AR Headset

Qualcomm Reveals Snapdragon AR2 Processor for Glasses-sized AR Devices

November 16, 2022 From roadtovr

Qualcomm today announced Snapdragon AR2, its “purpose-built headworn augmented reality platform.” Differentiating from the company’s existing Snapdragon XR2 chips, Qualcomm says the AR2 architecture is better suited for creating AR glasses with low power consumption and compact form factors.

Today during Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit event, the company revealed the Snapdragon AR2 platform which consists of a trio of chips which the company says will help make truly glasses-sized AR devices possible.

Qualcomm was early to the standalone VR space and has been dominant with its Snapdragon XR2 chips which have found their way into many of the leading standalone headsets on the market, and are now in more than 60 devices total, the company says.

Aiming to take a similar bite out of the forthcoming AR glasses segment, Qualcomm has created a new Snapdragon AR2 platform with a distributed processing design. The platform consists of three chips:

AR processor (for sensor perception and video output)
AR co-processor (for sensor fusion and dedicated computer vision tasks)
Wi-Fi 7 chip (for communication to a host processing device)

By creating a more distributed workload across a main processor and a co-processor, Qualcomm claims AR2 is up to 50% more power efficient while offering 2.5 times better AI performance, and a more compact form-factor, compared to the single-chip Snapdragon XR2 solution.

Not only will the AR processor and co-processor help share a workload, Qualcomm also sees AR2 devices using the speedy Wi-Fi 7 chip to communicate with a host device like a smartphone or wireless compute puck that will do the heavy lifting like application processing and rendering. Qualcomm claims the Wi-Fi 7 chip (FastConnect 7800) can achieve 5.8 Gbps bandwidth with just 2ms of latency.

Using this three-chip framework for distributed processing, Qualcomm claims it will be possible to build compact AR glasses that consume less than one watt of power.

The AR2 platform supports up to nine concurrent cameras for a bevy of head-tracking, environment-sensing, and user-tracking tasks.

“We built Snapdragon AR2 to address the unique challenges of headworn AR and provide industry leading processing, AI and connectivity that can fit inside a stylish form factor,” said Hugo Swart, vice president of XR product management at Qualcomm. “With the technical and physical requirements for VR/MR and AR diverging, Snapdragon AR2 represents another metaverse-defining platform in our XR portfolio to help our OEM partners revolutionize AR glasses.”

There’s no word yet on when the first AR2 devices will hit the market, but Qualcomm lists a handful of partners actively working with the platform: Lenovo, LG, Niantic, Nreal, Oppo, Pico, Qonoq, Rokid, Sharp, TCL, Vuzix, and Xiaomi.

Quest Pro Revealed with Snapdragon XR2+, Face-tracking, & More; Ships October 25th for $1,500

October 11, 2022 From roadtovr

Today during Meta Connect the company finally revealed its high-end Quest Pro headset (formerly called Project Cambria). Priced at $1,500, the headset packs a new Snapdragon XR2+ processor along with a bevy of sensors for tracking the user’s expressions and the world around them for improved passthrough AR capabilities. Alongside new and improved controllers, the company also revealed the full Quest Pro specs, pre-order date, and release date.

Key Quest Pro Coverage:

Quest Pro Hands-on – The Dawn of the Mixed Reality Headset Era

Quest Pro Technical Analysis – What’s Promising & What’s Not

Touch Pro Controllers Revealed – Also Compatible with Quest 2

Quest Pro was just announced and is already available for pre-order starting today in 22 countries. Priced at $1,500 and with a release date of October 25th, Quest Pro is fully compatible with Quest 2 content while bringing improvements that will enhance passthrough AR functionality and social interactions thanks to face-tracking capabilities. Let’s take a look at the on-paper specs:

Quest Pro Specs
Resolution	1800 × 1920 (3.5MP) per-eye, LCD (2x)
Refresh Rate	72Hz, 90Hz
Lenses	Pancake non-Fresnel
Field-of-view (claimed)	106ºH × 96ºV
Optical Adjustments	Continuous IPD, contiguous eye-relief
IPD Adjustment Range	55–75mm
Processor	Snapdragon XR2+
RAM	12GB
Storage	256GB
Connectors	USB-C
Weight	722g
Battery Life	1–2 hours
Headset Tracking	Inside-out (no external beacons)
Controller Tracking	Inside-out (headset line-of-sight not needed)
Expression Tracking	Yes (eyes, face)
On-board cameras	5x external, 5x internal
Input	Touch Pro controllers (rechargeable), hand-tracking, voice
Audio	In-headstrap speakers, dual 3.5mm aux output
Microphone	Yes
Pass-through view	Yes (color)
MSRP	$1,500

Compact Optics & Form-factor

From a resolution and field-of-view standpoint, Quest Pro is actually quite similar to Quest 2, boasting an almost identical resolution of 1800 × 1920 (3.5MP) per-eye, but with a much more compact optical pipeline thanks to the use of ‘pancake’ lenses which moves the headset more toward a ‘goggle’-like form-factor than the old box-on-the-face of its predecessor. At 722g, Quest Pro is heavier than Quest 2, but may actually be more comfortable thanks to a rear-mounted battery for balance and a rigid headstrap.

And while the resolution isn’t higher, Meta claims Quest Pro has better clarity thanks to the headset’s new optics: a 25% improvement in sharpness at the center of the field-of-view, and a 50% improvement across the periphery (meaning larger ‘sweet-spot’ of clarity). As of now we’re not sure if those claims are merely about the lenses, or if they include the display as well, though we’ve reached out to Meta for clarity (pun intended).

Meta also claims Quest Pro includes a 500-element local dimming backlight which enables improved contrast up to 75% compared to Quest 2, while also allowing for a 1.3 times larger range of color.

New Controllers & Capabilities

Quest Pro’s controllers, which Meta is calling Touch Pro, are similar in shape but majorly upgraded under the hood. Gone are the tracking rings, which are instead replaced by three cameras which allow the controller to perform its own inside-out tracking. Not only does this make the Touch Pro controllers more compact, it also means they don’t need line-of-sight to the headset in order to maintain their position.

What’s more, the Touch Pro controllers feature improved haptics and new capabilities. The thumb rest of the controller has been angled and now includes a pressure sensor which allows for a natural pinch-like gesture. The controllers come with stylus tips which can be attached to the bottom, allowing you to flip the controller over to use like a bulbous white-board marker. The stylus even has a pressure sensor to determine how hard or soft you’re pushing against a surface.

Despite the new capabilities, the Touch Pro controllers maintain the same button and trigger layout as the Quest 2 controllers for full backwards compatibility with Quest 2 content. Touch Pro controllers are also the first from Meta that are rechargeable.

Though they are included with Quest Pro, the Touch Pro controllers are compatible with Quest 2 and can be purchased as an accessory for $300 starting later this year.

Better Sensing, Inside and Out

Quest Pro doesn’t just bring improved form-factor and controllers, the headset is also equipped with a bevy of sensors for better integrating the real world into the user’s experience, and better integrating the user into the virtual world.

Quest Pro packs five external sensors for passthrough AR capabilities, offering a higher resolution color view with improved depth-detection, making the headset better at understanding the geometry of the room around the user, and allowing it to more convincingly merge the virtual and real world.

The headset also includes five internal sensors for tracking the user’s eyes and face. In addition to using eye-tracking as input (potentially for things like foveated rendering), the sensors track much more information about the user’s face, allowing for significantly more expressive avatars than what’s possible on Quest 2.

Powered Up Processor

Given all the new and processing happening on Quest Pro, it’s a good thing the headset also sees both a processor and RAM upgrade. Quest Pro uses the newly revealed Snapdragon XR2+, an upgraded version of the processor that’s in Quest 2 but with better cooling, allowing for 50% more processing power. The headset also doubles the RAM over Quest 2 from 6GB to 12GB. As of now it isn’t clear how much of this increase in performance will be available to developers vs. how much will be retained for system functions like tracking.

More Features, Less Battery

Though Quest Pro includes a heap of enhancements over Quest 2, it comes with a cost… and not just in price. Meta says users can expect 1–2 hours of Quest Pro battery life. Luckily the headset includes a charging dock for both the headset and controllers, hopefully ensuring it’s ready to go whenever you are. Meta says the headset can charge to full from the dock in about 2 hours.

Complement Not Replacement, Says Meta

Meta says Quest Pro represents the company’s first entry in a line of “high-end” headsets, while Quest 2 and its progeny will continue to co-exist as an entry-level option.

Quest Pro is fully compatible with Quest 2 content, and while the headset is designed with an emphasis on passthrough AR (with an open peripheral view to keep users more grounded in their environment), the headset also includes magnetically attachable peripheral blinders to dial up the immersion for VR. A separate ‘full light blocker’, which blocks out even more of the surrounding view is available as a separate accessory.

– – — – –

Quest Pro is priced at $1,500 and pre-orders are available today, with headsets poised to ship starting on October 25th.

Magic Leap 2 Starting Price Positioned Slightly Less Than HoloLens 2, Release Date Set for September

July 12, 2022 From roadtovr

Magic Leap today announced pricing and release date details for the company’s latest AR headset, Magic Leap 2.

Magic Leap 2 Release Date and Price

Magic Leap 2 is finally set to officially launch on September 30th, 2022. The company says the headset will come in three versions priced for different groups:

Magic Leap 2 Base (for “professionals and developers”)

$3,300
One year warranty

Magic Leap 2 Developer Pro

$4,100
One year warranty
Access to developer tools, sample products, enterprise-grade features, and “monthly early releases for development and test purposes”

Magic Leap 2 Enterprise

$5,000
Two year warranty
Two years of access to enterprise features and updates
Manageable via enterprise UEM/MDM solutions

The headset’s starting price makes it clear that Magic Leap is positioning its latest headset as an alternative to Microsoft’s HoloLens 2; the $3,300 base price of Magic Leap 2 undercuts Microsoft’s offering by $200.

On September 30th Magic Leap 2 will release first in the US, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Saudi Arabia. The company expects the headset to launch in Japan and Singapore by the end of the year.

Magic Leap 2 Specs

Alongside the announcement of the headset’s price and release date, the company also shared an official list of Magic Leap 2 specs:

Field-of-view	70 degrees
Resolution	1,440 x 1,760
Refresh Rate	120Hz
Brightness	20 to 2,000 nits
Colors	16.8 million
Weight	260g
Camera	12.6MP autofocus RGB camera 4k at 30fps or 1,920 x 1,080 at 60fps video
Storage	256GB
Volume-of-view	37cm to infinity
CPU	AMD 7nm Quad-core Zen2 X86 core (8 threads) 14 core CVIP engine Up to 3.92 GHz max with 512kB L2 per core 4MB total L3 cache
GPU	AMD GFX10.2: 1SE 1SA 4 WGP (8 CUs) 2RB+ 1MB L2 Cache 964 MHz / Max 1.8 GHz
Audio	Built-in stereo speakers
Sensors	3x wide FoV World Cameras Depth Camera RGB Camera Ambient Light Sensor 4x Eye-tracking Cameras 4x IMU 3-axis Accelerometer and Gyroscope 2x 3-axis Magnetometer 2x Altimeter
Battery	3.5hrs continuous use 7hrs sleep mode
Security	WPA3 AMD Platform Security Processor TMR Security fencing between x86 and CVIP

Interested in Magic Leap 2? Check out our recent hands-on with the device.

Magic Leap is Selling Its First AR Headset for Just $550

May 24, 2022 From roadtovr

It looks like Magic Leap is holding a barn burner of a sale on its first AR headset, Magic Leap 1, as the one-time $2,300 device can now be had for $550.

As first reported by GMW3, Magic Leap appears to be flushing excess stock of the 2018-era AR headset via the Amazon-owned online retailer Woot.

The listing (find it here) is for a brand new Magic Leap 1, including the headset’s hip-worn compute unit and single controller. The sale is happening from now until June 1st, and features a three-unit limit per customer. Amazon US Prime members qualify for free shipping, which ought to arrive to those of you in the lower 48 in early June.

If you’re tempted, there’s a few things you should know before hitting the ‘buy now’ button. Users should be warned that since Magic Leap pivoted to service only enterprise users, that its Magic Leap World online app store isn’t likely to see any new apps outside of the handful that were released between 2018-2020.

Still, there are a mix of apps such as Spotify or room-scale shooter Dr. Grordbort’s Invaders which might be better suited as tech demos, giving prospective augmented reality devs a sense of what you might create for a bona fide AR headset, ostensibly in preparation for what devices may come—we’re looking at Apple, Google, and Meta in the near future for mixed reality headsets capable of both VR and passthrough AR.

Launched in 2018, Magic Leap straddled an uneasy rift between enterprise and prosumers with ML 1 (known then as ‘ML One’). Reception by consumers for its $2,300 AR headset was lukewarm, and messaging didn’t seem focused enough to give either developers or consumers hope that a more accessible bit of ML hardware was yet to come. Then in mid 2020, company founder and CEO Rony Abovitz stepped down, giving way to former Microsoft exec Peggy Johnson to take the reigns, who has thus far positioned the company to solely target enterprise with its latest Magic Leap 2 headset.

Here’s the full spec sheet below:

CPU & GPU

NVIDIA® Parker SOC
CPU: 2 Denver 2.0 64-bit cores + 4 ARM Cortex A57 64-bit cores (2 A57’s and 1 Denver accessible to applications)
GPU: NVIDIA Pascal™, 256 CUDA cores
Graphic APIs: OpenGL 4.5, Vulkan, OpenGL ES 3.1+AEP

RAM: 8 GB

Storage Capacity: 128 GB (actual available storage capacity 95 GB)

Power
Built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery. Up to 3.5 hours continuous use. Battery life can vary based on use cases. Power level will be sustained when connected to an AC outlet. 45-watt USB-C Power Delivery (PD) charger

Audio Input
Voice (speech to text) + real world audio (ambient)

Audio Output
Onboard speakers and 3.5mm jack with audio spatialization processing

Connectivity
Bluetooth 4.2, WiFi 802.11ac/b/g/n, USB-C

Haptics: LRA Haptic Device

Tracking: 6DoF (position and orientation)

Touchpad: Touch sensitive

LEDs: 12-LED (RGB) ring with diffuser

Power: Built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery. Up to 7.5 hours continuous use. 15-watt USB-C charger

Other Inputs
8-bit resolution Trigger Button
Digital Bumper Button
Digital Home Button

Qualcomm’s Latest AR Glasses Reference Design Drops the Tether, Keeps the Compute

May 21, 2022 From roadtovr

Qualcomm has revealed its latest AR glasses reference design, which it offers up to other companies as a blueprint for building their own AR devices. The reference design, which gives us a strong hint at the specs and capabilities of upcoming products, continues to lean on a smartphone to do the heavy compute, but this time is based on a wireless design.

Qualcomm’s prior AR glasses reference design was based on the Snapdragon XR1 chip and called for a wired connection between a smartphone and the glasses, allowing the system to split rendering tasks between the two devices.

Now the company’s latest design, based on Snapdragon XR2, takes the wire out of the equation. But instead of going fully standalone, the new reference design continues to rely on the smartphone to handle most of the heavy rendering, but now does so over a wireless connection between the devices.

In addition to Snapdragon XR2, the AR glasses include Qualcomm’s FastConnect 6900 chip which equips it with Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3. The company says the chip is designed for “ultra-low latency,” and manages less than 3ms of latency between the headset and the smartphone. The company has also announced XR-specific software for controlling its FastConnect 6900, allowing device makers to tune the wireless traffic between the devices to prioritize the most time-critical data in order to reduce instances of lag or jitter due to wireless interference.

Though a connected smartphone seems like the most obvious use-case, Qualcomm also says the glasses could just as well be paired to a Windows PC or “processing puck.”

Beyond the extra wireless tech, the company says the latest design is 40% thinner than its previous reference design. The latest version has a 1,920 × 1,080 (2MP) per-eye resolution at 90Hz. The microdisplays include a ‘no-motion-blur’ feature—which sounds like a low persistence mode designed to prevent blurring of the image during head movement. A pair of monochrome cameras are used for 6DOF tracking and an RGB camera for video or photo capture. The company didn’t mention the device’s field-of-view, so it’s unlikely to be any larger than the prior reference design at 45° diagonal.

Like its many prior reference designs, Qualcomm isn’t actually going to make and sell the AR glasses. Instead, it offers up the design and underlying technology for other companies to use as a blueprint to build their own devices (hopefully using Qualcomm’s chips!). Companies that build on Qualcomm’s blueprint usually introduce their own industrial design and custom software offering; some even customize the hardware itself, like using different displays or optics.

That makes this AR glasses reference design a pretty good snapshot of the current state of AR glasses that can be mass produced, and a glimpse of what some companies will be offering in the near future.

Qualcomm says its latest AR glasses reference design is “available for select partners,” as of today, and plans to make it more widely available “in the coming months.”

Reality Labs Chief Scientist Outlines a New Compute Architecture for True AR Glasses

May 2, 2022 From roadtovr

Speaking at the IEDM conference late last year, Meta Reality Labs’ Chief Scientist Michael Abrash laid out the company’s analysis of how contemporary compute architectures will need to evolve to make possible the AR glasses of our sci-fi conceptualizations.

While there’s some AR ‘glasses’ on the market today, none of them are truly the size of a normal pair of glasses (even a bulky pair). The best AR headsets available today—the likes of HoloLens 2 and Magic Leap 2—are still closer to goggles than glasses and are too heavy to be worn all day (not to mention the looks you’d get from the crowd).

If we’re going to build AR glasses that are truly glasses-sized, with all-day battery life and the features needed for compelling AR experiences, it’s going to take require a “range of radical improvements—and in some cases paradigm shifts—in both hardware […] and software,” says Michael Abrash, Chief Scientist at Reality Labs, Meta’s XR organization.

That is to say: Meta doesn’t believe that its current technology—or anyone’s for that matter—is capable of delivering those sci-fi glasses that every AR concept video envisions.

But, the company thinks it knows where things need to head in order for that to happen.

Abrash, speaking at the IEDM 2021 conference late last year, laid out the case for a new compute architecture that could meet the needs of truly glasses-sized AR devices.

Follow the Power

The core reason to rethink how computing should be handled on these devices comes from a need to drastically reduce power consumption to meet battery life and heat requirements.

“How can we improve the power efficiency [of mobile computing devices] radically by a factor of 100 or even 1,000?” he asks. “That will require a deep system-level rethinking of the full stack, with end-to-end co-design of hardware and software. And the place to start that rethinking is by looking at where power is going today.”

To that end, Abrash laid out a graph comparing the power consumption of low-level computing operations.

As the chart highlights, the most energy intensive computing operations are in data transfer. And that doesn’t mean just wireless data transfer, but even transferring data from one chip inside the device to another. What’s more, the chart uses a logarithmic scale; according to the chart, transferring data to RAM uses 12,000 times the power of the base unit (which in this case is adding two numbers together).

Bringing it all together, the circular graphs on the right show that techniques essential to AR—SLAM and hand-tracking—use most of their power simply moving data to and from RAM.

“Clearly, for low power applications [such as in lightweight AR glasses], it is critical to reduce the amount of data transfer as much as possible,” says Abrash.

To make that happen, he says a new compute architecture will be required which—rather than shuffling large quantities of data between centralized computing hubs—more broadly distributes the computing operations across the system in order to minimize wasteful data transfer.

Compute Where You Least Expect It

A starting point for a distributed computing architecture, Abrash says, could begin with the many cameras that AR glasses need for sensing the world around the user. This would involve doing some preliminary computation on the camera sensor itself before sending only the most vital data across power hungry data transfer lanes.

To make that possible Abrash says it’ll take co-designed hardware and software, such that the hardware is designed with a specific algorithm in mind that is essentially hardwired into the camera sensor itself—allowing some operations to be taken care of before any data even leaves the sensor.

“The combination of requirements for lowest power, best requirements, and smallest possible form-factor, make XR sensors the new frontier in the image sensor industry,” Abrash says.

Continue on Page 2: Domain Specific Sensors »

Canon Announces MREAL X1 Enterprise Headset with Larger FOV

April 22, 2022 From roadtovr

Canon announced its next enterprise XR headset, MREAL X1. The device, which offers passthrough AR, appears to be a modestly upgraded version of the company’s 2021 model, MREAL S1, as it boasts a field of view (FOV) that’s “2.5 times larger.”

The headset, which is detailed in an English language video (seen below), is said to make use of Canon’s proprietary display panels and optical technology, something the company says has allowed it to expand the FOV from MREAL S1’s quoted 45° × 34° to MREAL X1’s 58° × 60°.

The display resolution has also increased from 1,600 × 1,200 per eye in MREAL S1 to 1,920 × 2,160 per eye in the new X1 model.

It appears the company is also offering an optional grip-style handheld display configuration, effectively working like the one for Canon MREAL Display MD-20, which was introduced in 2020. The halo headset strap system, with front-facing adjustment knob, appears to be very similar to last year’s model as well.

“In particular, by expanding the longitudinal viewing angle, which was often requested by users, it is possible to check the entire view area without moving the head greatly,” Canon says in its Japanese language site, underlining the headset’s biggest upgrade.

Although the announcement video is dubbed in English, Canon has not made supporting information available in anything but the Japanese language, which suggests it’s again primarily targeting its domestic market like it has with other MREAL headsets in the past.

Additionally, the headset’s price is marked as “open,” which means you’ll likely need to partner with Canon Japan to get a pricing list. That said, if the steeply priced MD-20 model is any indication, it’s probably in the range of 10s of thousands of U.S. dollars.

Unlike standalone AR headsets such as HoloLens 2 or Magic Leap 2, which feature wave guide-based see-through optics, Canon’s tethered headset is a passthrough XR device, which literally passes real-world imagery through a pair of front-facing camera sensors and blends it with virtual images on a completely opaque conventional display.

If you want to learn more about different AR display methods, check out our primer on the differences between smartglasses and AR glasses.

Specs

MREAL X1
Connection
MREAL Display Body		dedicated terminals for interface cables (×1)
interface board		Dedicated Interface Cable Terminal (×1) Mini DisplayPort Terminal (×1) PCI Express 2.0 (Gen3) ×4 Card Edge (×1)
interface box		Interface Cable Dedicated Terminal (×1) AC Adapter Terminal (×1) PC Connection Cable Terminal (×1)
Size
MREAL Display body (head mount unit, interface cable not included)		Approx. 158 mm (W) ×86 mm (H) ×38 mm (D)
MREAL Display body + head mount unit (minimum state, interface cable not included)		Approx. 186 mm (W) × 150 mm (H) × 250 mm (D)
mass
MREAL Display body (head mount unit, interface cable not included)		approximately 158g
MREAL Display body + head mount unit (minimum state, interface cable not included)		approximately 359g
Cable Length
interface cable		approx. 10m (20m optional accessory)
display system
display angle of view		approx. 58° (horizontal) ×60° (vertical)
display resolution*4		approx. 3840 × 2160 (1920×2160 images on each left and right display)
display frequency		Approximately 120Hz*5
IPD Support Range
IPD range		approx. 55 to 78 mm (adjustment range) approx. 57 mm to 76 mm

Report: Microsoft Braces for Negative Field Tests of Military HoloLens

March 15, 2022 From roadtovr

Microsoft is supposedly gearing up to field test its HoloLens-based military AR headset, however a new report contends the company is bracing for impact, as it’s expecting negative feedback from soldiers.

Last year, Microsoft announced it had won a United States Army defense contract worth up to $22 billion which would see the development of a so-called Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS), a tactical AR headset for soldiers based on HoloLens 2 technology.

A Business Insider report, citing a leaked internal email, maintains that Microsoft has low expectations for its latest version of IVAS, which is set to begin real-world operational tests with the US Army in May.

Prototype testing (2019), Image courtesy CNBC

Microsoft’s IVAS contract has allegedly seen delays and quality problems. A separate Business Insider report from last month alleges its enterprise-focused HoloLens 3 may also be at risk due to internal issues within Microsoft’s mixed reality division surrounding whether HoloLens should serve consumers or continue courting enterprise companies.

A purported Microsoft Teams message from Mixed Reality division head and HoloLens co-inventor Alex Kipman paints a pretty depressing story:

“So depressed, so demoralized, so broken. I’m sure by now you’ve read or heard about one or two of the Business Insider articles that were published on us. On our private roadmap. On our customers’ confidential data … as a consequence of these articles and these individuals shameful actions, someone from finance already came to me to ask if we should lock down and not share so openly our numbers. Someone from marketing already came to me and asked if we should lock down and not share so openly our roadmap. Someone for from our National Intelligence and Security Team already came to me to ask if we should lock down our IVAS work.”

Kipman rebuffed the previously report of unrest, saying “don’t believe what you read on the internet.”

It’s said that soldiers may take issue with the device’s low light and thermal imaging performance, and that user impressions will “continue to be negative as reliability improvements have been minimal from previous events.”

That $22 billion is an upper target and not the full amount granted to Microsoft at present. And it seems confidence in the project isn’t very high at the moment, as US Congress has allegedly frozen $394 million from the Army’s IVAS budget, which Business Insider notes leaves only $405 million—around $200 million shy of what Microsoft supposedly needs to recover development costs.

Additionally, it’s also said some close to the project fear the Army will simply walk away from the contract.

Tons of New Magic Leap 2 Details Shed Light on Dynamic Dimming & More

January 27, 2022 From roadtovr

Although it’s expected to launch this year, there’s still no firm release date on Magic Leap 2. However, the company has begun sharing details on the headset which suggests the launch is approaching.

This week at the SPIE Photonics West 2022 conference, Magic Leap’s VP of Optical Engineering, Kevin Curtis, took to the stage to share a bevy of new details on the headset. Attendee Nataliya Kosmyna shared portions of the presentation alongside some portions which cropped up over at the AR XR MR subreddit.

During the presentation Curtis detailed Magic Leap 2’s bevy of sensors, optical stack, Android foundation, and more.

The most interesting details to come from the presentation are perhaps about the headset’s dynamic dimming capability, which is a first among commercial AR headsets.

Dynamic Dimming Lenses

Curtis shared that Magic Leap 2 can adjust the light transmission of its lenses from 22% to 0.3%. The former being something like sunglasses and the latter being closer to welding goggles. This wide range ought to make the headset usable even in very bright outdoor environments (though it will of course come at the cost of dimming the world around the user as well). Dynamic dimming is paired with a brightness range from 20–2,000 nits; combined, these capabilities should make the headset significantly more flexible than its predecessor, and similar headsets, when it comes to varied lighting conditions.

Also noted in the presentation, the dimming capability can refresh at 120Hz, and is “segmented” as well. The slides state this means that Magic Leap 2 lenses can “enable black,” presumably by selectively dimming only the part of the lens where black is needed in the image. On traditional transparent AR headsets it’s impossible to have ‘black’ as a color because black is the absence of light but the lenses have no way to stop light from passing through. Without access to the entire contents of Curtis’ talk, we don’t know how precisely the dimming capability can be segmented so it’s difficult to know if this will be a comparatively groundbreaking capability, or something more limited.

Curiously, dropping to the minimum 0.3% light transmission might even make Magic Leap 2 useful for fully immersive VR experiences where the real world is largely dimmed to make way for entirely virtual content. It remains to be seen if this is a use case the company is actively aiming for.

The Headset

About the headset itself, Curtis shared that Magic Leap 2 will come in just one size—a change from Magic Leap 1 which had a ‘large’ and ‘small’ variant. The reasoning behind having two sizes for ML1 appears to have been driven largely by a small eyebox and the lack of IPD adjustment, requiring two different sizes of the headset to try to cover a suitable range of the IPD spectrum. For Magic Leap 2, Curtis says the eyebox was doubled in size, apparently making it large enough for the company to move to a single headset size.

According to Curtis, Magic Leap 2 weighs just 248 grams (0.5 pounds). That’s a nearly 22% reduction over the original headset’s 316 grams (0.7 pounds), while furthering its lead in weight over HoloLens 2 which comes in at a much heftier 566 grams (1.2 pounds). Granted, Magic Leap 2 still relies on a tethered connection to a ‘Compute Pack’ which gives it a big advantage in the weight department over fully self-contained headsets.

ML2 will also include eye-tracking, with two cameras per-eye. As far as we know, that’s up from one camera per-eye on ML1, which could mean greater accuracy. Eye illumination is provided by six tiny LEDs which can be seen embedded in each lens.

It isn’t clear yet if Magic Leap 2 will have the same varifocal capabilities as ML1. Given the diagram shared by Curtis (further above)—which appears to show one waveguide per red, green, and blue color (instead of two per color as with ML1)—the feature may have been scrapped.

The headset will include a 12MP RGB camera for user-facing photo capabilities, like taking pictures & videos, scanning barcodes, and streaming video for ‘see-what-I-see’ use-cases. On-board audio is also confirmed.

Two key things we don’t know yet are the resolution and field-of-view of Magic Leap 2. According to Curtis, Magic Leap 2 has “double” the field-of-view of ML1 (which is 50° diagonal), though we expect this means double the area, not double any of the linear dimensions. The company has previously shared this comparison of the ML2 field-of-view vs. ML1 in which we can see most of the gain comes in the vertical direction.

Compute Pack

As for performance, Curtis indicates the Magic Leap 2 ‘Compute Pack’ will have 2–3 times the GPU & CPU performance of Magic Leap 1, including the addition of a dedicated co-processor for handling computer-vision operations, which he referred to as the CVPU (computer-vision processing unit).

Curtis didn’t specify Magic Leap 2’s processor, but the company has strongly hinted that it comes from AMD. Interestingly, Magic Leap 1 was based on Nvidia’s Tegra chipset, which was fairly novel for this kind of device.

AMD is also a somewhat novel choice for Magic Leap 2 as most devices in this category use chips from Qualcomm, including Magic Leap’s main competition, HoloLens 2. You may know AMD as a creator of desktop & laptop processors as well as GPUs, but the company also has a significant foothold in the console market as the longstanding provider of chips in Xbox and PlayStation consoles. Magic Leap 2 could represent AMD’s first significant entry into the XR space.

Magic Leap 2 also touts “more memory, storage, and battery life vs. competitors,” but we don’t have many specifics at this time. From the materials we have we know that ML2 will have USB-C charging, Bluetooth 5.1, and WiFi 802.11AX (AKA WiFi 6).

Continue on Page 2: Controller, Embracing Android »

HoloLens Optics Chief Joins Google Amid Reported Push for Upcoming Google AR Headset

January 21, 2022 From roadtovr

Bernard Kress, principal optical architect on Microsoft’s HoloLens team, has left the company to take on the role of Director of XR Engineering at the recently formed Google Labs. A report by The Verge maintains Google is also now gearing up to produce an AR headset that could directly compete with similar offerings from the likes of Apple and Meta.

Before joining Microsoft in 2015, Kress worked as principal optical architect behind Google Glass, the company’s smartglasses that found marked success in the enterprise sector after a rocky reception by consumers in 2013.

At Microsoft, Kress continued his work—principally focused on micro-optics, wafer scale optics, holography and nanophotonics—as partner optical architect on the HoloLens team, overseeing the release of both HoloLens and HoloLens 2.

Now Kress is back at Mountain View working on Google’s next AR headset. According to his LinkedIn, Kress has been leading the Optical Engineering department at Google Labs since November 2021—or right as Google shook things up by creating the AR/VR division.

And there’s no doubts about it: Kress says he’s focusing on creating consumer AR hardware at Google.

Hot on the heels of the strategic hire, a report from The Verge maintains Google is now gearing up to produce its own AR headset, which is allegedly codenamed Project Iris.

According to people familiar with the matter, Project Iris is said to ship sometime in 2024, although that date may simply be wishful thinking given the early stage of the project.

The prototype is said to be ski goggle-esque, providing a standalone experience with onboard power, computing, and outward-facing cameras for world sensing capabilities—similar in description and function to headsets like HoloLens or Magic Leap.

The standalone AR headset is said to use a custom Google processor running on either a version of Android or Google’s own Augmented Reality OS, which according to a recent job listing is currently in development.

Around 300 people are purportedly working on Project Iris, however Google plans to expand by “hundreds more.” Veteran AR/VR Google exec Clay Bavor is heading up the project, reporting directly to CEO Sundar Pichai.

Bavor is known for his work on Project Starline, an experimental light field display system created to be more natural way of chatting at a distance than conventional video conferencing apps. Bavor also oversaw the 2016 launch of Google’s Daydream VR platform (subsequently abandoned in 2019), and the development of ARCore, the software development kit for smartphone-based AR.

This comes as Apple is supposedly preparing to release a VR headset with passthrough AR capabilities (sometimes called ‘mixed reality), which reports maintain will come at some point in 2023 as a precursor to a dedicated Apple AR headset at some point afterwards.

Meta (formerly Facebook) is also working on its own VR headset with AR passthrough, codenamed Project Cambria, which may be positioned as direct competition to Apple’s own when the time comes.