Virtual reality and augmented reality are two concepts as old as computers themselves, however, they have only started catching up to the general public in recent years. Samsung is one of the leading forces in the mobile VR field thanks to the Samsung Gear VR which was made in collaboration with Oculus VR, the makers of the Oculus Rift, for use in Samsung Galaxy phones. At the 2017 Samsung Developer Conference, the company announced that they are redoubling their VR and AR efforts with new Gear VR services and an ARCore partnership.

Samsung showcased new VR services to use with their Gear VR headset including a premium video service called Samsung VR with high-quality 360° immersive video. Samsung is also releasing a virtual reality solution for browsing the web—Samsung Internet VR—as well as Samsung PhoneCast VR which translates regular, Android 2D apps into 3D VR content using mirroring. The Samsung Gear VR Framework and other services and features are also making their way to Samsung Gear VR-supported phones very soon.

Also, Samsung has, once again, made clear their commitment to augmented reality services. They have announced a partnership with Google to bring the ARCore augmented reality platform to Galaxy devices, including the Samsung Galaxy S8, S8+, and Note 8. This partnership will help grow and expand Samsung’s AR capabilities greatly, capabilities which were already expanded upon earlier this year with the introduction of Bixby Vision which offers similar functionality to Google’s ARCore-supported Google Lens service.

According to the company executives, this new partnership is just the beginning of Samsung’s AR initiatives, as Samsung believes that AR (and VR) will go beyond phones in the near future. Thus, the company is actively growing their developer community to ensure the rapid advancement of both VR and AR.

from xda-developers By Arol Wright

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