After discontinuing its Daydream VR headset a few years ago, Google has started to ramp up work on an augmented reality headset. with his project Irisscheduled for launch in 2024, the company intends to catch up on its competitors Apple and Meta.
According to The Verge, the company would like to enter the race of augmented reality with a new helmet planned for 2024. For some time there have been rumors announcing the release of a helmet by Apple. For its part, Meta, via its name change, has made no secret of its desire to develop augmented and virtual reality equipment for its metaverse. Google needs to roll up its sleeves to stay in the game. Google CEO Sundar Pichai hinted last October that augmented reality was a “major investment area” for the company.
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According to several internal sources and the appearance of job offers on this subject, the future headset would use a custom Google processor that would outsource some of its onboard processing power to remote servers. Outward-facing trail cameras will allow computer graphics to be mixed with a real-world video feed for a more immersive experience. A probably house operating system would complete the whole thing.
Project Iris marks a return to a hardware category with which Google has a checkered history. The company had attempted a first foray in 2012 with Google Glass, these glasses that project information on the glasses. The product never really caught on with the general public. It also launched the VR Cardboard cardboard VR headsets discontinued in 2021, as well as its Daydream mobile virtual reality platform, discontinued after 3 years.
Moved by the competition which invests massively in this field, Google proposes with Iris, a project much more ambitious than its past attempts. The core team already numbers 300 people. Google plans to hire hundreds more. The project is supervised by Clay Bavor, who already manages the Starline project, a video chat room allowing you to recreate your interlocutor in 3D. Proof of the company’s growing interest in this technology, other senior executives have been involved in this project such as Scott Huffman, the creator of Google Assistant, Shahram Izadi, the head of ARCore, and Mark Lucovsky, l former responsible for the development of the internal OS of Meta. The Pixel division is also reportedly involved in some hardware work.
Development seems to be off to a good start for this future helmet. However, faced with the 10 billion annually invested by Meta in this area and the advance taken by Apple, which plans to release its headphones in 2023, Google still has some catching up to do. The company is still quite discreet about its project. We will have to wait several more months to know more about its progress.