Why Google is shutting down its AR platform

Google is shutting down its ambitious Augmented Reality (AR) project, Tango. The company announced the decision on Saturday.

The primary reason why the company is shutting down its AR project is to focus on ARCore. The mass market product can be used as a native support for augmented reality in all Android smartphones. ARCore is based on Tango platform itself. The company has high expectations from the ARCore project.

Project Tango was first introduced in 2014. The project was based on the advanced camera hardware that is used to build 3D meshes of spaces. It was similar to HoloLens by Microsoft functions. Google was hoping to get ahead of Apple’s ARKit with the Project Tango. The difficult part was to get smartphone manufacturers to build this expensive technology into their phones.

With Apple’s announcement of introducing ARKit platform on iOS11, Google had to abandon the entry to Android AI with the introduction of ARCore. While the ARCore is based on Tango, there is a lotto crossover in these technologies. ARCore focuses on plane detection than building a 3D mesh of the space. The technology can be run on popular phones like Samsung Galaxy S8 and Pixel, the devices that do not have crazy multi-camera IR setups.

In an interaction with TechCrunch, Clay Bavor, the head of AR/VR at Google said, “Our goal with Tango was really to prove out the core technology and show the world that it’s possible. Obviously, others have started to invest in smartphone AR, our goal with Tango has always been to drive that capability into as many devices as possible.”

Since there was no business sense in continuing the fractured development process for Android platform, the company made the decision to shutdown the project. While it seems fair to the most people, a small number of developers working on the Tango-based project have been affected by the company’s decision.

In an official tweet, Google writes, “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.” Tango will receive the official support till March 1, 2018.

– Rajat Kabade

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