Google moves forward with AR by axing Tango

Back in November 2014, Google unveiled Tango, its answer to the rise of augmented reality. The technology made use of computer vision to enable mobile devices to detect their position relative to the world around them and bring virtual objects to the real world. This saw the release of devices such as the Lenovo Phab 2 Pro and Asus ZenFone AR. Almost three years later, however, the initiative is being discontinued by the search engine giant in favor of ARCore, which it announced August of this year.

The demise of the platform was ushered in with a simple tweet from the team’s official Twitter account. By the same time, Google also released developer preview 2 for ARCore, which the company says “will have support for over 100 million devices.”

While Tango required multiple sensors for it to work properly, ARCore works “without any additional hardware,” according to Google, enabling it to scale across the Android ecosystem. The technology is currently available on the company’s Pixel handsets and the Samsung Galaxy S8. It will also require Android 7.0 Nougat or above.

Motion tracking is one of the main focuses of ARCore. This utilizes a smartphone’s camera to observe feature points in a room. The position and orientation of the handset is then determined, with computer-generated objects accurately placed. It can also observe ambient light in the environment, allowing developers to light images in ways that match the surroundings.

Interest in augmented reality is currently high, according to a study, but it is still not widely adopted as the technology is still seen as a work in progress. The current development, however, enables manufacturers to develop products that won’t need special sensors to utilize AR. Should the project become successful, it will open up a new world of possibilities when it comes to productivity for businesses and consumers.