AR’s Hardest Problem? The Engineering Lesson from Google Maps

Google software engineer Ohan Oda dives into the challenge of making Google Maps’ AR Lens work for visually impaired users, showing how a visual-first feature forced the team to rethink everything from sensor data and object detection pipelines to audio feedback and UI design. What seemed like minor tweaks snowballed into major technical and organizational overhauls.

His talk highlights that true accessibility in AR isn’t just about clever code, but also about breaking down silos between ML, hardware, UX and accessibility teams. For the full deep dive and all the behind-the-scenes stories, check out the transcript on InfoQ.

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