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Samsung Highlights Augmented Reality at Current Week’s Developer Conference

Samsung will reveal its augmented reality (AR) plans at a developer conference this week. The company is set to unveil Project Whare, an AR cloud offering, and a dedicated AR headset.

The Korean electronics stalwart is currently holding it’s yearly developer conference from Wednesday to Thursday, in San Francisco. It will focus on AI and voice. Spike Jonze, director of the renowned dystopian AI motion picture “Her”, has been invited to make the company’s voice endeavours more fashionable.

Samsung will feature formative AR technology apart from voice-related developments. The conference programme contains six AR sessions, one of which will focus on helping participants transform into “ superstar AR developers”.

Two AR sessions will describe how AR emoji can be created for Samsung phones, in a similar vein to Disney’s efforts with their key characters.

Additionally, Samsung will showcase advanced AR development instances. Project Whare, an AR-based cloud development product under the Samsung Next banner, is one such instance.

A Samsung representative stated that Whare is yet to be announced publicly, but will receive a soft unveiling during the conference, where the brand will attempt to seek industry and customer feedback, and reveal market indicators. Job listings describe it as a group of cross-platform developer solutions for shared, multi-user AR experiences, to create a fresh generation of AR applications.

The framework is set to support all AR developers through a shared worldwide AR assets management stage.

Samsung is joined by companies like tech titans Google, game developers Niantic, AR headset makers Magic Leap, and several small startups, in highlighting the idea that – To expand AR beyond basic smartphone camera filters, developers must focus on real-world applications, store digital data related to the world continuously, and make it available to various users simultaneously.

Project Whare can help developers create continuous AR experiences on phone applications. However, developments indicate Samsung is imagining things from a broader perspective than just the phone.

Farsh Fallaj, Samsung’s director of XR developer relations, stated at last month’s Virtual Reality Strategy conference held in San Francisco, the exhibition of a feature-rich AR headset during the event. There are no confirmations regarding whether Samsung will make it a consumer product, and products showcased during the conference are probable prototypes.

The shift of Samsung’s VR efforts from phone technology to feature-rich headsets has made the brand turn towards AR. The Gear VR, from 2014, was among the industry’s earliest mobile VR products. Several follow up versions were released, culminating in 5 million-plus sales, as announced in 2017. The last significant Gear VR update was in 2017’s March.

Samsung has since worked with the company to create Samsung Odyssey, an advanced external PC powered VR headset. It’s latest version was released last month, signifying the probable lack of VR hardware updates during the event.

However, VR will be present during the brand’s developer meet, as per Italian VR gaming studio Symmetrical’s Twitter update on Monday. The company will exhibit its horror VR game “Gates of Nowhere: Inferno”, featuring a multiplayer arena setup.

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