Category: google tango

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Google Focuses on ARCore, Announces Death of Tango

Little has been heard of Google’s augmented reality (AR) platform Tango for quite a few months, and now the final death note has been issued for the technology this week. The tech giant will cease support of Tango in March 2018, focusing its efforts on ARCore instead.

ARCore

In a Tweet yesterday, Goolge announced: “We’re turning down support for Tango on March 1, 2018. Thank you to our incredible community of developers who made such progress with Tango over the last three years. We look forward to continuing the journey with you on ARCore.”

Project Tango first surfaced way back in 2014, with the technology requiring expensive hardware including a dedicated depth-sensing IR camera and motion-tracking sensors to be built into devices alongside their usual cameras. It was because of this, the lack software beyond some tech demos, plus only two compatible devices – the Lenovo Phab 2 Pro and the Asus ZenFone AR – that help facilitate Tango’s demise.

Also helping put that final nail in the coffin was Apple’s ARKit, which was made available to developers in early summer then came to consumer devices in September with the release of iOS 11. Tango’s technology wasn’t entirely wasted however as Google turned its attention to a far more consumer friendly AR project called ARCore.

Announced in August, ARCore is very similar to ARKit, simply using a smartphones on board camera to fuse the digital and real worlds. At present ARCore is still someway behind ARKit, with the software still in the hands of developers at present, while the latter is seeing all sorts of apps being created: from training an AR Dragon or playing Hologrid: Monster Battle, to AR navigation and Sketchfab adding support.

Google’s also begun rolling out a Developer Preview 2 for ARCore in a recent blog posting, noting that: “If you’re a developer interested in AR, now’s the time to start experimenting. In the coming months, we’ll launch ARCore v1.0, with support for over 100 million devices.”

The first implementation of ARCore has been on Google’s Pixel with AR Stickers using the camera. As ARCore continues development into 2018 VRFocus will keep you updated with the latest announcements.

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Google Releases ARCore for Android, The Company’s Answer to Apple ARKit

In an answer to Apple’s recently released ARKit, a developer tool used for making augmented reality apps and games that run on newer iPad and iPhones, Google today released a preview of a new Android-compatible software development kit (SDK) called ARCore.

Google prides itself on its stewardship of Android, the largest mobile platform in the world with over 80 percent of the mobile market share in 2016, according to research and advisory firm Gartner. Drawing from their work developing Tango, the company’s older AR platform that works with only two publicly available devices—Lenovo Phab 2 Pro and Asus Zenfone—Google is opening up their new ARCore SDK to run on “millions of devices,” initially supporting both the Pixel line and Samsung S8 line, running 7.0 Nougat and above.

Google is currently working with Samsung, Huawei, LG, ASUS and unnamed others, saying they’ll be targeting “100 million devices at the end of the preview.” The company hasn’t said specifically when the end of preview access will occur however.

The company outlines the ARCore’s three main abilities:

  • Motion tracking: Using the phone’s camera to observe feature points in the room and IMU sensor data, ARCore determines both the position and orientation (pose) of the phone as it moves. Virtual objects remain accurately placed.
  • Environmental understanding: It’s common for AR objects to be placed on a floor or a table. ARCore can detect horizontal surfaces using the same feature points it uses for motion tracking.
  • Light estimation: ARCore observes the ambient light in the environment and makes it possible for developers to light virtual objects in ways that match their surroundings, making their appearance even more realistic.

Including support for projects created in Java/OpenGL, Unity and Unreal Engine, Google is also releasing prototype AR web browsers, which allow developers to create AR-enhanced websites that can run on both Android’s ARCore and Apple’s iOS/ARKit.

Google calls ARCore their “next step in bringing AR to everyone,” but says more information will be coming out later this year.

ARCore, saddled with what Google’s learned from creating Tango’s recently teased Visual Positioning Service (VPS), the inside-out tracking system which hooks into Google Maps, could mean some wild things for current and future Android devices. We’ll be keeping our eyes out for all things Google, so check back for more updates on what could become one of the world’s largest AR platforms in short order.

In the meantime, check out some of these cool projects created with ARCore.

The post Google Releases ARCore for Android, The Company’s Answer to Apple ARKit appeared first on Road to VR.

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Gamescom 2017: Vorschau auf die Spielemesse in Köln

Morgen am 22. August 2017 öffnet die Gamescom 2017 für Fachebsucher und Medienvertreter ihre Tore. Von Mittwoch bis Samstag können sich dann alle Besucher auf der Spielemesse in Köln vergnügen. Dieses Jahr steht neben anderen Themen auch wieder Virtual Reality im Mittelpunkt. Wir schauen uns an, was wir von der Spielemesse erwarten, bevor wir morgen vor Ort nach Highlights und Eindrücken fahnden.

Gamescom 2017: Die Messe wächst

Eins steht jetzt schon fest: Die Messe wächst. Mehr als 900 Aussteller aus über 50 Ländern werden rund 200.000 Quadratmeter Fläche bespielen. Der Veranstalter rechnet mit rund 350.000 Besuchern. Ein wichtiger Trend dieses Jahr soll erneut Virtual Reality sein. Zwar sollen viele Aussteller lediglich Spiele zeigen, die schon auf der E3 zu sehen waren. Jedoch haben Spieler erstmals die Gelegenheit, in Europa selbst Hand an viele Titel legen zu können. Von den VR-Nerds gehen gleich drei Jäger auf die Pirsch, um die interessantesten Neuigkeiten auf der Gamescom 2017 aufzuspüren.

Gamescom 2017 VR

Platzhirsch HTC und Neueinsteiger Microsoft

Die soll es beispielsweise vom HTC-Vive-Team geben, das in Köln zusammen mit AMD „aufregenden neuen Content“ zeigen will. Mit der heutigen Bekanntgabe der Preissenkung hat HTC schon mal kurz vor der Eröffnung der Messe ein Signal gesetzt.

Spannend dürfte es sein, was Microsoft im Gepäck hat. Mit der Verfügbarkeit der Windows 10 Mixed-Reality-Brillen von Acer und HP für Entwickler könnten auch einige VR-Titel zu bestaunen sein. Sicher ist nur, dass Microsoft die Xbox One X dabei hat, die sich seit heute vorbestellen lässt. Die muss allerdings mit VR noch warten, denn Microsoft setzt vorerst ganz auf Windows 10.

Besser wird es naturgemäß bei Sony mit ihrer PSVR aussehen, hier steht VR auf jeden Fall auf dem Speiseplan. Neue Ankündigungen soll es allerdings in Köln nicht geben, die dürfte sich Sony für seine Pressekonferenz am 30. Oktober in Paris aufheben.

VR-Hardware vom Handschuh bis zur Weste

Einen Besuch auf der Messe sollte der Stand von bHaptics wert sein: Das koreanische Start-up bietet mit seinem TactSuit-Set eine Feedback-Lösung aus Weste, Maske und Manschetten an. 550 US-Dollar sind zwar kein Pappenstil für die TactSuit, allerdings sorgen satte 87 Vibrationsmotoren für fein abgestufte Rückmeldungen.

Haitisches Feedback gibt es auch bei Gloveone, die Handschuhe entwickelt haben, mit denen man in der virtuellen Realität Objekte realistischer greifen können soll. Während das Tracking der Handschuhe inzwischen überzeugen soll, war die Vibration als Simulation von Druck nicht so gelungen. Ob die Entwickler das System inzwischen verbessern konnten, sollte man auf der Gamescom ausprobieren können.

Monowheels, episches Adventure und RPG für ARKit und Tango

Auf der Gamescom 2017 findet man beispielsweise auch die IMGNation Studios. Der Entwickler arbeitet an einer VR-Umsetzung des Smartphone-Klassikers Angry Birds. Auf der Messe will das Studio allerdings den futuristischen Action-Racer Monowheels VR zeigen, der für alle Plattformen erhältlich sein soll. Der erste Trailer macht schon mal den Mund wässrig. Das könnte einem auch beim zweiten Titel passieren, den die Entwickler zeigen wollen: den Cow Milking Simulator. Auch der wartet noch auf seine Veröffentlichung.

Die Schweizer Entwickler von Sycoforge zeigen ihr VR-Fantasy-Adventure Arafinn: Return to Nangrin in Köln. Das Spiel zeugt von Schweizer Gründlichkeit und ist bereits seit acht Jahren in Entwicklung. Kein Wunder, denn Arafinn wird ein episches Unterfangen: 2600 Städte und Dörfer warten auf den Spieler in der mystischen Welt.

Zenko Games nutzt die Gamescom 2017, um sein AR-Rollenspiel Diamonst erneut zu präsentieren. Das soll für iOS 11 mit ARKit, für Google Tango und die Microsoft HoloLens kommen. Kurz vor der Messe haben die Entwickler einen neuen Trailer veröffentlicht. Im September will man dann eine Kickstarter-Kampagne auf den Weg bringen und erhofft sich zusätzliche Einnahmen durch den Verkauf von Kuscheltieren.

Weitere Informationen wie Ticketpreise und -verfügbarkeit findest du auf der Webseite zur Gamescom 2017




Der Beitrag Gamescom 2017: Vorschau auf die Spielemesse in Köln zuerst gesehen auf VR∙Nerds. VR·Nerds am Werk!

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World of Tanks Rolls Into Reality With Google Tango and Hololens

We began today on VRFocus with a Life In 360° focused on historical miltiary aircraft now we get our head out of the clouds and back down to earth for some ground-based machines of war.

We’ve reported several times on the efforts of World of Tanks developer Wargaming who have previously experimented with 360 degree video, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) in tandem with various videogames in its World of… series. This has usually been courtesy of Wargaming’s ‘Special Projects Division’ which has taken on a number of partnerships with institutions such as museums, as Wargaming seek to not only be a gaming platform but use that to help educate on the realities behind their title.

World of Tanks screenshot 05One of the museum partners is the Tank Museum at Bovington, found in the in the South West England county of Dorset. As part of the recent Tankfest 2017 event the Special Projects Division revealed a brand new experience featuring World of Tanks’ ultra-rare model the German-made Sturmtiger or ‘Assault Tiger’, part of the series of assault vehicles built on the design platform of the devastating Tiger I tank. Wargaming’s team, in collaboration with Gravity Jack, this time utilised support for both Microsoft’s Hololens head-mounted display (HMD) and Google’s Tango platform. Having the Sturmtiger roll straight into the museum before showcasing its movement, firing and gives both an ‘exploded’ and cross section view of what makes up the tank.

You can see a video of what visitors to Tankfest could enjoy below. VRFocus will bring you more updates on the latest uses of MR and the the Hololens and Tango platforms as we get it.

 

 

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Google Tango’s Engineering Director on AR Capabilities Enabled by Depth Sensors

Johnny-LeeAugmented Reality has played a huge role at the developer conferences for Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, and Google, which is a great sign that the industry is moving towards spatially-aware computing. Microsoft is the only company to start with head-mounted AR with the HoloLens while the other three companies are starting with phone-based AR. They are using machine learning with the phone camera to do six degree-of-freedom tracking, but Google’s Project Tango is the only phone solution that’s starting with a depth-sensor camera. This allows the Tango to do more sophisticated depth-sensor compositing and area learning where virtual objects can be placed within a spatial memory context that is persistent across sessions. They also have a sophisticated virtual positional system (VPS) that will help customers locate products within a store, which is going through early testing with Lowes.

I had a chance to talk with Tango Engineering Director Johnny Lee at Google I/O about the unique capabilities of the Tango phones including tracking, depth-sensing, and area learning. We cover the underlying technology in the phone, world locking & latency comparisons to HoloLens, virtual positioning system, privacy, future features of occlusions, object segmentation, & mapping drift tolerance, and the future of spatially-aware computing. I also compare and contrast the recent AR announcements from Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook in my wrap-up.

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The Asus ZenPhone AR coming out in July will also be one of the first Tango & Daydream-enabled phones.

A video of one of the Tango Demos at Google I/O

Demo video of Tango’s Virtual Positioning System

Video of “Into the Wild” 10,000 square foot Tango AR installation at the Marina Bay Sands Art & Science Museum

Here’s a Twitter thread discussing the different AR SDKs from the major tech companies

Here’s the What’s New on Tango presentation from Google I/O 2017

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The post Google Tango’s Engineering Director on AR Capabilities Enabled by Depth Sensors appeared first on Road to VR.

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Bringing Fun & Whimsey Into Your Home with ‘Woorld’, Winner of Google Play’s ‘Best AR Experience’

robin-hunicke-2017Funomena’s Woorld won the ‘Best AR Experience’ category at the recent 2017 Google Play awards. In the game you scan your room with a Google Tango-enabled phone, and then you’re encouraged to decorate your space with extremely cute art and characters designed by Katamari’s Keita Takahashi. Part of the gameplay in Woorld is to figure out how to combine different objects together in order to unlock new objects and portions of the story in your space.

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Funomena had to innovate on a lot of augmented reality user interaction paradigms and spatial gameplay in designing this game. I had a chance to catch up with Funomena co-founder and CEO Robin Hunicke at Google I/O to talk about her game design process, as well as her deeper intention of bringing sacredness, mindfulness, calmness, worship, spirituality, love, empathy, and kindness into your environment through augmented reality technology. She takes a lot of inspiration from Jodorowsky’s The Technopriests as well as the sci-fi novel Lady of Mazes by Karl Schroeder.

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Exec. Producer of Indie Hit 'Journey' is Developing a Unique Title for Oculus Touch

Hunicke also sees that there’s a split that’s emerging between the commercial VR and the indie VR scene with the character of content that’s being funded, and she talks the importance of supporting indie game creators.

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The post Bringing Fun & Whimsey Into Your Home with ‘Woorld’, Winner of Google Play’s ‘Best AR Experience’ appeared first on Road to VR.

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Tippett Studio Releases HoloGrid: Monster Battle for Google Tango

The Star Wars-inspired multiplayer title HoloGrid: Monster Battle – an augmented reality (AR) title that held a successful Kickstarter last year then arrived in virtual reality (VR) form for Samsung Gear VR this April – created by Tippett Studio will now be made available to owners of Tango-enabled smartphones.

Inspired by the holo-chess scene in the original Star Wars and developed in partnership with the very personal responsible for the visual effects of that scene, Phil Tippet and his production studio Tippett Studio, HoloGrid: Monster Battle is a hybrid of board game, collectible card game and videogame. Featuring monsters designed by Phil Tippet, the gameplay of the title resembles other videogame/board game hybrids such as Blizzard’s Hearthstone

The augmented reality (AR) version of the title uses the technologies provided by the Tango platform, such as motion tracking, depth perception and area learning. By utilising those technologies, HoloGrid: Monster Battle can accurately scan the environment and place the game board in a way that looks like it is really there.

HoloGrid Monster Battle screenshot 1

The CEO of developer HappyGiant will be discussing HoloGrid: Monster Battle and AR and VR technologies with attendees at Augmented World Expo (AWE) 2017 this week as part of a session titled ‘Augmented Reality and the Future of Board Games’.

Available to play as single-player or with two-player multiplayer, either locally or with players from around the world. HoloGrid: Monster Battle is available from the Google Play Store for Tango-enabled devices such as the ASUS Zenfone AR or Lenovo Phab 2 for $4.99 (USD). The Gear VR version is currently available at a discounted price of $2.99.

VRFocus will bring you further news on HoloGrid: Monster Battle and other AR titles as it becomes available.

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AR, VR, MR, RR, XR: A Glossary to the Acronyms of the Future

Virtual reality (VR) began its climb back into the social consciousness in 2013 with the launch of the well-documented Kickstarter campaign for the Oculus Rift. In the four years that have passed since, things have become more complicated. Augmented reality (AR) has finally begun its ascent and Microsoft has muddied the waters with the HoloLens purporting to deliver ‘mixed reality’ (MR). Each of these terms currently refers to a unique experience defined by its hardware, but new platforms are already beginning to emerge capable of combining more than one immersive reality technology.

At Google’s recent I/O conference, Mountain View, head of AR and VR for Google, Clay Bavor, raised an interesting point in a tweet: “VR / MR / AR / RR are not separate and distinct things. They’re convenient labels for different points on a spectrum.”

Bavor reinforced this in a blog post on Medium, in which he stated: “If VR and AR are two points on a spectrum, what should we call the spectrum? Here are a few ideas – immersive computing, computing with presence, physical computing, perceptual computing, mixed reality or immersive reality. This technology is nascent, and there’s a long way to go on our definitions, but for now, let’s call this immersive computing.”

 

That spectrum, captured in the image above by CNET, illustrates Bavor’s key point. One might argue that defining each of the technologies that appear on this spectrum (which does currently dive deeper than simply AR, VR and real reality (RR)) is a case of semantics, but it’s still worthwhile taking time to step back and recognise the common vernacular each term now represents.

 

Augmented reality (AR):

Technology which supplements real reality (RR) with computer generated imagery of any kind should be defined as augmented reality (AR). At present, this would include devices such as Google Glass, smartphones (through various applications), Nokia’s City Lens, and even Pokemon Go or Snapchat.

 

Mixed reality (MR):

Mixed reality (MR) is similar in definition to AR, however opposed to simply placing images and text over the top of RR this technology aims to create an environment in which the user will treat the objects as if they are really there. This can be seen with applications such as Skype and video viewing on Microsoft’s HoloLens, but also extends to 2D video wherein an observer is able to view a user of virtual reality (VR) within the environment that their head-mounted display (HMD) is showing to them. A user in a virtual space which entirely encompasses their vision viewed from the outside can still be defined as MR.

The Lab screenshot

Virtual reality (VR):

Virtual reality (VR) is technology that shuts the user away from RR, instead replacing every aspect of their reality artificially. A vast range of HMDs exist for this, though the current leaders in the field remain the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, PlayStation VR, Samsung Gear VR and Google Daydream. All of these HMDs completely fill the user’s field of view and replace RR audio.

 

 

A new emerging trend is to define any content using these emerging technologies as ‘XR’. However, XR is also used to define ‘cross reality’, which is any hardware that combines aspects of AR, MR and VR; such as Google Tango.

In time, it’s likely at any AR, MR or VR will become defined as ‘XR’ as the hardware matures to incorporate more than one immersive reality technology, or ‘immersive computing’ as Bavor wishes to define it. However, for now it’s important that the industry recognises the differences between each acronym to avoid confusion amongst the consumer audiences that will define the success of each, or all, of these technologies and their applications.

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Asus Brings AR and VR ZenFone to Verizon

Asus are probably best known as a maker of laptops and tablet hybrids, but they are aiming to score a larger share of the American smartphone market with the upcoming ZenFone AR, for which Verizon will be the exclusive wireless provider in the USA.

Asus announced during the Google I/O conference that Verizon would be the exclusive provider of the Asus ZenFone AR in the US. The ZenFone AR is a smartphone that contains both support for Tango augmented reality applications and google Daydream virtual reality. The standard ZenFone AR model will come with Android 7.0 Nougat OS with 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage.

Tango capabilities means that the phone is capable of motion tracking, depth perception and area learning. This means that the ZenFone can determine how far away it is from objects, or surfaces such as a wall or the floor to enable to better movement in 3D space. There are currently over 100 Tango-capable apps on the Google Play Store.

The high-contrast display in the Asus ZenFone has a 5.7 inch screen using AMOLED technology to allow for better clarity when using VR applications with the Google Daydream headset as a resolution of 1440×2560. The ZenFone is powered by a Qualcomm Sanpdragon 821 processor with a Qualcom Areno 530 GPU. Sound supports DTS virtual surround sound and external audio is produced with an ‘ultra-loud’ 5 magnet speaker. The built-in camera uses Sony’s IMX318 sensor and TriTech autofocus system.

Pricing for the Asus ZenFone AR has not yet been announced, though Verizon says it will be revealed at the later date. The phone is due to launch in the USA sometime in summer 2017.

VRFocus will bring you further news on the Asus ZenFone AR and other VR smartphones as it becomes available.