Google is back in the metaverse with its new AR prototypes
Google Glasses - or Glassholes - may sound familiar and there's a good reason for that. Google Glasses were launched almost 10 years ago but turned out to be a failure, which resulted in the company stopping the development of AR technologies.
Time heals wounds and this proved to be true in Google's case, as the company recently announced in a blog post that they have developed new prototypes of AR glasses and thus jumped on the metaverse wave again.
New ways to interact with the world
AR creates several possibilities in different contexts, which is why we at Virsabi are strong advocates of the technology and utilize it in various business-related contexts.
Google also has an eye on the possibilities of the technology for a long time and has therefore given the development of AR glasses another shot.
“Augmented reality (AR) is opening up new ways to interact with the world around us. It can help us quickly and easily access the information we need — like understanding another language or knowing how best to get from point A to point B,” says Juston Payne, Group Product Manager at Google.
However, Google also mentions in its blog post that the functions of the new prototypes are limited, for example they cannot take pictures nor videos. Google justifies these limitations by saying that the company wants to develop AR technology slowly as it wishes to do things right this time around.
Laboratory testing is not good enough
Despite the simple functions of the prototypes, they must be tested in order to develop them further and spot errors and shortcomings. However, the company does not believe that laboratory testing is good enough as it does not reflect the needs of everyday life.
From next month Google will therefore test AR prototypes outside of the laboratory, in real life, where the company uses a few trusted testers.
Race among the tech companies
The potential for AR technology is undeniable. The IT giants of Silicon Valley have increasingly begun to engage in the metaverse and are working hard to develop new prototypes. Among others, Meta has also recently announced that they have developed three new prototypes.
At Virsabi, we are already exploiting the potential today. Through the metaverse, we help companies in several different areas to improve and streamline work processes and not least onboard and train employees.
