Reporting by XinZhiyuan
EDIT: Sleepy
【New Zhiyuan Introduction】Google, which has been silent for a long time, is also about to enter the meta-universe? Former Meta supervisor joined the company and developed a mysterious AR operating system with a high profile. The god once threw microsoft's ceo in a chair for jumping ship to Google.
When Microsoft and Meta launched their own "metacosms" in a high profile.
Who remembers the first AR glasses made by Google?
With the mysterious comeback of Google Lab, this time, Google is also going to have a big move!
It's just that it's the metacosm... operating system?
On December 14, Mark Lucovsky, a former Meta operating system engineer, announced that he had officially joined Google (for the second time).
In addition to saying that he will be in charge of an AR operating system team, Lucovsky also took a wave of new positions in this recruitment.
In the job posting, Google wrote that it is focusing on building its own "AR operating system" for a mysterious "innovative AR device".
Get up early in the morning and catch a late set
As early as 2012, Google released a prototype of AR glasses.
With a wave of hardware and software upgrades, it successfully landed in the US market in 2014 and sold for $1500.
However, in 2015, it was forced to take down due to various negative news.
In 2017, Google decided to shift the application of AR glasses to industry.
That same year, Apple released ARKit for building AR experiences for mobile phones, which directly caught Google off guard.
The scramble, and many of the virtual reality projects that Google has subsequently shelved, has demoralized its AR and VR team members about the shift in direction.
Despite its rush to catch up, Google seems to be lagging behind its peers in building new forms of AR hardware.
According to former members of Google's AR team, Google did not make similar moves until mid-2019.
Fast forward to 2015, when Clay Bavor, who was in charge of productivity apps like Gmail, was at the helm of the team for early AR and VR projects.
At the time, Facebook bought Oculus for $2 billion, and the industry was in an uproar.
Bavor's team also began working on a premium Google VR headset code-named Dawn and a VR software platform called Daydream.
But by early 2017, there were rumors that Apple planned to release a new set of software tools for creating AR applications at that summer's developer conference.
At a full-staff meeting, Bavor said Apple's plans would not change Google's product roadmap, and that VR would continue to be its top priority.
But things quickly changed after Apple officially launched ARKit in June of that year, and Google executives demanded that Bavor respond immediately.
While Google had started working on an AR tool code-named Project Tango a few years ago, it needed to rely on dedicated hardware at the time.
In the weeks following Apple's announcement, most of Tango's members, along with the entire Bavor division, were called up to develop a new AR software to get AR apps running on existing Android devices. Soon, the group expanded to more than 100 people.
By the end of August 2017, Google had released a developer preview of its new AR software tool, ARCore.
Employees began to feel exhausted and began to question Bavor's vision and why they didn't act sooner.
Within a year, many of Bavor's senior leaders had either moved to other teams at Google or left the company to compete.
After a few years of silence, with the "meta-universe" boom coming, Google seems to be finally about to regain its long-abandoned AR glasses.
With the addition of the former head of Meta's operating system, can Google catch up with this "meta-universe" car?
The god of the poaching Meta operating system
Mark Lucovsky received his bachelor's degree in computer science from California Polytechnic State University in 1983.
In 1988, he joined Microsoft, where he was responsible for kernel execution, subsystem modeling, and the design and implementation of the Windows32 base API.
After 16 years at Microsoft, Lucovsky decided to leave Microsoft in 2004 to join Google because of a controversial project.
And a very interesting thing happened during this time.
Lucovsky revealed that when CEO Steve Ballmer learned that he was about to leave Microsoft for Google, he simply "grabbed" a chair and threw it across his office, then smashed it on a desk.
Even so angry, Ballmer tried to convince Lucovsky to stay at Microsoft.
Of course, Steve Ballmer certainly refused to admit it, saying, "It grossly exaggerates the reality."
Five years later, Lucovsky jumped to VMware as vice president, another 4 years. During this time, Lucovsky started cloud Foundry and recruited engineering teams in Palo Alto, Shanghai and Seattle.
In October 2017, Lucovsky joined Meta's Oculus VR team to develop an internal operating system that would replace Android.
In December 2021, Lucovsky came to Google again.
Mark Lucovsky has an exceptional talent in software engineering.
While at Microsoft, Lucovsky was involved in designing and building the Windows NT operating system, which until now supplies some of the core code for all new versions of Windows.
After joining Google for the first time, he became one of the three engineers who created the AJAX API, and the online programming tool attracted more traffic than almost any other service googled at the time.
Lucovsky has over 35 years of software development experience, from microcode to operating systems, from cloud computing to applications, through almost all development and delivery models, everything.
As a hardcore engineering lead, Lucovsky is also often personally involved in the coding and deployment of the team.
Paul Maritz, CEO of VMware, said: "In terms of engineers, he probably exceeds 99.9 percent of people."
Recruitment information
The Google Augmented Reality (AR) team is a group of engineers, designers, and research scientists tasked with laying the foundation for great immersive computing and prototyping a delightful user experience.
Here, you'll design and build software for embedded processors in the next generation of immersive computing products; write robust, reliable, and efficient underlying software that connects to sensors, displays, wireless chipsets, and other peripherals; optimize and tune system power and performance across the stack; and work closely with other teams to solve cross-functional problems to create compelling AR experiences on highly customized hardware platforms.
Minimum Standard:
Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
5 years of experience in C or C++ software development, as well as experience in data structures/algorithms.
3 years of experience testing, maintaining or releasing software products, and 1 year of experience in software design and architecture.
Priority is given to:
Have a master's or doctoral degree in computer science or a related technical field.
3 years of embedded operating system experience, 1 year of technical leadership experience.
Experience in developing accessible technologies.
Experience with heterogeneous multi-core and non-traditional memory topologies.
Expertise in one or more of the following areas: microcontroller/SoC firmware development, system-level RTOS development, underlying peripheral drivers and hardware introduction, embedded system security, performance optimization of ARM processors.
Learn about the Linux kernel and driver model.
Resources:
https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/14/22833801/google-augmented-reality-operating-system-ar-os-team-mark-lucovsky
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-lucovsky-5280034/
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/as-apple-and-facebook-embrace-ar-fully-google-takes-it-slow?rc=epv9gi
https://www.wired.com/2011/11/cloud-foundry/