Google is reportedly set to amass Canada-based eye-tracking startup AdHawk Microsystems Inc., one thing that may strengthen the corporate’s ongoing foray into XR headsets and glasses.
As reported by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Google is allegedly buying AdHawk for $115 million, based on individuals with information of the matter.
The deal is alleged to incorporate $15 million in future funds primarily based on the eye-tracking firm reaching efficiency targets. Whereas the acquisition is purportedly slated to conclude this week, a deal nonetheless hasn’t been signed, leaving some room for doubt. Moreover, ought to the deal undergo, the report maintains AdHawk’s workers will be a part of Google’s Android XR workforce.
This isn’t the primary time AdHawk has flirted with an acquisition by a key XR participant. In 2022, Bloomberg reported the corporate was within the remaining phases of an acquisition by Meta.
Notably, AdHawk is greatest identified for its improvements in eye-tracking, which replaces conventional cameras with micro-electromechanical programs (MEMS), which is alleged to lead to quicker processing and lowered energy consumption—two issues extremely prized by AR and good glasses creators immediately.
Its flagship product, the MindLink glasses, is a research-focused gadget that’s meant to attach eye actions with neurological and ocular well being, human conduct, and frame of mind, the corporate says on its web site. Moreover, the corporate affords its camera-free eye-tracking modules for researchers working with VR gadgets, akin to Meta Quest.
Whereas neither Google nor AdHawk have commented on report, Google is ramping up its XR division to compete with the likes of Meta and Apple.
In December, Google introduced Android XR, marking a decisive shift for the corporate’s XR efforts, as the corporate is bringing a ‘full fats’ model of Android to headsets for the primary time, which not solely contains XR-specific apps but additionally the total slate of Android content material. Android XR is ostensibly set to debut on Samsung’s Undertaking Moohan blended actuality headset, which nonetheless has no launch date or value.
Then, in January, Google introduced the acquisition of a variety of HTC’s XR engineers, a deal amounting to $250 million. On the time, Google stated HTC veterans would “speed up the event of the Android XR platform throughout the headsets and glasses ecosystem.”
Along with supporting its Android XR software program efforts, the acquisition of a novel eye-tracking startup would additionally show beneficial within the firm’s inside XR {hardware} efforts, which has been nothing in need of fragmented through the years.
Google has summarily cancelled plenty of XR initiatives previously, together with its Daydream VR platform in 2019, Google Glass for Enterprise in 2023, and its Iris AR glasses challenge in 2024.
