Google is stoking the AR raging fire that already exists within the corporation. Google has agreed to purchase Raxium, a “five-year-old business that produces small light-emitting diodes for screens used in augmented and mixed reality gadgets,” according to The Information.
Micro LEDs, which can be used to build the small screens needed for AR devices, are the focus of Raxium’s research, however it has yet to deliver a commercial product. Micro LEDs will be the next big thing, and there isn’t yet a clear victor in that market. Today, almost everyone gets their OLED display technology from Samsung. Micro LED technology has been an area of interest for Apple for some time now, and the firm recently purchased a business named Plessey, which makes Micro LED displays. It’s worth noting that even the behemoth Samsung is considering entering this market with its own Micro LED TVs.
According to job advertising, Google is currently working on a “Augmented Reality OS” that may potentially reach “billions of people,” as well as a “Project Iris” AR headgear. It also purchased a firm named “North,” which created AR glasses that really looked like regular spectacles. In 2024, the “Project Iris” headset is expected to be released.
The Google Graveyard is enriched greatly by the contributions of VR and AR.
Since Google’s VR initiatives, led by Clay Bavor, currently VP of “Google Labs,” were also led by the same team, it’s fair to compare Google’s AR gear to those efforts. There were several purchases and hires made by Google in the years leading up to their VR endeavours in 2021. In order to ensure that the functionality it wanted will be included in future smartphones, Google met with chip makers and set out hardware specifications for OEMs. The business created a “VR OS” for Android, which includes a VR UI for the settings pages, a VR launcher, and a VR Play Store, as well as extensive hardware compatibility. “Tilt Brush” is a world-class virtual reality painting programme developed by Google for YouTube.
A million years of speculation resulted in items that are no longer in use today. From 2014 through 2021, Google Cardboard, a cardboard-based virtual reality headset powered by a phone, was available. Since 2016, Google Daydream has been a phone-powered plastic VR headgear with a tiny controller. Daydream standalone VR headsets were released in 2018 but were discontinued the next year along with the rest of Daydream. From 2016 until 2021, Tilt Brush was available for Android, then VR functionality was removed from the operating system. Daydream and Cardboard were well-received at first, but Google’s threshold for product survival is quite high.
AR/VR development also took place prior to the Daydream/Cardboard craze. Since its inception in late 2014 and ending in late 2017, Google’s Project Tango has pioneered the use of AR on mobile devices. Android’s ARCore, which achieves similar augmented reality effects with ordinary hardware, eventually replaced Tango. It’s still going on, and it’s going strong. Before that, there was Google Glass, which was never 3D augmented reality. Glass used a transparent lens to project a 2D smartphone-style interface into your eye. While Glass maintains that it is still in business and selling to commercial customers, the company’s consumer wing only existed from 2012 to 2015.
