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Mindshow, the real-time CG animation company, unveiled its virtual production platform for enterprise partners looking to use XR headsets to speed up the animating process. The company additionally announced the appointment of David Baron as Chief Operating Officer, a founding executive at Hulu, and industry veteran of Fox Digital Media, Paramount, and Microsoft.

You might have heard of Mindshow when it first launched on Steam in 2017, giving anyone with a PC VR headset the ability to animate and capture everything from short skits to entire shows thanks to its virtual production tools. The app was delisted from Steam in 2020, ostensibly pointing to the company’s ambition to turn its once consumer-oriented platform into a enterprise toolset.

Now, Mindshow has unveiled that enterprise production suite, which allows select industry partners to animate in virtual studio sets using XR headsets, including Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest, merging real-time rendering with “asset ingest and character animation tools accessible across the entire production pipeline—from storyboarding to final pass,” the company says in a press statement.

Before its platform unveiling, Mindshow worked with a number of brands to create promotional videos and narrative content for Barbie, Hot Wheels, Monster High, and Enchantimals, as well as a slew of Cameos from Cheetos mascot Chester Cheetah.

While the company says it will continue to offer its full-service production studio though its Los Angeles-based location, the Mindshow platform is now available for licensing to select entertainment companies, sports organizations, and consumer brands.

The studio says Mindshow features proprietary lip-sync technology which converts pre-recorded audio into stylized animated facial performances and character movements. It also includes virtual studio cameras for in-app capture, motion capture for real-time character expression, and asset integration, allowing companies to rig existing 3D models for quick animation.

“Every step of animation requires a specialized tool—from assets to previsualization to rendering and review. This technical fragmentation bottlenecks creativity costing production teams time and money,” said Sharon Bordas, CEO of Mindshow. “Mindshow is purpose-built to integrate a growing ecosystem of virtual production capabilities as rapidly as cutting-edge content tools and technology hit the market, making studio-quality animation immediate and intuitive through a single platform.”

The company says its recent addition of streaming veteran David Baron as COO “underscores Mindshow’s commitment to scaling its enterprise software platform.”

Baron notes that Mindshow helps bands “move from concept to delivery in one production cycle, turning characters into multi-platform properties across social, streaming, previsualization, and beyond.”

Google has acquired a number of HTC’s XR engineers for $250 million, something the company says will “accelerate the development of the Android XR platform across the headsets and glasses ecosystem.”

Google’s announcement of Android XR last month represents a critical shift in the competitive landscape, as Samsung will ostensibly be the first to launch a headset running Android XR. Excitement for familiar faces offering up competition in the consumer XR space was tempered somewhat by the usual questions surrounding Google’s ability to commit to the project long-term.

While Google has addressed some of those underlying concerns in a Road to VR exclusive, which you can read more about here, that doesn’t reduce the laundry list of products and services killed by the company over the years, one of which includes Google Daydream, the company’s first real attempt at entering the XR space proper back in 2016.

Now, Google announced it’s signed an agreement with HTC to acquire a number of HTC’s XR engineers for $250 million. The details of the agreement are still thin, although it’s possible Google is tapping HTC for its hardware talent in a bid to secure a more solid foundation in the modern XR segment.

“We’ve been investing in XR for more than a decade, and just last month introduced the Android XR platform with our strategic industry partners,” Google says in the announcement. “Today we signed an agreement to welcome some of the HTC VIVE engineering team to Google, which is subject to customary closing conditions. They are an incredibly strong technical team with a proven track record in the VR space, and we are looking forward to working with them to accelerate the development of the Android XR platform across the headsets and glasses ecosystem.”

Strangely enough, this isn’t the first time Google paid top dollar for HTC engineers. In 2017, the company shelled out a princely sum to gut HTC of its smartphone engineering talent, amounting to $1.1 billion. One year later, HTC merged its smartphone and VR divisions, which signaled HTC was putting increased emphasis on its XR ambitions.

Since the details of the deal aren’t public, where that leaves HTC for now is still a mystery. The Taoyuan, Taiwan-based company is principally involved in producing XR headsets for enterprise and prosumers, such as its latest headset Vive Focus Vision, a $1,000 standalone mixed reality headset that packs in a mishmash of specs from Vive Focus 3 (2021) and Vive Elite XR (2023).

That said, HTC has dabbled with non-XR devices in the recent past, although very little to hang its hat on. In 2018, the company released HTC Exodus 1, the crypto-phone that seemed encouraging enough for the company to release its follow-up one year later. In 2019, it released an at-home 5G hub, which capitalized on the first wave of buzz surrounding 5G. None of those devices are currently being sold by HTC, so we’ll just have to wait and see.

Snap, the company behind Snapchat, is making its latest Spectacles AR Glasses more affordable to students and teachers with a new educational discount that cuts the $1,200 launch price in half.

Initially released in September 2024, the company’s fifth-gen Spectacles (called Spectacles ’24) are primarily targeted at developers, priced at $100 per month for a one-year commitment.

While Snap’s latest AR glasses made some key improvements over the fourth-gen device released in 2021, including a wider field-of-view, better resolution, the addition of hand-tracking, and an overhaul to its software stack, the price seems to have been a sticking point for students and teachers looking to build and learn about AR apps.

Now, the company is rolling out a new student discount that cuts the total price of Spectacles in half—just $49.50 a month for 12 months ($594), or a single payment of $594 and an additional $49.50 payment one month after ($643.50).

Those interested in nabbing the deal need a .edu email address, or other email address from an accredited educational institution. Students and teachers in all supported regions can take advantage of the discount too, which includes the US, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Austria, and the Netherlands.

You can learn more about about Snap’s latest Spectacles in our deep dive explainer from last year, including specs, capabilities, and software.

Even with onboard AI, Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses aren’t as smart as they could be, since the glasses lack any sort of display for doing simple tasks, like reading incoming messages. Now, a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman maintains Meta is not only looking to expand its line of smart glasses with the inclusion of a sportier model this year, but also a high-end model that includes a built-in display.

According to sources familiar with the situation, the report maintains that Oakley-branded smart glasses designed for athletes are set to launch this year. Additionally, Meta’s Reality Labs is reportedly preparing to release a new pair of high-end smart glasses featuring a built-in display, targeted for a 2025 debut.

Reportedly codenamed ‘Hypernova’, the high-end smart glasses will again be built in collaboration with EssilorLuxottica, the French-Italian creator of a host of eyewear brands, including Ray-Ban, Oakley, and Persol.

It’s also reportedly expected to cost around $1,000—a fair sight beyond the current model of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, which start at $300.

The report also makes mention of touch-sensitive frames or wrist strap controls as input methods, the latter of which was shown off with Meta’s Orion AR glasses prototype.

Provided reported details are true, the effort represents Meta’s next step in creating all-day AR glasses. Unlike Orion however, Hypernova is said to include a “small display,” according to a Financial Times report from December, which would likely to be used to show notifications or responses from Meta’s virtual assistant—not the sort of full-featured, stereo depth overlay expected from AR glasses.

If you wan to learn more about the differences between AR glasses and smart glasses, check out our handy primer.

Meta’s rumored next-gen smart glasses also represents a heating up of the segment. It was reported in December that Samsung would be unveiling its own smart glasses this month to rival Ray-Ban Meta.

The potential Samsung smart glasses reveal is rumored to take place at its January 22nd Unpacked 2025 event, where the South Korean tech giant is also expected to officially announce its line of Galaxy S25 smartphones.