Google entering the VR Space with Project Tango

[Master Disaster]

After Google Cardboard it seems as though Google might be looking to enter the proper VR Market with a new product.

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The next few months are going to be awash with virtual reality news. In a couple weeks, we should learn a lot more about the Playstation VR. Then, nearly four years after we first tried the Oculus Rift, it’s finally going to be officially released on March 28th. Not long thereafter, HTC’s Vive will also finally be released to the public. These three headsets represent some of the most exciting technology anybody’s tried in the last few years. They’re powerful, immersive, and may finally have games and apps that are more than just tech demos. And if that’s not enough VR for you, Samsung’s Galaxy S7 is also getting released next month. It's the latest phone to work with the company’s Gear VR headset accessory.

 

So get ready for an ocean of VR news, and the next month is just going to be the start. Because after that wave of VR news, another one is going to crash: Google will almost surely make VR the center of its annual developer conference Google IO, which is happening on May 18th. The company is widely expected to move beyond its early experiments with Google Cardboard and into the next phase of VR. The big question is whether it’s going to look and feel more like those expensive, high-end headsets or more like Samsung’s less powerful but more portable mobile efforts.

Project Tango is speculated to be entering the market as a middle ground between Vive & Rift though I should make it clear, these are just assumptions at this time.

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I think it’s going to be exactly in the middle of those things, with capabilities that haven’t been possible on a phone-based device — only headsets attached to an expensive gaming PC or console via a wire. It will likely still use a phone and still technically be less powerful than those other headsets, but nevertheless signal that Google is in this game in a real way. And the reason I believe all that is that last year, just before Google IO, I got the chance to try out some demonstrations of exactly the kind of system I’m describing here. It’s called Project Tango, and I am betting that it’s going to be at the heart of Google’s next big VR push.

 

 

It seems as though Google is taking a different approach with cameras on the headset actually mapping out space and objects (including other people also wearing the headsets) into the VR world allowing wearers to interact with each other, in real time and seamlessly in both the VR world and real world.

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In one of the craziest demos I’ve ever tried, I strapped an Android tablet to my face in a room and started walking around in VR, untethered to a computer. Without the aid of cameras, the tablet automatically mapped the room I was in and let me explore an ethereal space with a white tree and floating heads. But the crazy bit was that Google’s employees, including Tango lead Johnny Lee, were also in that same space. I could see their heads in VR and they could see me, and their position in VR was exactly the same position in real life. I reached out to one of those virtual floating heads and my real hand tapped Lee’s real shoulder. It was wild.

 

Google have also created an entire VR department in the company

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Before I get into Tango more deeply, let’s review some of the recent things that we’ve heard about Google’s VR push. First and most importantly, Google has created an entire VR division within the company, as Mark Bergen reported at Recode in January. It’s led by Clay Bavor, whose title is VP of Virtual Reality. Bavor had been running Google’s apps division, but he also oversaw Google Cardboard and some other VR experiments within the company.

 

Last year, I talked to him about both Cardboard and another project called Jump, an open source VR camera-rig design that works with Google’s cloud computing platform to create fully steroscopic 360-degree video. It remains one of the most immersive things I’ve ever done with mobile VR. Now Bavor, whom Bergen described as a "precocious and well-liked exec inside Google," has made it his whole job to work on VR and has a team behind him to do it.

The article is way to long and in depth for me to quote it all so I will stop there, for the whole story you can click here

 

I gotta admit, I personally dont see VR going anywhere yet, I just don't think PCs are ready for it neither are the current soultions suitable for home users. I mean sure, it will be a huge thing in certain areas (like training for example) but in the home, nope.

 

Watching these videos and reading what Google is trying to achieve here however is making me change my mind, I could see this working as a solution to the current restraints of VR at home, those being space and cabling restrictions.

[Lethal Seraph]

Excellent! Now we can just wait for iteration of better tech, and lower prices.

 

 

[Chronical93]

Cool, I also like how they seem to have a custom made nerf gun. Either that or they modified it for their use, but the tablet holder being labeled Nerf seems like it was custom made. Can't wait to see what the future holds for this tech.

[Thony]

Yay, more VR  nextnext April is going to be exciting. Finally some good videos will be coming out.

[Doobeedoo]

As far as VR HMD I will personally wait until they come to stage where they are quite powerful and content is vast and quality of it top notch. I've tried it and all and I'm not hyped about it, specially at current stage. So for VR I hope to see something like next gen MMO in future for VR only of course and more complex usage and content. Something that will only be on VR and will be for daily use.