I don't get the point of seeing anything in the background of the table, in this case the audience. Why not paint it with sky, then it's less distracting?
Oh, I get it, then it's not AR. Well, maybe AR is not such a good fit in this case to begin with.
The it's just watching a 360 youtube video on your phone.
This is still new and doesn't quite make full use, but there are many reason why you'd want to see the environment. For one, it gives a sense of scale. For example if you put a real life size dinosaur, seeing the surrounding allows you to understand the scale better. Next up, the AR application could very well interact with the world too, which brings new possibilities.
These are pretty new technology and no one knows the best way to use it yet. Maybe in the future we'll start putting a sky in the background. Maybe we'll find better ways to use AR. Both AR and VR are still in their infancy.
Good point, except that in this example, you don't understand the scale better (since all the people and spaceships fit on a table). I believe (for this example) an immersive experience, with VR goggles would be much better.
I definitely agree. The examples Google gave of Tango were much more inline with the points I was speaking of. But again, I'd love to see what new creative things others come up with.
It demonstrates the power they have with AR. If they can show a town appear on a table with air strikes coming in in realtime, it implies that simpler more practical AR use cases will be much easier.
Prior to this, as a developer, you might think AR is limited to what Pokemon GO and the first example (like a cup of coffee on a table) show. After seeing this, if you were thinking of doing anything simpler than what they were showing, you'd likely see it as much more feasible than you previously did and perhaps look into including some of those features.
And this was at WWDC (their developer conference), so it certainly applies to a developer audience.
Oh, I get it, then it's not AR. Well, maybe AR is not such a good fit in this case to begin with.