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I don't think I've ever been in the midst of a conversation and thought "what this discussion needs is my opinion stated by a perfectly-animated poop emoji," though I concede I'm a sample of one. There's also been doubt among some I've spoken to post-Apple iPhone X event that you couldn't do Animojis with a regular front-facing camera and facial tracking. After all, Snapchat has cemented its relevance, in part, by doing just that across pretty much any smartphone.

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Today Google made a point to feature 6 new use-cases for ARCore. ARCore is Google's augmented reality toolkit for developers, and their examples this week are quite impressive. The most powerful show of AR power comes with virtual positioning of a smartphone within Google Maps Street View, updating a system that's already awesome.

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Admit it: you've pretended to be a Jedi, swinging a lightsaber and making "vroo-vroo" sounds. Now, you can put those hard-earned fighting skills to good use, with Star Wars: Jedi Challenges. Combining games and adventures from the Disney movies with a brand new Lenovo Mirage AR headset that brings augmented reality to a hitherto-unseen price point, it's finally a chance to test out your own Jedi talents.

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Google's ARCore literally loads to an Android device with the name "Tango Core". In other words, Tango is dead. Tango Core is available separately, and requires a Tango-compatible device to work. This is only one part of a grand scheme that is Google's future in augmented reality. Whether Google planned this before Apple's ARKit was revealed is irrelevant - because begun, this AR war has.

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Apple’s launch of ARKit, even just as a developer preview, opened the floodgates of augmented reality experiences on iOS. It seems rather ironic that Google, who was actually first in that space via its Project Tango effort, was seemingly left behind in ARKit’s dust. Fortunately for the Android faithful, Google is picking up the slack and is making a similar big push to bring augmented reality to the millions of Android devices in the market today. And Google is calling it, quite amusingly, ARCore.

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Lucasfilm and Disney have announced their second 'Force Friday' event, which they're simply calling 'Force Friday II.' The first Force Friday was held in 2015, and this upcoming one will be held on September 1, the companies say. Ushering it in will be an event Disney is calling 'Find the Force,' which is described as being an augmented reality-based treasure hunt that spans the globe. It's not quite what you're imaging, though.

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Right this minute the biggest names in smartphones are speeding toward the next "big thing" in mobile devices: Augmented Reality. Qualcomm is the latest company to make a public showing of their efforts with what they call "Qualcomm Spectra ISP, 2nd Generation." That' ISB as in Image Signal Processor, this paving the way for high-powered smartphone cameras that can do things we've never seen before.

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Apple is going all-in on 3D sensing, reportedly stocking up on huge quantities of components for its iPhone 8 augmented reality push. The Cupertino firm is believed to be using parts from laser sensing specialist Lumentum, which today confirmed a significant increase in demand. However, it also underscores earlier rumors that the most advanced of the features will only be in the flagship new iPhone this year.

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Apple's augmented reality glasses may be on the roadmap, but internally the iPhone-maker still hasn't decided exactly what they should do. Chatter of a pair of AR glasses, potentially packaging displays and cameras and capable of overlaying digital graphics atop the wearer's view of the real world, has circulated for some time. However, just as it's unclear from outside Apple what the specific purpose of the wearable might be, so it's reportedly not been settled upon within the firm.

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The next big thing from Apple won't be a piece of hardware - it won't be the fabled iPhone 8. The next big product to come from Apple will work on the next top-tier iPhone, but it wont work exclusively on that device. While it's the hardware we continue to focus on, and the hardware that's always easiest to discuss, it's something far more complicated (and yet exceedingly easy to work with) that'll change the way we see the world.

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While Google and friends were taking their sweet time, Apple opened the floodgates when it released ARKit. It revealed the nifty things that can be created and experienced with nothing but a smartphone, the very same premise behind Google Tango and Daydream. While these two technologies existed for quite a while, they existed in different worlds. Those worlds are finally colliding in the ASUS ZenFone AR, which can finally be yours. That is, if you’re a Verizon subscriber.

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A discovery this week in Apple software revealed a set of details about the iPhone 8 - or whatever it'll be called. Coming from HomePod Firmware, this code shows how the next new iPhone will have a new feature that'll allow biometric-based lock-opening. The scanner(s) required to make this happen may well threaten the surprisingly top-notch scanning abilities of Snapchat - easily the most-used app for Augmented Reality right this minute.

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