Google has acquired quite a few HTC’s XR engineers, one thing the corporate says will “speed up the event of the Android XR platform throughout the headsets and glasses ecosystem.”
Google’s announcement of Android XR final month represents a important shift within the aggressive panorama, as Samsung will ostensibly be the primary to launch a headset operating Android XR. Pleasure for acquainted faces providing up competitors within the client XR house was tempered considerably by the standard questions surrounding Google’s capability to decide to the venture long-term.
Whereas Google has addressed a few of these underlying considerations in a Highway to VR unique, which you’ll learn extra about right here, that doesn’t scale back the laundry listing of services and products killed by the corporate over time, one in every of which incorporates Google Daydream, the corporate’s first actual try at coming into the XR house correct again in 2016.
Now, Google introduced it’s signed an settlement with HTC to accumulate quite a few HTC’s XR engineers. The main points of the settlement are nonetheless skinny, though it’s doable Google is tapping HTC for its {hardware} expertise in a bid to safe a extra stable basis within the fashionable XR section.
“We’ve been investing in XR for greater than a decade, and simply final month launched the Android XR platform with our strategic business companions,” Google says within the announcement. “Right this moment we signed an settlement to welcome a number of the HTC VIVE engineering staff to Google, which is topic to customary closing situations. They’re an extremely robust technical staff with a confirmed observe document within the VR house, and we’re trying ahead to working with them to speed up the event of the Android XR platform throughout the headsets and glasses ecosystem.”
Unusually sufficient, this isn’t the primary time Google paid prime greenback for HTC engineers. In 2017, the corporate shelled out a princely sum to intestine HTC of its smartphone engineering expertise, amounting to $1.1 billion. One yr later, HTC merged its smartphone and VR divisions, which signaled HTC was placing elevated emphasis on its XR ambitions.
Because the particulars of the deal aren’t public, the place that leaves HTC for now continues to be a thriller. The Taoyuan, Taiwan-based firm is principally concerned in producing XR headsets for enterprise and prosumers, resembling its newest headset Vive Focus Imaginative and prescient, a $1,000 standalone blended actuality headset that packs in a mishmash of specs from Vive Focus 3 (2021) and Vive Elite XR (2023).
That mentioned, HTC has dabbled with non-XR gadgets within the latest previous, though little or no to hold its hat on. In 2018, the corporate launched HTC Exodus 1, the crypto-phone that appeared encouraging sufficient for the corporate to launch its follow-up one yr later. In 2019, it launched an at-home 5G hub, which capitalized on the primary wave of buzz surrounding 5G. None of these gadgets are presently being offered by HTC, so we’ll simply have to attend and see.