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A high-profile director leading Googles augmented reality efforts has left the companyand took no time to blast his former employer.

Mark Lucovsky, the former head of operating systems on the search engines augmented reality team, hit out at Googles unstable commitment and vision as he announced his departure on Twitter.

The recent changes in AR leadership and Googles unstable commitment and vision have weighed heavily on my decision, he wrote on Monday.

Lucovsky was hired by Google in late 2021 to build an operating system and software for the companys smart glasses, codenamed Project Iris, and other augmented reality devices.

The Verge first reported on the existence of Project Iris in January 2022, describing the device like a pair of ski goggles. However, it later emerged that the ski goggles were actually a collaboration with Samsung, while Iris was a series of devices more closely resembling regular glasses.

But a recent report from Insider has revealed that Google has shelved its Project Iris plans to focus on building augmented reality software that it hopes to license to other manufacturers building headsets instead.

Now Google reportedly aspires to be the Android for AR, focusing on software rather than hardware, but the constant change in strategy in recent years has frustrated many workersincluding Lucovsky, whose last day at Google was June 30.

Moving forward, I am eager to explore opportunities that allow me to further advance Augmented Reality technology and its intersection with generative AI, he explained. I approach the next chapter with enthusiasm and anticipation for the exciting possibilities that lie ahead.

Lucovsky is a well-respected name in the tech industry with prior experience at Microsoft and Facebook where he helped build the Windows NT operating system andserved as the general manager of Oculus VR.

But the competition to find another role in the industry will be fierce, with Apples Vision Pro and Metas Quest 3 both already well on their way to the market.

Lucovskys departure is one of many in recent months at Googles augmented reality team, following a round of layoffs and the resignation of Googles former head of virtual reality, Clay Bavor.

Bavor, a Google veteran who worked at the company for almost 2 decades, left the company to launch an artificial intelligence venture with former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor.

We share an obsession with recent advances in A.I., and were excited to build a new company to apply A.I. to solve some of the most important problems in business, Bavor wrote in a Linkedin post earlier this year.

But its yet to be known whether Lucovsky will join forces with Bavor once again at his start-up.

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Google loses its top engineering exec for augmented reality as he blasts the companys unstable commitment - Fortune