Slashdot Mirror
Google Unveils ARCore, Its Answer To Apple's ARKit (fastcompany.com)
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.
Does it matter? They'll probably discontinue it within a year.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
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.
From TFS:
Google has taken the wraps off its answer to Apple's ARKit -- a new augmented reality development platform called "ARCore."
Emphasis mine.
They did explain their terms. Literally in the first line of the summary.
Yup, AR stands for augmented reality, and it's shaping up to be interesting. In the few months since ARKit was announced by Apple, developers have been putting out some really fascinating demos, some practical, some simply experimental. ARKit is due for its official release later this year with iOS 11, so these demos are giving us a notion of what sort of uses we may end up seeing for augmented reality in the real world.
For instance:
- Measuring real world objects without a tape measure
- Drawing without a pen
- Perusing menu options at a restaurant
- Becoming part of a music video
- Bringing fictional worlds to life
And these are just some of the early demos. There are demos for doing 3D sculpting, putting characters from existing video games in the real world, watching dance performances in your living room, and playing versions of everything from Pacman to Minecraft to a zombie game in the space around you. I originally thought this was all merely a gimmick, but now I'm starting to think that this technology will render a lot of single-use items we have in the real world obsolete, in much the same way that smartphones turned GPS devices, cell phones, and MP3 players into simple apps on our pocket computers.
a real life ad blocker would be awesome. As far as I'm concerned, advertisements are information pollution.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Oops, I meant to link to this measuring tape video, since I think it actually shows off the technology even better.
A few other videos I forgot to link before:
- Finding friends in a crowd using waypoints
- Trying out makeup live on yourself
- More portals to other worlds
- Laying out furniture (I believe IKEA has said they plan to use ARKit to allow people to virtually place IKEA's furniture in their homes so they can get a sense for how it'd look and feel)
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".
#DeleteChrome
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 on this for ages already
SJW n. One who posts facts.