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Google AR/VR software lead quits, heavily criticizes company on way out
(www.androidauthority.com)
this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
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The big tech companies keep trying to sell AR as a gateway to their private alternate realities. That misses the whole point of AR. It's supposed to augment reality, not replace it.
Everyone who has played video games knows what AR is supposed to look like. Create an API to let developers build widgets and allow users to rearrange them on a HUD.
Obvious apps that would get a ton of downloads:
floatynames - floats people's names over their heads
targettingreticle - puts a customizable icon in the center of your screen so you know it's centered
graffiti - virtual tagging and you control who sees it
breadcrumbs - replaces the UI of your map software to just show you a trail to your destination
catears - add an image overlay that makes it look like your friends have cat ears healthbars - they're a really familiar visual element that you can tie to any metric (which may or may not be health related)
I imagine being able to meet my friends at a cafe that I've never been to. It's easy to find because I just follow a trail of dots down the street. As I get closer I can see a giant icon of a coffee cup so I know I'm on the right block. Not everyone is there yet but I can see that the last of our friends is on the bus 2 blocks away. I only met one of them once a few months ago I can see their name and pronouns. We sit around discussing latte art. I get up for an other cup and see from their health bar that one of my friends is out of coffee so I get them a refill. On the way out I scrawl a positive review and leave it floating on the sidewalk.
I love this.
That, or creepy "uncanny valley" cartoon avatars with no legs. Could go either way.
The legless avatars seem to be mostly a VR thing.
It would be cool if you could mix the two. What if you could meet a group of friends at a coffee shop but if one of your friends was out of town you could have them join you virtually?
The avatar may or may not have legs. We could leave that choice up to the individual. Maybe they want legs. Maybe they want to be a little floaty ghost. Maybe they want to present as a talking frog.
AR Laser-Tag with your friends. They have health bars and when you shoot them, the damage displays like in borderlands.
You're right though. Every example I've seen demoed is something that teleports you somewhere else. Your own theater. The cockpit of a car, somewhere other than where you're at. Apple and Microsoft has some Rudimentary floating windows/workspaces, but to me that's just like looking at a screen anyways. If AR worked like it does in video games, combined with strong image and facial recognition and object detection, giving real time contextual useful information, it could be so ubiquitous that people end up feeling like it's just another natural part of their interactions with the world around them and others.
Oh yeah! There are all kinds of cool games you could play with AR.
My old school used to get really into "assassin". Some organizer would divide everyone into a big circle but everyone was only told their connection in one direction (ie everyone knew their target but nobody knew who was targeting them. This was in NYC. Kids would pull out Rayline Tracer Guns in the subway and pop each other. AR would be a much better way to do that.
Games like Pokemon Go would be much cooler with AR.