Snap, the group behind Snapchat, announced, Wednesday, March 23, having acquired NextMind, a French startup specializing in brain-machine interfaces. This acquisition should allow the group to strengthen itself in the augmented reality sector. This should also allow it to get ahead of its competitors such as Meta or Apple and testifies to the attractiveness of this market for technological giants.
What if the future was augmented reality? Meta, Niantic, Apple, and many other tech companies are developing augmented reality tools. For many, the challenge is to support the development of the metaverse. Among these tools are usually augmented reality glasses, which would project the virtual world onto the real world. For many giants who work there, this type of glasses will one day become central to everyday life, like smartphones, which have, in a way, replaced computers.
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With NextMind, Snap offers itself a specialist in brain-computer interfaces
NextMind specializes in interfaces between the brain and a computer. The Parisian company has already presented a first product in 2020. For some it looks like a headband, for others a non-invasive headband, which allows you to control your computer, your VR headset or even unlock your iPad… by thought. The complete kit costs $400. This product, however, will be discontinued with the company’s integration with Snap. Regarding the 20 employees, they will be retained and will still work in France, but for the Snap Lab, responsible for the development of Spectacles glasses or even a future drone among other high-tech products.
The Spectacles are augmented reality glasses, currently intended for an audience of content creators and developers. Snap hopes to integrate “ brain computer interface technology (BCI) from the neuro-tech company in the next version of its AR glasses. No information on the amount of this acquisition was given. Before this takeover, the young French company managed to raise nearly $4.5 million and was valued at $13 million, according to PitchBook.
NextMind’s neuro-technologies could eventually solve the problem of interaction with augmented reality glasses. Image: NextMind.
However, there remains a major obstacle in the development of AR glasses: interaction. How to interact with what is projected on the screens of the glasses, without touching these same screens? Companies, such as NextMind, are developing solutions based on a brain-machine interface and therefore on thought.
The race for augmented reality
For more than a year now, Snap has been investing more and more in augmented reality. In 2021, the company bought WaveOptics, which makes augmented reality lenses and light projectors, for $500 million, its biggest acquisition to date. In January 2022, the display technology company Compound Photonics was acquired by the group. The acquisition of NextMind is therefore part of the Snap group’s strategy to distance itself from its increasingly numerous competitors. Many technological giants are indeed embarking on the AR race.
Facebook invested in this sector before renaming itself Meta, with the acquisition of CTRL-Labs for 1 billion dollars. This startup is developing an armband that can measure the electrical activity of muscles and transform it into a signal to control computers. A technology that could be of great use to Mark Zuckerberg’s group to make its metaverse as interactive as possible. For its part, Apple seems to be on the verge of launching an augmented reality headset within the next year or two. The Snapchat social network, for its part, presented its latest innovations in terms of augmented reality last November.
Brain-computer interfaces are also attracting more and more companies. It must be said that the potential is significant. One of the best known having invested in this sector for several years already is undoubtedly Neuralink, founded by Elon Musk. She is developing devices to be implanted directly into the brain. Despite the controversy, clinical trials on humans should arrive in 2022. The potential of this technology is significant, since it could, for example, allow paralyzed people to walk again.