The tech giant has thrown its hat in the VR technology ring along with Microsoft and Facebook.
Microsoft and Facebook have been powering forward with virtual reality technology, but at the same time it has appeared as though Google has been falling behind in this particular category.
That said, 2016 is starting to suggest that this isn’t the case as Google has been making moves to catch up.
It has now been revealed that Google is making moves to form its own division that is dedicated to virtual reality tech and computing. As a central component of this effort, it has now named Sundar Pichai – the company’s CEO – as a division head, according to several sources. This represents a massive shift in control positions at the company as it simultaneously indicates that the company has a new intention to create a solid enterprise business. After all, with this shift in execs, it will be senior vice president Diane Green who will take control over the company’s tremendous consumer web applications.
While the changes have been confirmed by a Google spokesperson, further discussion of virtual reality was declined.
The Google vice president of product management, Clay Bavor, has been in control of the company’s apps; such as Drive, Gmail and Docs. Since the launch of Cardboard in 2014, he has also been the head of that division. Moving forward, Bavor is stepping away from apps in order to place all his attention on VR products. As he steps out of apps, Greene is stepping in, who joined the company in November in order to take control of the newly formed enterprise operations.
The original creation of Cardboard had been to create a form of VR technology that could be introduced in a mainstream way. So far, it has seen some limited success as it has recently started some distribution programs with schools. It also brought about a new GoPro integration that made it possible to carry VR video over to YouTube. That feature was initially introduced in May 2015 at the Google I/O, by Bavor.
This most recent large move in virtual reality might help to assuage the concerns and criticisms of people in the industry who have been indicating that Google isn’t all that dedicated to the tech.
With a strong set of researchers already in place among its staff and students, Deakin University decided it would be a good investment to provide a location in which VR and AR technology could be studied. This way, it will become easier for these researchers to work with the industry itself, and it will also open up a world of new forms of educational courses and programs that focus on this type of mobile technology.