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Childish Gambino dances his way onto Pixel cameras
Coachella headliner Childish Gambino is down to dance with anyone, anywhere at any time. Kind of. From today, an interactive Playmoji (i.e. an AR sticker) based on him is available in Google Pixel's Playground mode, which is built into the camera.
Facebook Messenger's camera fakes portrait mode photos
Facebook Messenger's camera just caught up to Instagram's in a few key areas, and then some. To start, you can snap software-based portrait mode photos -- if you don't have a dual-camera phone (or one with clever AI photography), you can still get that blurred background for your headshots. You can also shoot animated Boomerang loops if you want to capture a brief bit of movement without recording a whole video.
How to get a coding job at Google with an art degree
I wasn't really aware as a kid that game development was a career that I could have, especially from an artist's perspective." That's Ashley Pinnick, a 28-year-old artist and game developer living in San Francisco. Pinnick is a VR Technical Artist for Google, where she's working on Playground, the company's augmented reality app. But three years ago, she was an art school graduate and self-taught virtual reality developer with an uncertain future at her feet. "I was playing games and I knew that there was art there," Pinnick said. "I just didn't put two and two together."
Google's AR Stickers are now appropriately called Playground
For the AR fans out there, Google didn't forget about you during its Made by Google event. The newly renamed Playground app (née AR stickers) brings in animated characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and even virtual Donald "Childish Gambino" Glover's dance moves to Pixel cameras.
Google flips on Pixel 2's HDR+ feature for your go-to photo apps
The Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL include Pixel Visual Core, Google's first custom imaging chip that allows for HDR+ quality pictures in third-party apps like Instagram and Snapchat. But Pixel 2 users haven't been able to take advantage of those capabilities because the co-processor hasn't been enabled. Well, they'll be able to soon because Google announced today that it's turning on Pixel Visual Core, bringing the HDR+ technology that's been available through the Pixel 2's main camera app to other photography, social media or camera apps.
Twitter may copy Snapchat to make video sharing easier
Poor Snapchat. Everything it does gets copied by everyone from Facebook to Skype to Google and now Twitter seems to be on the Snapchat-aping bandwagon. Bloomberg reports that the company is working on a feature that will make it easier for users to post videos than its current multi-step setup allows. Rather than tapping the compose button, then the camera button, then the record button, this new feature is reportedly more camera-centric and simpler to navigate.
Google ends Tango support to fully focus on ARCore
Google began delving into the world of AR with its 2014 venture Project Tango, or just Tango as of last year, and its AR work has grown quite a bit since then. Earlier this year, it unveiled ARCore, an augmented reality platform that differs from Tango in that it doesn't require any specialized hardware. Today Google announced an update to its ARCore Developer Preview and with it, the end of Tango support. "As we focus on bringing augmented reality to the entire Android ecosystem with ARCore, we're turning down support of Tango," Google said in a blog post.
Google's Pixel AR stickers are available starting today
During Google's Pixel 2 event in October, the company teased its upcoming AR stickers and starting today, Pixel users can actually get their hands on them. Those with Pixel phones running Android 8.1 Oreo will have access to AR stickers like Foodmoji, 3D text and celebratory balloons and champagne just in time for the holidays. And ahead of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Pixel users can also get a pack of Star Wars-themed AR stickers.
