#googletango

How Lowe's is using AR and Google Tango to help customers find products faster

Lowe's is introducing in-store navigation that uses augmented reality (AR) to help customers search for products in its retail stores.

In April, shoppers in two Lowe's stores will be able to use Google's Tango AR app on Tango-enabled smartphones to access indoor mapping when the technology is piloted in Sunnyvale, CA and Lynwood, WA. Customers without a Tango-enabled smartphone will be able to demo the app with a Lowe's sales associate during the pilot phase.

Why Google and Apple will rule mixed reality

(Read my column: https://goo.gl/XclDOD )

The brilliant future of mixed reality will come to us from the likes of Microsoft and Magic Leap, according to the conventional wisdom.

Microsoft has grabbed mindshare with awesome demos of its Hololens product, like its Project XRay game demo at its October 2015 Windows 10 event.

Magic Leap, which has raised more than $1 billion from investors, has dazzled YouTube users with simulated experience videos.

Other contenders in this space include ODG and Meta.

There's no question that the demos are cool and that several or all of those products will appear on the market and thrill users with a new experience that blends the real with the virtual.

But the future of mixed reality won't be dominated by Microsoft, Magic Leap, ODG or Meta, but by Google and Apple. Here's why.

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3171687/virtual-reality/why-google-and-apple-will-rule-mixed-reality.html

"...The goal of Project Tango is to give mobile devices a human-scale understanding of space and motion.

Our current prototype is a 5” phone containing customized hardware and software designed to track the full 3D motion of the device, while simultaneously creating a map of the environment. These sensors allow the phone to make over a quarter million 3D measurements every second, updating it’s position and orientation in real-time, combining that data into a single 3D model of the space around you.