuesday August 29, 2017 @11:40AM (#55103979)

    a real life ad blocker would be awesome. As far as I'm concerned, advertisements are information pollution.

  • "Virtually any Android smartphone"... in time (Score:4, Interesting)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Tuesday August 29, 2017 @12:04PM (#55104133)

    From TFA:

    To start with, Burke says, ARCore will run on Google’s Pixel phones, and Samsung’s S8 running 7.0 Nougat and above. It’ll run on more phones, from more OEMs, in time.

    "In time" is a handy phrase that can mean whatever they want it to mean. For instance, it could mean "once everyone with a current Android phone has replace it with a new one".

  • Does google really have no shame if they immediately rush to copy Apple within weeks of their own announcement and release? They even changed the project name to further mimic it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Hadlock ( 143607 )

      They release Tango a while back, but only two phones support it due to needing two cameras and a specific distance sensor; this version is mostly the same but only needs a single camera (which most phones, including their flagship Pixel and the S8 have but one) and a more basic laser rangefinder. This opens up the same technology they already paid to have developed, to a much wider set of phones; no doubt they'll want to introduce this in to the daydream ecosystem at some point which they're also heavily in

    • The go-to product for AR before both of these releases was an open source project called ARToolkit... The plot thickens!

    • No they didn't copy apple.

      Developing a production grade slam system is a huge amount of work. Not only in raw FTEs, but you'd have a hard job getting one done in under a year regardless of the team size. Twice that of you needed to ramp up the team, because it's a very specialist job and in demand so practitioners are either mid PhD at one of the few institutions working VIO, or (if you want someone worth the experience to deliver a commercial project) already employed and well paid.

      Google have been working

      • Google was working on Tango for ages. That was a major undertaking. But in this case it appears they stripped out many of its features and renamed it to match Apple's in a "Us Too!" strategy.

  • The minute Samsung/LG/etc comes out with their own version, fragmentation will render this library useless.

  • How about virtual wallpaper? I'd like the inside of my home office to look like I'm actually in a café in Paris while I code. Sort of a first step toward a holodeck, I guess.

    Second step? Beautiful women in swimsuits sitting in the café.

    Third step? Don't bother. We'll keep ourselves busy with step two.

    • Third step could be a full suit that provides sensations. Something like racing and fighting games would be neat, and there's the porn aspect.

  • AR will be interesting the day it's used with something like Google glasses, Hololens or some type of contact lenses and you don't have to look at a screen. Or at most a very headset with cameras.

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