At the 2018 Game Developer Conference this week uSens Inc, a pioneer in HCI and computer vision augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) announced that it was opening up a beta program to it’s upcoming Smartphone AR Engine, uSensAR.
Back at the start of the year at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), uSens revealed their uSensAR engine and how they planned to bring it to 2 billion Android devices. With the recent release of ARCore developers now have access to over 100 million devices but with uSensAR developers will be able to reach many more. As uSenseAR is a single camera AR engine that is optimized for low-ends camera, sensors and IMUs, it make it possible for almost all Android devices to experience the thrill of AR.
“The number of AR-capable Android smartphones is still quite small, with estimates putting it at 100M by the end of 2018,” said Anli He, uSens co-founder and CEO. “In order for the AR industry to thrive, it is essential that game developers have a larger target market to cater to – uSensAR is aiming to solve this problem by making every Android smartphone, an AR device. Charles joins us at an exciting time in our company’s development, where his imagination and understanding of the gaming industry will help us connect with the most creative and innovative content developers in the industry, starting with our beta program.”
Alongside the announcement of the beta program, Guitar Hero co-found Charles Huang has been named Board Advisor to help drive uSensAR adoption into the videogame industry. Thanks to almost two decades worth of experience in the industry, Huang also serves on the board of startups in the videogame, connected toy, music technoloy industries, and also advises several VC and PE funds.
“Since 1999, I have seen the potential of video gaming technology to immerse users in a new world, where they can be center stage,” said Huang. “AR is such an exciting technology because it furthers immersion, blending real and virtual worlds so users can experience the game, as opposed to having it presented to them. While other AR engines have focused on top-tier phones and hardware, uSensAR will bring in hundreds of millions of new customers to the AR market. Leading gaming, toy, and ecommerce brands have already initiated projects to harness the potential of AR and with the customer base growing from platforms like uSensAR, more investment will flow into the market. It’s an exciting time to be involved!”
USensAR is designed for mid and low-tired phones, with even better performance on the higher-end models. Thanks to a robust set of features including markerless tracking, low CPU and battery consumption, advanced plane detection, environmental understanding via SLAM technology, millimeter-level position accuracy and support for C++, Java and the Unity engine, uSensAR is capable of countless possibilities. Developers and content creators who are interesting in signing up for the beta program can do so via the uSensAR website.
VRFocus will make sure to bring you all the latest on uSensAR in the future, so stay tuned for more.