Google Makes a Large Team for Secret AR Project: Project Iris

Augmented Reality (AR) is currently often an ambitious technology so far, but the big tech companies know for sure: in a few years’ time, headsets and glasses will become an important part of our daily lives. It is unveiled that Google is also working on hardware with hundreds of employees.

Google takes on AR with large team and expert heads

It is absolutely no secret that almost all major tech companies share a vision: Augmented reality, enriched with information and clothed in a digital guise, will become a mainstream medium within this decade. One of the biggest hurdles: developing hardware and especially applications that people really want to use. Now there are interesting new details from the labs of Google’s AR department.

if The verge reported that Google has appointed Clay Bavor, an expert in mixed reality applications, to lead the secret project “Iris”. The structure and size of the team clearly shows that Google is quite ambitious here. According to this, about 300 developers, including those from the Pixel team, should further the group’s efforts to develop marketable AR glasses. There is no rush: the start is currently planned for 2024. In addition to Bavor, Google brings together many other top experts for “Project Iris”, which suggests a very broad approach.

Shahram Izadi, the lead developer of ARCore, Google’s developer kit for AR applications, is also on board. There’s also Eddie Chung, who was largely responsible for the development of Google Lens, and Scott Huffman, who is considered the “creator” of the Google Assistant. Mark Lucovsky, the former head of Facebook/Meta AR software development, is also part of the team.

Different from Google Glass

The Verge source also wants to be able to report on the hardware. Accordingly, the current prototypes are reminiscent of “ski goggles”. All the necessary hardware should be in the headset, but Google clearly needs to follow the approach to get much of the power it needs from the cloud.

The headset itself then uses cameras and other sensors to recognize the environment, and the complex graphics processing takes place in Google’s data centers.