If on the one hand we have Xiaomi thinking about developing or at least designing smart glasses that do different things, on the other we have Google abandoning its Iris project. As the name suggests, the program is Google of Iris smart glasses it set out to introduce multifunctional smart glasses. However, second recent news, it seems that Big G has jumped ship production.
A change of strategy towards software platforms for augmented reality: Google says goodbye to Iris smart glasses
Google has decided to discontinue the Iris smart glasses project, an augmented reality product that the company has been working on for several years. The glasses, known internally by the codename Iris, were shelved earlier this year following layoffsi, reshuffles and la departure of Clay Bavaria, Google's head of augmented and virtual reality.
The Iris project involved creating a device that looked like a pair of ski goggles. However, according to Google employees, these "ski goggles" were in fact behind another augmented reality project, now announced as a partner product with Samsung. Iris, on the other hand, was a series of devices that more closely resembled a pair of glasses.
Google had plans to build and launch the Iris eyewear as a standalone product, and had acquired talent through acquisitions to do so. In 2020, the company announced that it had purchased North, a Canadian startup that made augmented reality glasses. An early version of Iris looked a lot like North's first device, the Focals, while a later version that Google publicly showed off had translation features.
microXR
Since shelving the Iris glasses, Google has focused on creation of software platforms for augmented reality which he hopes to license to other headphone makers. It is building an Android XR platform for Samsung headphones and is working on a platform”microXRfor the glasses, according to a person familiar with the plan. Employees working on the “micro XR” software are using a prototyping platform known internally as Betty. One employee described Google's new ambition as one to be the ”Android for augmented reality“, focusing on software rather than hardware.
With the disruption of the Iris project, Google may find itself having to catch up not only in AI. Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC),, which recently unveiled its eagerly awaited headset VisionPro, is building a lightweight pair of goggles that closely resemble Big G's efforts with Iris, but has run into technical challenges. Google employees described the device partnering with Samsung as a direct response to fears about what Apple was developing.
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