Google snatches Sony's virtual guru "Magic Lab" – TechCrunch



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Google hired Richard Marks, the head of Sony's Magic Lab who was behind much of the company's VR efforts, to a position in his group Advanced Technology and Projects, reports from VentureBeat

to TechCrunch, sending a statement from ATAP Chief Dan Kaufman. "ATAP is at the crossroads of science and application where our goal is to solve important problems and bridge the gap between what is and what is." We are excited about the fact that Richard joins the senior team and looks forward to his contributions. "

According to LinkedIn, Marks spent the last 19 years at Sony, including as a researcher during his PhD at Stanford. Marks has been the public face of Sony's virtual reality efforts throughout the development of the company's virtual reality technology, but also worked on some of the computer vision technologies behind other products PlayStation

in search of gaming technologies for hardware and software of the next generation. One of the big emerging projects of the group was called "Project Morpheus", a forerunner of what would later be called PlayStation VR.

While Sony was eager to express its interest in virtual reality technologies and publishes its experiences with PS VR years before its launch in 2016, the technology platform has faces an uncertain future as helmet sales have failed to meet expectations.

The PlayStation VR headset debuted as a cheaper alternative started at prices that were hundreds of dollars more expensive, but after an aggressive decline in Oculus prices moved material margins downward across the table, the manufacturer of the console seems to have had more trouble distinguishing his efforts. In addition, while it seemed that Sony's efforts were ahead of a current generation Xbox VR, the company announced that it would not pursue a virtual reality headset for the Xbox One X, although that it is initially a sales argument.

It is unclear exactly where Marks will direct his attention on Google within ATAP, although the company certainly has a lot of effort in the AR / VR and gaming spaces that would benefit from his experience.

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