Google, a division of Alphabet, and Magic Leap, a startup focused on augmented reality, have formed a strategic technology alliance to develop immersive experiences that combine the real and virtual worlds.
Magic Leap announced on Thursday that the two businesses have decided to work together in a blog post. The arrangement was confirmed by a Google representative.
Although the news is vague, it strengthens the indications that Google might be preparing a comeback to the AR/VR industry, which it has largely ceded to competitors Meta and Apple. According to Magic Leap, the agreement would bring together Google’s technology platforms with the optics and device manufacturing skills of Florida-based Magic Leap.
The Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia owns the majority of Magic Leap, and Google is one of its investors. The business was a pioneer in the AR headset market, but it failed to carve out a market niche for its product. Only lately did it begin to look into licensing its technology or manufacturing parts for other companies. Google and Magic Leap both declined to comment on whether they expected the cooperation to result in a consumer AR gadget.
A Google representative stated that the agreement with Magic Leap did not affect the company’s ongoing development of mixed reality technology with Samsung Electronics, which it has been working on since the beginning of the year. Working with some of the “cool AI tie-ins” with augmented reality that Google unveiled at its annual developer conference, according to Larson-Green, was something she was most excited about.
Google demonstrated Project Astra, an AI agent, in a video during the event by having a test user put on a prototype pair of glasses and asking the agent questions about what the user saw. Answers from the agent were provided as digital text superimposed over the lenses and as audio.
That functionality is comparable to what Meta has planned for its Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses, which received a software upgrade in April that allowed the agent to identify objects viewed by the wearer in audio form. The Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses were updated with an AI assistant last year.
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Google’s erratic relationship with augmented reality would take a sharp turn if the corporation decided to resume producing AR glasses.
When it released its Google Glass smart glasses more than ten years ago, Google was a pioneer in what it billed as an augmented reality revolution. The company was so excited about the device at the time that in 2012, it revealed it in a lavish showcase where skydivers used the glasses to live video a jump onto a building in San Francisco.
The product’s awkward appearance and privacy concerns, however, turned off customers to the point where people who wore it were occasionally referred to as “glassholes.” In 2015, Google pulled out of the consumer market and then the commercial sector as well.
However, the business returned two years ago with a sneak peek at a new pair of glasses that it said would provide real-time translations of talks in American Sign Language, Mandarin, English, and Spanish.
When Google fired hundreds of workers in its hardware divisions in January, including most of its AR team, the project’s future was called into question.
