It is no secret that all major companies are making in roads in the field of AR. That being said, Google has just announced that it plans to close its original AR project which was called Project Tango. It was first opened in 2014. The project made use of special sensors and cameras on devices to display virtual objects.
Why is Project Tango shutting down?
For some background, this project was started by ATAP, Google’s Advanced Technology And Projects lab. However, the main reason it was closed down was that ARCore was developed. This made project Tango less relevant and needed, hence why it was closed down.
Google says they will terminate the project on the first of March 2018. Tango’s twitter page had the following to say.
“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.”
Tang created a lot of hype when it released. It made use of cameras and infrared sensors to track and place items. It was the first of its kind in a mobile package. However, this venture was plagued with multiple issues. The main culprits were speed issues and problems with the accuracy. Another downside was that the phones that supported it were pricey due to the required hardware.
Although ARCore can not see in 3D like the Project Tango devices, they work with the hardware already on phones. No special sensors or cameras are needed to make use of the software. Machine learning is used to accomplish the same tracking that Tango required hardware. The fruits of ARCore can be in the AR sticker present on the Pixel devices and the Samsung S8 and Note 8.
