The Google good glasses period is again, type of. In the present day, Google and Xreal introduced a strategic partnership for a brand new Android XR system referred to as Challenge Aura on the Google I/O developer convention.
That is formally the second Android XR system because the platform was launched final December. The primary is Samsung’s Project Moohan, however that’s an XR headset extra within the vein of the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional. Challenge Aura, nonetheless, is firmly within the camp of Xreal’s different devices. The technically correct time period can be “optical see-through XR” system. Extra colloquially, it’s a pair of immersive good glasses.
Xreal’s glasses, like the Xreal One, are like embedding two mini TVs into what appears like an everyday — if a bit chunky — pair of sun shades. Xreal’s earlier devices allow you to plug right into a telephone or laptop computer and consider no matter’s on the display screen, be it a present or a confidential doc you wish to edit on a airplane. The profit is that you may change the opacity to view (or block out) the world round you. That’s the vibe Challenge Aura’s giving off, too.
Particulars are sparse — Xreal spokesperson Ralph Jodice informed me we’ll study a bit extra at Augmented World Expo subsequent month. However we all know it’ll have Gemini built-in, in addition to a big field-of-view. Within the product render, it’s also possible to see what appears like cameras within the hinges and nostril bridge, plus microphones and buttons within the temples.
That hints at a {hardware} evolution in comparison with Xreal’s present gadgets. Challenge Aura will run a Qualcomm chipset optimized for XR, although we don’t know precisely which one. Like Challenge Moohan, Challenge Aura is relying on builders to start out constructing apps and use circumstances now, forward of an precise client product launch. Talking of, Google and Xreal stated in a press launch that Android XR apps developed for headsets will be simply introduced over to a special kind issue like Challenge Aura.
Again once I first demoed Android XR, I used to be informed that whereas Google had constructed prototype glasses, the plan was to work with other partners to provide a viable product. That demo additionally made it abundantly clear that it considered XR gadgets as a key automobile for Gemini. Up to now, the whole lot we learn about Challenge Aura is aligned with that technique. Which means, Google’s method to this subsequent period of good glasses is just like the way it first tackled Put on OS — Google gives the platform, whereas third events deal with the {hardware}. (At the least, till Google feels prefer it’s prepared to leap into the fray itself.) That makes a ton of sense given Google’s fraught historical past with good glasses {hardware}. However given the momentum we’ve seen via Project Astra and now, Android XR making it into the principle Google I/O keynote? “Google” good glasses are again on the menu.