Final January, we revealed Google was constructing an AR headset, too — “Mission Iris” can be the corporate’s wager towards the then-yet-to-be-announced headgear from Meta and Apple. However now that its rivals have been revealed, Google is reportedly pulling the plug on glasses-shaped AR: Insider is reporting that Google has shelved its plans for Mission Iris, citing three individuals “acquainted with the matter.”
Based on the publication, Google is now centered on software program as an alternative of {hardware}. It’s constructing a “micro XR” platform it may license to different headset producers, very similar to how Google gives Android to a broad ecosystem of telephones.
Nevertheless, Insider suggests the ski goggle-like headset we initially talked about may very well nonetheless be within the playing cards — as Google is not creating all of them by itself. In February, Google, Samsung, and Qualcomm made an extremely imprecise announcement about how the three firms have been partnering collectively on a brand new blended actuality platform, and whereas we’ve heard nothing significant about it since, Insider’s sources say that Google’s goggles “have been really the foundations” of the upcoming Samsung headset.
It wouldn’t be the primary mission the place Samsung and Google collaborated to supply a cutting-edge gadget that Google wasn’t able to construct by itself. Google labored to switch Android to assist the Galaxy Fold line of folding telephones, lengthy earlier than launching its personal Pixel Fold this summer time.
Initially, we reported that Google needed to ship an AR headset in 2024. At Google I/O 2023 final month, Google VP Sameer Samat mentioned that the corporate would “share extra later this yr” concerning the collaboration with Samsung.
Insider studies that that Mission Iris was tormented by layoffs and shifting methods throughout improvement, and Google’s head of VR/AR Clay Bavor notably left the corporate 4 months in the past. Kurt Akeley, a distinguished engineer who we reported was connected to the mission, is now listed as “retired” on his LinkedIn web page. Two others are nonetheless listed as being concerned with AR, together with Mark Lucovsky, the corporate’s senior director of working methods for AR.
Google purchased AR glasses firm North in 2020 for an unspecified quantity. Primarily based on a fast LinkedIn spot test, many North staff, together with co-founders Stephen Lake, Matthew Bailey, and Aaron Grant, all nonetheless work for Google as of in the present day.
Replace, 7:49PM ET: Added that North’s co-founders nonetheless appear to work for Google.
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