Google washes its hands of the AR product director, Nikhil Chandhok. As per Chandhok's tweet, he joined the Social media giant Facebook as product manager for augmented reality camera team.
Chandhok was previously working on Google ARCore smartphone's augmented reality platform and a VR platform called "Daydream". Previously, Chandhok co-founded AI startup Bento Labs, generating $2 million GV and First Round Capital, all AL-Startup projects.
Chandhok took the twitter and facebook to announce his recent shift to Facebook. Let's take a look at his tweet:
Today is my 1st day at Facebook! There are massive opportunities ahead for AR & I look fwd to joining Facebook as we bring more AR experiences to life - for more people!
— Nikhil Chandhok (@chandhok) January 29, 2018
Chandhok in his Facebook post wrote:
As I join the Camera/AR team at Facebook, I’m looking forward to building upon a platform that allows for the creation and discovery of global AR experiences everywhere. I’m especially interested in building more conversation and momentum in cross-platform camera services
As Google and Facebook are trying to develop AR as a major platform but they both don't have any significant plan for the AR project despite some high-profile reveals. After the platform was introduced, Facebook and Google are trying to figure out the way to make people raise their phone to see the Augmented Reality view of the real world.
Google's approach into AR is more developer focused as Google’s ARCore platform is wide open for developers to find out what to do with positional tracking on horizontal planes (on select devices). But Facebook is more updated with the users as it's Camera Effects is pretty famous but it lives inside Facebook Camera.
Long story short, Facebook hired Chandhok after they lost focus on what else to do with the AR system as he has a huge experience with the glasses as well as with Google’s ARCore, maybe finally FB can implement its plans.