Google is adding fuel to the fire of augmented reality that is burning inside the company. The Information reports that Google has closed a deal to buy Raxium, “a five-year-old startup that is developing tiny LEDs for displays used in augmented and mixed reality devices.”
Raxium hasn’t released a commercial product, but its work revolves around micro-LEDs, which can create the tiny displays needed for augmented reality devices. Almost everyone buys their OLED displays from Samsung today, but micro LEDs are expected to be the next big product and there is no clear winner in this market yet. Apple has been investing in the technology for some time, and in 2014 bought startup Micro LED, while Meta has partnered with Plessey on Micro LED technology. The Samsung Juggernaut is also showing interest in the market and is already selling Micro LED TVs.
Google’s latest wave of augmented reality development includes job listings for “Augmented Reality OS”that promises to reach “billions”of people, and “Project Iris”augmented reality headsets. The hardware division also bought North, which made augmented reality glasses that actually looked normal. The Project Iris headset is expected to be released in 2024.
VR and AR make big contributions to Google Graveyard
Comparing Google’s AR hardware to the company’s VR efforts over the past few years is fair, especially since VR has been led by the same team with the same leader, Clay Bayvor, who is now vice president of the Google Labs division. “. Google’s VR efforts from 2014 to 2021 included several acquisitions and hirings, as well as a flurry of rumors.
Google has met with chip vendors to make sure the necessary features will appear in future phones and laid out hardware requirements for OEMs. The company has built VR support into Android with more hardware support and what could be called “VR OS”with a VR UI for settings pages, a VR launcher, and a VR Play store. Google brought VR support to YouTube and created a world-class Tilt Brush.
There’s also a wave of AR/VR that happened before all the Daydream/Cardboard stuff. The Tango project, which brought augmented reality to phones for the first time with an array of specialized sensors, ran from 2014 to 2017. Tango eventually evolved into Android ARCore, which performs similar augmented reality effects using off-the-shelf hardware. These efforts are still ongoing.
Before all this, there was Google Glass, which was never 3D augmented reality. Glass was more of a smartphone-style 2D interface that was projected onto a clear lens in front of your eye. Glass insists it’s still alive and still being sold to corporate consumers, but the consumer wing lasted from roughly 2012 to 2015.