As fast as Hugo Barra announced his move to direct Facebook VR, it has also emerged that Google has officially recruited a senior new designer for its Daydream Virtual Reality mobile platform. Claude Zellweger, who most recently led HTC's Vive designs team and made some major contributions in developing HTC's smartphone design language, made the news public in his recent tweet.

On his tweet, he confirmed that he will indeed be joining the Google Daydream team.

Zellweger leaves HTC, joins Google

Zellweger, who is a senior designer for HTC's Vive, has joined the ranks of Google to work and shed some of his knowledge on its Daydream mobile VR platform. According to PhoneArena, HTC, the Taiwanese tech giant, has officially confirmed Zellweger's departure from the company, noting that his major contributions to the development and success of the Vive VR are greatly appreciated.

2017 will be the year of Virtual Reality

With these recent moves of VR designers, 2017 is starting to shape up as a big year for mobile Virtual Reality and AR, with Google's Tango and Daydream platforms setting the standards. According to The Verge, most, if not all, Android flagships of 2017 are expected to be Daydream-ready once they roll out.

Google is currently continuing its work and collaboration with other various phone makers to produce Tango-compliant devices with some advanced AR capabilities.

The future is bright for mobile

Despite the sudden move, Zellweger's departure from HTC isn't all that surprising at all, considering the direction in which the mobile industry is currently moving. In 2017, we are expecting to see more developers, hardware and software alike, transferring and shifting more of their attention and resources over to mobile technological advancements.

With that being said, we will be expecting some big news and updates coming from Google in terms of their VR and AR devices this year, as well as some amazing features that will come along with it.

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