XR Industry News

Lynx Confirms Android XR For Next Headset, Sony & XREAL Also On-board for Google’s OS

December 17, 2024 From roadtovr

Although Android XR isn’t properly open-source for the time being, Google hopes the OS will run on multiple partner headsets. While Samsung is said to be the first to launch an Android XR headset, Sony, Lynx, and XREAL are also planning to use the operating system.

Meta announced earlier this year that it intends to open its Quest’s Horizon OS operating system to third-parties, but now Android XR presents another choice for headset makers.

According to Google, Sony, Lynx, and XREAL are on board with Android XR.

Sony SRH-S1 MR headset | Image courtesy Sony

For Sony’s part, its SRH-S1 enterprise-focused MR headset is very likely the first target for Android XR. When we went hands-on with the headset earlier this year, the company was tight-lipped about whether it was building its own platform and where users could source content from. Android XR makes a lot more sense for the company than trying to build out its own XR OS and platform.

As for Sony’s current and future PSVR headsets, we expect they’ll continue to be tied directly to the PlayStation OS rather than switch to Android XR.

Lynx R-1 MR headset | Image courtesy Lynx

Lynx R-1 is a long-in-development MR headset that has struggled to make it fully to market. Part of that struggle, naturally, is building out a software stack that does everything an XR headset needs to do.

Lynx founder Stan Larroque tells Road to VR the R-1 won’t adopt Android XR, but future headsets from the company will. Making this move could well put the company in a better position for the future, by reducing software development costs and giving its headsets access to a larger ecosystem of apps and content.

XREAL Air 2 Ultra AR Glasses | Image courtesy XREAL

As for XREAL—a company building AR glasses primarily made to provide a large floating screen that projects content from other devices—it’s not clear yet exactly how they will use Android XR. But a good bet is that it will be the basis for future devices from the company.

While both Meta and Google are open to allowing their XR OS to work on third-party headsets, they’re still the gatekeepers. Neither Horizon OS nor Android XR are actually ‘open’ at this point. Only hand-picked partners can build on either OS.

But now that both operating systems are in play, there’s increased pressure for both to strive to be the ‘more open’ of the two. That pressure could quickly lead one or both companies to make their XR OS properly open for anyone to use.

Blackmagic’s New 8K Camera for Apple Immersive Video is Pre-ordering Now for $30,000

December 16, 2024 From roadtovr

Blackmagic Design has revealed full specs and details for its new URSA Cine Immersive camera, specially designed to shoot 8K VR180 footage for the Apple Immersive Video format. Pre-orders for the $30,000 camera are open now, with shipping planned for Q1 2025. A forthcoming update to DaVinci Resolve Studio (also made by Blackmagic) adds editing tools specifically for Apple Immersive Video, including support for calibration data from the camera.

Apple Immersive Video is a 180° 3D video format intended for playback on Apple Vision Pro. Early versions of Blackmagic’s URSA Cine Immersive are likely the cameras used to film Apple Immersive Video content currently available on the headset.

Now the camera is being made available commercially, with pre-orders available for a cool $30,000. Though certainly expensive, this is in-line with many other high-end cinema cameras.

The URSA Cine Immersive is specially made to capture Apple Immersive Video, featuring a pair of 180° stereo lenses, capturing 59MP (8,160 x 7,200) each, with 16 stops of dynamic range. The camera can shoot up to 90 FPS in the Blackmagic RAW format, which also embeds calibration data (unique to each camera) that’s carried into the editing process for more precise and stable footage.

The forthcoming update to the DaVinci Resolve Studio editing software will include features specific to editing footage from the camera:

Immersive Video Viewer: Pan, tilt, and roll clips on 2D monitors or directly on Apple Vision Pro
Seamless Transitions: Clean master files using metadata-based bypass for Apple Vision Pro transitions
Export Presets: Streamlined delivery to Apple Vision Pro-ready packages

Both Blackmagic and Apple hope the release of the camera and streamlined editing workflow will make it easier for filmmakers to capture and release content in the Apple Immersive Video format.

It’s unclear if the camera and editor will work equally well for capturing VR180 footage for playback on other platforms and headsets, or if there’s something proprietary to the Apple Immersive Video format that would prevent straightforward compatibility and multi-platform releases.

Hands-on: Samsung‘s Android XR Headset is a Curious Combo of Quest & Vision Pro, With One Stand-out Advantage

December 12, 2024 From roadtovr

Samsung is the first partner to formally announce a new MR headset based on the newly announced Android XR. The device, codenamed “Project Moohan,” is planned for consumer release in 2025. We went hands on with an early version.

Note: Samsung and Google aren’t yet sharing any key details for this headset like resolution, weight, field-of-view, or price. During my demo I also wasn’t allowed to capture photos or videos, so we only have an official image for the time being.

If I told you that Project Moohan felt like a mashup between Quest and Vision Pro, you’d probably get the idea that it has a lot of overlapping capabilities. But I’m not just making a rough analogy. Just looking at the headset, it’s clear that it has taken significant design cues from Vision Pro. Everything from colors to button placement to calibration steps, make it unmistakably aware of other products on the market.

And then on the software side, if I had told you “please make an OS that mashes together Horizon OS and VisionOS,” and you came back to me with Android XR, I’d say you nailed the assignment.

It’s actually uncanny just how much Project Moohan and Android XR feel like a riff on the two other biggest headset platforms.

But this isn’t a post to say someone stole something from someone else. Tech companies are always borrowing good ideas and good designs from each other—sometimes improving them along the way. So as long as Android XR and Project Moohan got the good parts of others, and avoided the bad parts, that’s a win for developers and users.

And many of the good parts do indeed appear to be there.

Hands-on With Samsung Project Moohan Android XR Headset

Starting from the Project Moohan hardware—it’s a good-looking device, no doubt. It definitely has the ‘goggles’-style look of Vision Pro, as well as a tethered battery pack (not pictured above).

But where Vision Pro has a soft strap (that I find rather uncomfortable without a third-party upgrade), Samsung’s headset has a rigid strap with tightening dial, and an overall ergonomic design that’s pretty close to Quest Pro. That means an open-peripheral design which is great for using the headset for AR. Also like Quest Pro, the headset has some magnetic snap-on blinders for those that want a blocked-out peripheral for fully immersive experiences.

And though the goggles-look and even many of the button placements (and shapes) are strikingly similar to Vision Pro, Project Moohan doesn’t have an external display to show the user’s eyes. Vision Pro’s external ‘EyeSight’ display has been criticized by many, but I maintain it’s a desirable feature, and one that I wish Project Moohan had. Coming from Vision Pro, it’s just kind of awkward to not be able to ‘see’ the person wearing the headset, even though they can see you.

Samsung has been tight-lipped about the headset’s tech details, insisting that it’s still a prototype. However, we have learned the headset is running a Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 processor, a more powerful version of the chip in Quest 3 and Quest 3S.

In my hands-on I was able to glean a few details. For one, the headset is using pancake lenses with automatic IPD adjustment (thanks to integrated eye-tracking). The field-of-view feels smaller than Quest 3 or Vision Pro, but before I say that definitively, I first need to try different forehead pad options (confirmed to be included) which may be able to move my eyes closer to the lenses for a wider field-of-view.

From what I got to try however, the field-of-view did feel smaller—albeit, enough to still feel immersive—and so did the sweet spot due to brightness fall-off toward the outer edges of the display. Again, this is something that may improve if the lenses were closer to my eyes, but the vibe I got for now is that, from a lens standpoint, Meta’s Quest 3 is still leading, followed by Vision Pro, with Project Moohan a bit behind.

Although Samsung has confirmed that Project Moohan will have its own controllers, I didn’t get to see or try them yet. I was told they haven’t decided if the controllers will ship with the headset by default or be sold separately.

So it was all hand-tracking and eye-tracking input in my time with the headset. Again, this was a surprisingly similar mashup of both Horizon OS and VisionOS. You can use raycast cursors like Horizon OS or you can use eye+pinch inputs like VisionOS. The Samsung headset also includes downward-facing cameras so pinches can be detected when your hands are comfortably in your lap.

When I actually got to put the headset on, the first thing I noticed was how sharp my hands appeared to be. From memory, the headset’s passthrough cameras appear to have a sharper image than Quest 3 and less motion blur than Vision Pro (but I only got to test in excellent lighting conditions). Considering though how my hands seemed sharp but things further away seemed less so, it almost felt like the passthrough cameras might have been focused at roughly arms-length distance.

Continue on Page 2: Inside Android XR »

Inside Android XR

Anyway, onto Android XR. As said, it’s immediately comparable to a mashup of Horizon OS and VisionOS. You’ll see the same kind of ‘home screen’ as Vision Pro, with app icons on a transparent background. Look and pinch to select one and you get a floating panel (or a few) containing the app. It’s even the same gesture to open the home screen (look at your palm and pinch).

The system windows themselves look closer to those of Horizon OS than VisionOS, with mostly opaque backgrounds and the ability to move the window anywhere by reaching for an invisible frame that wraps around the entire panel.

In addition to flat apps, Android XR can do fully immersive stuff too. I got to see a VR version of Google Maps which felt very similar to Google Earth VR, allowing me to pick anywhere on the globe to visit, including the ability to see locations like major cities modeled in 3D, Street View imagery, and, newly, volumetric captures of interior spaces.

While Street View is monoscopic 360 imagery, the volumetric captures are rendered in real-time and fully explorable. Google said this was a gaussian splat solution, though I’m not clear on whether it was generated from existing interior photography that’s already available on standard Google Maps, or if it required a brand new scan. It wasn’t nearly as sharp as you’d expect from a photogrammetry scan, but not bad either. Google said the capture was running on-device and not streamed, and that sharpness is expected to improve over time.

Google Photos has also been updated for Android XR, including the ability to automatically convert any existing 2D photo or video from your library into 3D. In the brief time I had with it, the conversions looked really impressive; similar in quality to the same feature on Vision Pro.

YouTube is another app Google has updated to take full advantage of Android XR. In addition to watching regular flatscreen content on a large, curved display, you can also watch the platform’s existing library of 180, 360, and 3D content. Not all of it is super high quality, but it’s nice that it’s not being forgotten—and will surely be added to as more headsets are able to view this kind of media.

Google also showed me a YouTube video that was originally shot in 2D but automatically converted to 3D to be viewed on the headset. It looked pretty good, seemingly similar in quality to the Google Photos 3D conversion tech. It wasn’t made clear whether this is something that YouTube creators would need to opt-in to have generated, or something YouTube would just do automatically. I’m sure there’s more details to come.

The Stand-out Advantage (for now)

Android XR and Project Moohan, both from a hardware and software standpoint, feel very much like a Google-fied version of what’s already on the market. But what it clearly does better than any other headset right now is conversational AI.

Google’s AI agent, Gemini (specifically the ‘Project Astra‘ variant) can be triggered right from the home screen. Not only can it hear you, but it can see what you see in both the real world and the virtual world—continuously. Its ongoing perception of what you’re saying and what you’re seeing makes it feel smarter, better integrated, and more conversational than the AI agents on contemporary headsets.

Yes, Vision Pro has Siri, but Siri can only hear you and is mostly focused on single-tasks rather than an ongoing conversation.

And Quest has an experimental Meta AI agent that can hear you and see what you’re seeing—but only the real world. It has no sense of what virtual content is in front of you, which creates a weird disconnect. Meta says this will change eventually, but for now that’s how it works. And in order to ‘see’ things, you have to ask it a question about your environment and then stand still while it makes a ‘shutter’ sound, then starts thinking about that image.

Gemini, on the other hand, gets something closer to a low framerate video feed of what you’re seeing in both the real and virtual worlds; which means no awkward pauses to make sure you’re looking directly at the thing you asked about as a single picture is taken.

Gemini on Android XR also has a memory about it, which gives it a boost when it comes to contextual understanding. Google says it has a rolling 10-minute memory and retains “key details of past conversations,” which means you can refer not only to things you talked about recently, but also things you saw.

I was shown what is by now becoming a common AI demo: you’re in a room filled with stuff and you can ask questions about it. I tried to trip the system up with a few sly questions, and was impressed at its ability to avoid the diversions.

I used Gemini on Android XR to ask it to translate sign written in Spanish into English. It quickly gave me a quick translation. Then I asked it to translate another nearby sign into French—knowing full well that this sign was already in French. Gemini had no problem with this, and correctly noted, “this sign is already in French, it says [xyz],” and it even said the French words in a French accent.

I moved on to asking about some other objects in the room, and after it had been a few minutes since asking about the signs, I asked it “what did that sign say earlier?” It knew what I was talking about and read the French sign aloud. Then I said “what about the one before that?”….

A few years ago this question—”what about the one before that?”—would have been a wildly challenging question for any AI system (and it still is for many). Answering it correctly requires multiple levels of context from our conversation up to that point, and an understanding of how the thing I had just asked about relates to another thing we had talked about previously.

But it knew exactly what I meant, and quickly read the Spanish sign back to me. Impressive.

Gemini on Android XR can also do more than just answer general questions. It remains to be seen how deep this will be at launch, but Google showed me a few ways that Gemini can actually control the headset.

For one, asking it to “take me to the Eiffel tower,” pulls up an immersive Google Maps view so I can see it in 3D. And since it can see virtual content as well as real, I can continue having a fairly natural conversation, with questions like “how tall is it?” or “when was it built?”

Gemini can also fetch specific YouTube videos that it thinks are the right answer to your query. So saying something like “show a video of the view from the ground,” while looking at the virtual Eiffel tower, will pop up a YouTube video to show what you asked for.

Ostensibly Gemini on Android XR should also be able to do the usual assistant stuff that most phone AI can do (ie: send text messages, compose an email, set reminders), but it will be interesting to see how deep it will go with XR-specific capabilities.

Gemini on Android XR feels like the best version of an AI agent on a headset yet (including what Meta has right now on their Ray-Ban smartglasses) but Apple and Meta are undoubtedly working toward similar capabilities. How long Google can maintain the lead here remains to be seen.

Gemini on Project Moohan feels like a nice value-add when using the headset for spatial productivity purposes, but its true destiny probably lies on smaller, everyday wearable smartglasses, which I also got to try… but more on that in another article.

Google Announces Android XR Operating System Alongside Samsung MR Headset

December 12, 2024 From roadtovr

Google today announced Android XR, a new core branch of Android, designed as a spatial operating system for XR headsets and glasses. The company is pitching this as a comprehensive spatial computing platform, and hopes to establish its own territory in the XR landscape against incumbents Meta and Apple.

Google has revealed Android XR and it’s basically what the name implies: a full-blown version of Android that’s been adapted to run on XR headsets, supports the entire existing library of flat Android apps, and opens the door to “spatialized” versions of those apps, as well as completely immersive VR content.

Samsung’s newly announced headset, codenamed Project Moohan, will be the first MR headset to launch with Android XR next year. Check out our early hands-on with the headset.

Samsung Project Moohan | Image courtesy Google

Google tells us that Android apps currently on the Play Store will be available on immersive Android XR headsets by default, with developers able to opt-out if they choose. That means a huge library of existing flat apps will be available on the device on day one—great for giving the headset a baseline level of productivity.

That includes all of Google’s major first-party apps like Chrome, Gmail, Calendar, Drive, and more. Some of Google’s apps have been updated to uniquely take advantage of Android XR (or, as Google says, they have been “spatialized”).

Google TV, for instance, can be watched on a large, curved screen, with info panels popping out of the main window for better use of real-estate.

Google Photos has been redesigned with a layout that’s unique to Android XR, and the app can automatically convert photos and videos to 3D (with pretty impressive results).

YouTube not only supports a large curved screen for viewing but also supports the platform’s existing library of 360, 180, and 3D content.

Chrome supports multiple browser windows for multi-tasking while web-browsing, which pairs nicely with Android XR’s built-in support for bluetooth mice and keyboards.

And Google Maps has a fully immersive view that’s very similar to Google Earth VR, including the ability to view Street View photography and newly added volumetric captures of business interiors and other places (based on gaussian splats).

Functionally, this is all pretty similar to what Apple is doing with VisionOS, but Android flavored.

Where Android XR significantly differentiates itself is through its AI integration. Gemini is built right into Android XR. But this goes far beyond a chat agent. Gemini on Android XR is a conversational agent which allows you to have free-form voice conversations about what you see in both the real world and the virtual world. That means you can ask it for help in an app that’s floating in front of you, or ask it something about things you see around you via passthrough.

Apple has Siri on VisionOS, but it can’t see anything in or out of the headset. Meta has an experimental AI on Horizon OS that can see things in the real world around you, but it can’t see things in the virtual world. Gemini’s ability to consider both real and virtual content makes it feel more seamlessly integrated into the system and more useful.

Android XR is designed to power not only immersive MR headsets, but smartglasses too. In the near-term, Google envisions Android XR smartglasses as HUD-like companions to your smartphone, rather than full AR.

Prototype Android XR smartglasses | Image courtesy Google

And it’s Gemini that forms the core of Google’s plans for Android XR on smartglasses. The near-term devices for this use-case are compact glasses that can actually pass for regular-looking glasses, and offer small displays floating in your field-of-view for HUD-like informational purposes, as well as audio feedback for conversations with Gemini. Uses like showing texts, directions, or translations are being shown. Similar to Android XR on an MR headset, these smartglasses are almost certain to be equipped with cameras, giving Gemini the ability to see and respond to things you see.

It’s a lot like what Google Glass was doing a decade ago, but sleeker and much smarter.

While no specific smartglasses products have been announced for Android XR yet, Google and Samsung have been collaborating on an MR headset called “Project Moohan,” which Samsung will launch to consumers next year.

When it comes to development, Google is supporting a wide gamut of dev pathways. For devs building with Android Studio, a new Jetpack XR SDK extends that workflow to help developers create spatial versions of their existing flat apps. This includes a new Android XR Emulator for testing Android XR apps without a headset. Unity is also supported through a new Android XR Extension, as well as WebXR and OpenXR.

Google also says it’s bringing new capabilities to OpenXR through vendor extensions, including the following:

AI-powered hand mesh, designed to adapt to the shape and size of hands to better represent the diversity of your users
Detailed depth textures that allow real world objects to occlude virtual content
Sophisticated light estimation, for lighting your digital content to match real-world lighting conditions
New trackables that let you bring real world objects like laptops, phones, keyboards, and mice into a virtual environment

On the design side, Google has updated its ‘Material Design’ to include new components and layouts that automatically adapt for spatial apps.

Developers interested in building for Android XR can reach out via this form to express interest in an Android XR Developer Bootcamp coming in 2025.

PSVR 2 Sale is Still Going Strong After 20x Spike in Black Friday Sales Volume

December 10, 2024 From roadtovr

Black Friday brought the best PSVR 2 sale we’ve seen yet, and even though Black Friday is gone, Sony has kept the sale rolling. You can still get the PSVR 2 Horizon Call of the Mountain bundle for just $350, a 42% discount over the usual price.

Sony dropped its Black Friday PSVR 2 sale well ahead of the actual day… and now the deal has continued well beyond Cyber Monday.

The $350 deal on the PSVR 2 Horizon Call of the Mountain bundle is the best price we’ve seen for the bundle yet, compared to a usual price of $600. The sale has led to a huge sales spike for the headset on Amazon US, pushing it up nearly 20-fold compared to the months prior.

Though these are great numbers for PSVR 2 historically, Quest has been pushing around 10x more sales volume on Amazon US during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday period.

The amount of the discount (42% off), the length of the sale, and the fact that the non-bundle of the headset is seemingly not available on Amazon US at the moment, suggests there might be an ulterior strategy at play. One the one hand it’s possible Sony is dumping stock. This is probably not because its discontinuing the headset, but there could be a new model (with minor changes, as they have done before) or new bundle on the way, or they’re preparing for a permanent price cut. On the other hand, perhaps they’re just happy with the performance of the sale and want to keep it going.

Meta Announces Multi-year Exclusive Agreement for Spatial Content with James Cameron’s 3D Studio

December 6, 2024 From roadtovr

Meta announced it’s partnering with Lightstorm Vision, James Cameron’s 3D film studio, to produce spatial content across multiple genres, including live events and full-length entertainment.

The agreement includes the production of live sports and concerts, feature films, and TV series featuring “big-name IP,” Meta says in a recent blog post, noting that Quest will be Lightstorm Vision’s the exclusive MR hardware platform.

Meta says the collaboration with Lightstorm Vision will include the co-production of original stereoscopic content, but also be geared towards “improving content creators’ ability to make high-quality stereoscopic content through the use of advanced tooling, including employing AI.”

The multi-year partnership was struck after Meta CTO and Reality Labs head Andrew Bosworth demoed some of the company’s latest hardware to Cameron.

“I was amazed by its transformational potential and power, and what it means for content creators globally,” Cameron says. “I’m convinced we’re at a true, historic inflection point. Navigating that future with Meta will ensure ALL of us have the tools to create, experience, and enjoy new and mind-blowing forms of media.”

Cameron is best known for his writing and directorial work on a slew of box office hits, including The Terminator (1984), Aliens (1986), The Abyss (1989), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Titanic (1997), as well as Avatar (2009) and its sequels.

The filmmaker is also a long-time supporter of 3D, having helped kickstart the rash of 3D films in the 2010s with the development of the Fusion Camera System, which was used to capture stereoscopic 3D for a number of films, including Avatar, Tron: Legacy (2010), and Life of Pi (2012).

Samsung Reportedly Set to Unveil Smart Glasses at Galaxy S25 Event in January

December 3, 2024 From roadtovr

A recent report from South Korea’s Yonhap News maintains Samsung is set to unveil a pair of XR glasses at its annual Unpacked product event, which is expected to take place sometime next month.

Samsung promised back in July we’d be hearing more about its forthcoming “XR platform” before the end of this year, which it’s developing in partnership with Google and Qualcomm.

We still don’t know precisely what form its “XR platform” will take, with previous rumors suggesting work on an Apple Vision Pro competitor in addition to a Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses competitor, as reported in October by The Information.

Now, a Yonhap News report (via Techradar) maintains Samsung is expected to unveil some sort of device on stage, coming in the shape of “regular glasses or sunglasses, and weigh[ing] around 50g.”

The report notes the device is expected to have a payment function, gesture recognition, and facial recognition, and further maintains industry insiders expect the product to launch around Q3 2025. Its Android-powered XR software is also expected to be unveiled sometime this month.

While Yonhap calls the device “AR glasses” (machine translated from Korean), the rumored weight and the lack of any mention of built-in displays suggests it may be closer in function to Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses instead of something like Meta’s Orion AR glasses prototype.

You can read more about the difference between AR glasses and smart glasses in our handy primer, although here’s the short of it: smart glasses don’t overlay immersive imagery, instead providing the user with access to data you might otherwise use on a smartphone or smartwatch, be it a visual heads-up display, or audio output, such as the case of Ray-Ban Meta. AR headsets on the other hand do overlay immersive imagery, like HoloLens 2 or Meta Orion, and are consequently more expensive and difficult to build as a result.

Provided Samsung is indeed releasing a pair of smart glasses and not a full-fledged AR device, it would be in good company. According to Meta, its smart glasses partnership with Ray-Ban has been very successful since the product’s initial release in 2021, prompting Meta to extend its smart glasses collaboration with parent company EssilorLuxottica into 2030. China’s Xiaomi is also reportedly preparing such a device with the help of long-standing ODM Goertek, which is reported to “fully benchmark” against Ray-Ban Meta.

Notably, this follows a string of Samsung trademarks ostensibly geared towards the next generation of XR devices. In mid-2023, the South Korean tech giant filed the name ‘Samsung Glasses’ with the UK’s Intellectual Property Office. In early 2024, Samsung filed a similar trademark request with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for ‘Galaxy Glasses’.

Whatever the case, Samsung hasn’t intimated when Unpacked will kick off, which typically takes place in January or February. An Android Police report suggests however the date has leaked: January 23rd in San Francisco, California.

Varjo Launches ‘Teleport’ Service to Easily Scan Real Places and Bring Them into VR

November 25, 2024 From roadtovr

Varjo, the high-end XR headset creator, today announced the release of a new smartphone-based 3D scanning service for enterprise that promises to let users quickly build photorealistic environments and explore them in both VR and on traditional screens.

Called Teleport, the paid app allows users to capture and recreate real-world locations, something the Finland-based company says takes just 5–10 minutes, which is notably faster than traditional photogrammetry methods.

Supported capture devices include iPhones and iPads running iOS 17 or later, which includes a fairly large swath of hardware—from iPhone XR and above, and Apple’s 8th gen iPad and above.

The resultant “digital twins” can be accessed on phones, PCs, or explored with either Varjo’s XR headsets or other major PC VR headsets, the company says.

Powered by advances in Gaussian Splatting and NVIDIA GPU-trained generative models, Teleport’s 3D models are processed in the cloud and then rendered on-device, which means an Internet connection is only required to initially download the model, but not explore it.

Priced at $30 per month, Varjo is currently offering a seven-day free trial of Teleport. Signing up also allows users to view a host of captures for free in standard and high-definition via its web viewer, as well as the highest-level quality captures via its desktop client.

The launch of Teleport comes alongside an expansion of Varjo’s Series D funding round, bringing in new investors such as Beyond Capital, Nishikawa Communications, and NVIDIA. Varjo hasn’t disclosed to amount of its latest funding raise, however the company tells Road to VR this brings its lifetime funding to approximately €180 million ($188 million USD).

The company says funding will support its efforts to accelerate adoption of its XR hardware and software solutions for industrial applications, with CEO Timo Toikkanen noting Varjo will leverage AI and machine learning to further integrate real and virtual environments, enhancing productivity and efficiency for its industrial clients.

Meanwhile, Meta is working on a similar consumer-facing product, which was announced in September, called Horizon Hyperscape. Released as a demo experience to showcase Meta’s vision for photorealism, Meta says that at some point creators will also be able to “build worlds within Horizon by using a phone to scan a room and then recreate it,” although there’s no word on when we can expect the company to roll out the service.

Xiaomi Reportedly Partners with Goertek to Chase Success of Ray-Ban Meta Smartglasses

November 13, 2024 From roadtovr

Xiaomi makes everything, from phones and vacuum cleaners to massage guns and even electric cars. Now, according to a report from Chinese media 36kr, Xiaomi may be developing a device that goes toe-to-toe with Ray-Ban Meta smartglasses.

The report maintains Xiaomi is planning to launch a new generation of AI-assisted smartglasses, which will be built in collaboration with Goertek, the China-based ODM behind a bevy of XR parts, reference designs, and finished white-label hardware.

The rumored Xiaomi smartglasses are said to “fully benchmark” against Ray-Ban Meta, which includes AI functions, integrated speakers, and camera modules. Notably, Ray-Ban Meta smartglasses aren’t officially available in China.

Ray-Ban Meta Glasses, Image courtesy Meta, EssilorLuxottica

Citing insider sources, the report maintains the device is slated to arrive in Q2 2025, with 36kr noting it may launch in time for the Mi Fan Festival, which is typically held in April to mark Xiaomi’s founding anniversary.

The report further maintains, Xiaomi co-founder Lei Jun expects to ship more than 300,000 units.

Xiaomi has dabbled in XR hardware in the past, although it really hasn’t entered full force. The Chinese tech giant hyped a widely reported AR glasses prototype at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in 2023. A year prior, the company launched a pair of smartglasses, called Mijia Glasses Camera. Much like the now defunct Google Glass, the device featured a single heads-up display.

All of that is changing though, it seems. Next year is shaping up to be a big year for smartglasses in China, as the country’s largest brands may be hoping to replicate Meta’s success with Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses.

Baidu announced at its Baidu World Conference on November 12th its own co-product with Xiaodu, the Xiaodu AI glasses, which is launching in China in the first half of 2025.

The 36kr report also notes that Chinese heavy-hitters OPPO, vivo, Huawei, Tencent, and ByteDance are also currently evaluating their own smartglasses projects.

Meta Opens First Ray-Ban Pop-up Store in Hopes of Making Smartglasses Fashionable

November 8, 2024 From roadtovr

Ray-Ban Meta smartglasses are already pretty fashionable, as they look nearly identical to a few of EssilorLuxottica’s best-selling sunglasses, albeit with the inclusion of neatly integrated cameras, speakers, battery and onboard AI driven by a positively tiny Qualcomm Snapdragon AR1 Gen1 processor. With the launch of a new pop-up store in Los Angeles today, Meta is hoping to test out whether it can move the needle with broader adoption.

Meta calls the LA pop-up store “experiential retail,” having modeled it after the Meta Lab pop-up at Connect 2024 in October, which allowed event-goers to try on a pair of Ray-Ban Meta smartglasses to capture photos and videos and keep the resultant files, or even buy a customized pair of the $300 glasses right then and there.

Ultimately, the idea with its first publicly available pop-up in LA is to increase word-of-mouth marketing, which Creative Director Matt Jacobson hopes will make its users into the “best salesperson ever.”

Adorned with a giant pair of Ray-Ban Meta glasses on the outside (with the glasses’ LED privacy light), the flagship pop-up in LA is only going to be around until December 31st, although it won’t be the last.

The company’s next pop-up is planned to hit Phoenix, Arizona in January, which the company calls a “real shop-in-shop,” the exact location of which is still a mystery.

“Can we build a store inside somebody else’s business? Can we drive traffic to it, and can we leverage their marketing as well as ours? By the end of January, we will have tested all three expressions of our experiential first-party retail.”

To boot, the Meta Lab location is doing more than just letting people try on and buy Ray-Ban smartglasses. The company says it will have “regular programming,” which includes stand-up comedy with Desi Banks, a live podcast with Madeline Argy, a ‘paint and sip’ night with Tinashe, a Ray-Ban Meta-focused workshop with Director Drex Lee, and a cooking class with Cassie Yeung.

From there, Meta hopes to share its findings with EssilorLuxottica, which operates over 17,000 stores worldwide, as well among third-party partners. Meta announced in September it was expanding its smartglasses partnership with the eyewear conglomerate into 2030.

As pop-ups go, the LA and Phoenix locations may be a limited engagement, but it may also spark more to come.

“We can’t scale a hundred of these, but we can build a few of them at locations around the country, and then fill in if we decide we want to do more first-party retail. This is aspirational, inspirational. They’re not easily scalable in terms of what they look like, but in terms of experience, they are,” Jacobson says.

If you’re in the LA area, you can find the Meta Lab pop-up over at 8600 Melrose Avenue, open from 10:00 am – 7:00 pm PT seven days a week beginning November 8th through December 31st.

Posted holiday hours are 10:00 am – 3:00 pm on Black Friday and Christmas Eve, with the location closed on Thanksgiving, December 3rd, and Christmas Day.

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