Google has quietly been building up its virtual reality offerings with Cardboard and its Spotlight Stories app for watching 360 video. And now it appears that the company will have a dedicated VR division headed by VP Clay Bavor, who previously worked on Cardboard and headed up the Gmail and Drive apps. What could this mean for Google's immersive media future?
In the short term, not much. The Wall Street Journal reports that Bavor's main task will be to lead a team that's producing a version of Android for VR. Bavor's previous experience is with running apps, and right now Cardboard and Spotlight Stories will probably continue to be the main consumer apps available. Cardboard is currently the VR system Google is best known for, especially since its cheap, DIY hardware provides a nice rejoinder to Oculus' headset, whose price tag took many by surprise last week. That said, Spotlight Stories was a revelation at Google I/O last year, especially because Justin Lin's short film Help—about an alien monster loose in the subway—looked explosively awesome in the app.
What's going to be more interesting is Google's take on augmented reality. Though Glass has become an object lesson in how not to launch products, the idea behind the technology is still promising. We want a virtual overlay on reality, whether as a map guide or game, and so far only Microsoft's HoloLens has come close to delivering on that. But Google is the lead investor in mystery company Magic Leap, which is supposed to give us the ultimate augmented reality experience any year (or decade) now.
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