Google introduces AR Core, its new augmented reality tech for Android: It's not often that Google finds itself playing catchup to rivals, but in the case of augmented reality, it has. Now the company has taken its AR play a significant step forward with the preview release of ARCore, a new software development kit that can be used to create augmented reality experiences on both existing and future Android phones.
ARCore builds on Tango, an AR tech that Google had been working on for a few years. It had rolled out a phone and tablet built to work with Tango, and in 2016 Lenovo released a Tango-compatible phone. The big difference with ARCore is that it doesn't require any additional hardware, Google said in a blog post:
ARCore will run on millions of devices, starting today with the Pixel and Samsung’s S8, running 7.0 Nougat and above. We’re targeting 100 million devices at the end of the preview. We’re working with manufacturers like Samsung, Huawei, LG, ASUS and others to make this possible with a consistent bar for quality and high performance.
POV: It's not clear how long the ARCore preview period will last, but developers can get their hands on the code now. Meanwhile, Apple's iOS11 is now in beta (and expected to be generally available in conjunction with the iPhone 8 launch in a few weeks) comes with an augmented reality SDK called ARKit and there are already developers showing off new applications.
"Google at least got something out the door for Android," says Constellation founder and CEO R "Ray" Wang. "Now, to be fair, Apple had a head start, as it acquired Metaio, one of the industry leaders in AR, about three years ago," he adds. "In conversations with Apple a few weeks back, we can say that the apps on ARKit are pretty advanced."
Coding school startup lays off 11 percent of staff: A Denver startup called Galvanize, which has raised more than $60 million in venture capital for its coding schools, has laid off 11 percent of its staff as it seeks to retrench and focus more on online training programs, Reuters reports:
The layoffs come a month after two other so-called “coding boot camps,” Dev Bootcamp in San Francisco and Iron Yard of Greenville, South Carolina, announced plans to shut down by the end of 2017. In the past year, eight coding schools have closed, up from years past, according to review website Course Report. Currently there are 95 coding schools in the United States.
Course Report, which tracks the coding bootcamp industry, says the market will grow 52 percent this year, generating $266 million across 95 bootcamps in all. Nearly 23,000 students will graduate from bootcamps this year, up from about 15,000 last year.
POV: Bootcamps by nature are for-profit businesses unaffiliated with an accredited college or university. They're often positioned as a way for early or mid-career professionals to get a quick jumpstart into the coding game. The rapid growth of bootcamps in the past several years has the whiff of a gold rush about it; the closings of Dev Bootcamp and several others, along with the woes of well-established players such as Galvanize, suggests the market is seeing a correction due to saturation and quality control.
"Building learning software is a risky business," says Constellation VP and principal analyst Holger Mueller. "It's a big budget and time investment that often gets overtaken by market dynamics and reality. It looks like that's what happened here. But the opportunity and need to develop more coders remains, so more competition, innovative thinking and alternate training approaches are all welcome."
BASF advances its digital transformation with SAP: German industrial giant BASF is working with SAP on a project aimed at forging closer operational ties with BASF's business partners. Here are the details from the companies' joint release:
SAP Asset Intelligence Network, a cloud-based collaborative network, will provide BASF with a digital data connection to multiple original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and service providers and their respective asset data. The project's goal is to establish a fully integrated and centrally managed asset information repository, helping ensure data consistency and availability.
By establishing such a single source of truth for asset information, BASF aims to further improve the efficiency of its engineering and maintenance processes throughout the asset lifecycle.
POV: The deal builds on SAP's existing relationship with BASF, which along with its close ties to Siemens gives it an even more prominent role in German and European industry.
But the broader point lies with BASF's goals for the project, says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Andy Mulholland. " They want to develop a digital business ecosystem to support event-driven interactions around common data and business structures," he says. "That's a big issue and a strong move in the European digital business community."
(Go here for Mulholland's deep dive into how industrial technology and IT technology vendors are aligning and in some cases competing for stakes in the industrial IoT market.)