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.
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.
If it isn’t search or video, Google always has one foot out the door.
I believe that one of the reasons the stadia failed is everybody knew about the Google graveyard and wasn’t willing to buy into an ecosystem destined to die.
I wouldn’t be surprised to find that this is also something that would affect their ability to attract good talent. People want to feel like they’re working on something meaningful that’s going to stick around for a while. Putting years of your life into developing something for Google just to have it hit the Google graveyard has got to be deeply dissatisfying.
it’s pretty depressing to have watched Google grow from this supposedly amazing company that was willing to develop any amazing idea into something to only caring about how to inject ads into your brain and monetize every shred of data it can harvest from you by any conceivable means.
“Don’t be evil”
Is this entire article spinning a narrative out of 18 words of criticism in a single tweet?
It’s certainly not a good sign when leads leave during the middle of projects but this article says so much that just isn’t in this tweet.
Google makes so much in ad revenue that they don’t care about anything else. They can afford to dabble in hundreds of side projects without feeling any actual pressure to deliver on them.
Eventually, the half-assed commitment leads them to cancel projects, or pivot, or start over from scratch. It’s almost predictable at this point.
So true. If a Google team cannot show a believable path to a $1 billion ARR business, your team’s project gets shut down. Unless it falls within strategic priorities which are pretty much just search and ads (eg. this is why Android continues to get support - because it represents mobile defense of Google’s lead in search and ads, not because the phone business on its own is worthwhile to Google).
See https://killedbygoogle.com/
FWIW I don’t think this is necessarily a bad way to run a company. Focus resources on your core competencies. But it really sucks as a user of their non-search-related products.
They’d almost be better off running them as independent startups that the Google brand just acquires if they take off. Would hurt less when they get shelved.
