New Google Controller To Have Location, Orientation Tracking

On Thursday, a patent application from Google was published, which shows how VR systems can enhance their understanding of the positions of our hands.

Earlier uncovered by Patently Mobile, the patent illustrates a VR Arm Model that enables a system to add the tracking data for the location of a controller in space as well as the orientation where the user is holding it. The key here is the rules of skeletal movement that it uses to estimate those relative to the user’s head.

That’s one of Inverse Kinematics’ neat applications, used in animation for creating consistent-looking, or natural movements based on a skeletal system rules. The system, in this case, knows exactly the position of the user’s head as well as which way it’s facing thanks to the sensors embedded inside the headset. In addition, when the user moves their head, the shoulder joint also moves, making the elbow and hence the wrist move too. Eventually, that moves the hand in standard ways along each axis.

Since Google has announced its Stadia gaming platform, its AR and VR designs have suddenly become more critical. They help us further understand the company’s strategies for such a system which can influence the future of gaming and the way it evolves from now on.

Last week, when Google finally revealed its new gaming platform called Stadia, the world had to pay attention. This vertically integrated gaming platform is expected to consolidate the whole gaming process from hosting and development to advertising and distribution. The final target is to combine two modern gaming industry’s pillars including fan-collected giants visiting Youtube to play games such as League of Legends, Apex Legends, and Fortnite or stream and game developers creating immersive digital worlds. However, there are certain reasons to doubt the success of Stadia, including too high latency, huge investment required, and high subscription fee. Anyway, we may have to wait another while to see how the service's going to work and how much of the gaming industry it will change.