from the iTunes-has-audio-and-videos,-next-up-VRideos? dept.
Exclusive: Apple likely buyer of NextVR, a live event streaming AR/VR company being sold for ~$100M
It's no secret that Apple has ambitious plans for augmented reality and a future AR-focused headset. Apple is practically building the platform for its future headset out in the open with ARKit. What's new is that Apple is believed to be in the process of acquiring a California-based virtual reality company called NextVR, 9to5Mac has learned.
NextVR, which is located in Orange County, California, has a decade of experience marrying virtual reality with sports and entertainment. The company currently provides VR experiences for viewing live events with headsets from PlayStation, Oculus, HTC, Microsoft, Lenovo headsets.
The icing on the cake may not be expertise in virtual reality, however, as NextVR also has holds patented technology that upscales video streams. NextVR uses this technology to support high quality video streams of music and sporting events to VR headsets. NextVR holds over 40 technology patents in total.
Apple is reportedly in the process of snapping up NextVR, its third acquisition in the past week
Apple appears to have embarked on a buying spree over the past week, as startup valuations come down amid the coronavirus pandemic.
[...] Apple frequently buys smaller startups without disclosing the details, Apple CEO Tim Cook told CNBC last May. But an uptick in acquisitions — three in a week — is particularly significant as startups tackle the economic pressures brought by the coronavirus pandemic.
Last week, Apple acquired the acclaimed weather app DarkSky, in a move predicted to add to a growing list of services division. DarkSky's founder Adam Grossman announced the news in a blog post, but didn't disclose any of the deal's details.
Then it acquired the Dublin-based AI startup Voysis, whose technology could help bolster Siri's language skills, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. The terms of the deal were also left undisclosed.
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A new paper published by Facebook researchers just ahead of SIGGRAPH 2020 introduces neural supersampling, a machine learning-based upsampling approach not too dissimilar from NVIDIA's Deep Learning Super Sampling. However, neural supersampling does not require any proprietary hardware or software to run and its results are quite impressive as you can see in the example images, with researchers comparing them to the quality we've come to expect from DLSS.
Video examples on Facebook's blog post.
The researchers use some extremely low-fi upscales to make their point, but you could also imagine scaling from a resolution like 1080p straight to 8K. Upscaling could be combined with eye tracking and foveated rendering to reduce rendering times even further.
Also at UploadVR and VentureBeat.
Journal Reference:
Lei Xiao, Salah Nouri, Matt Chapman, Alexander Fix, Douglas Lanman, Anton Kaplanyan,Neural Supersampling for Real-time Rendering - Facebook Research, (DOI: https://research.fb.com/publications/neural-supersampling-for-real-time-rendering/)
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Apple Goes on an Acquisition Spree, Turns Attention to NextVR
Report: Apple VR Could Have 8K, Cost $3,000
Apple's currently in your pocket with its phones, on your wrist with its watches, and thanks to a new report from The Information, we now know that it's probably going to be on your heads soon too with its first VR headset- assuming you can afford it. Recent speculation about an ultra high-end Apple VR headset started just a few weeks ago thanks to Bloomberg, but The Information's new report hints at a bevy of cutting-edge features, including "more than a dozen cameras" and "ultra-high-resolution 8K displays."
These details supposedly come from "a person with direct knowledge of the device," who provided the outlet with internal Apple images of a late-stage prototype of the headset. According to both reports, the Apple VR headset will be a luxury device that uses mesh and swappable headbands to lighten the load on the wearer's head and will cost well over the $300 to $900 price tags of the competition. Current Apple discussions see pricing hitting around $3,000, according to the new report.
For that small fortune, you'll get both VR and Mixed Reality capabilities, since the device's cameras will supposedly go beyond tracking hand movements and will also "be able to pass video of the real world through the visor and display it on screens to the person wearing the headset." Lidar will also reportedly play a role here, helping to map nearby real world objects in virtual spaces rendered by the headset.
But for pure VR enthusiasts, the Apple headset will also supposedly tout two 8K screens, plus eye tracking.
Foveated rendering and eye tracking would be used to reduce the image quality in areas outside of the user's focus.
The report claims this would be a niche product unrelated to an Apple mass market augmented reality (AR) product.
Previously: Apple Goes on an Acquisition Spree, Turns Attention to NextVR
Apple Glasses Leaks and Rumors: Here's Everything We Expect to See
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday April 07 2020, @01:47PM (4 children)
This is how we know what WAS good, Apple bought it and then took a giant dump on it and turned it into shit or it was so good that we, the general public, will never see it again as it was in competition with one of their worse products.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday April 07 2020, @02:15PM
Well, it could be worse. NextVR's technology wouldn't even be needed if speeds/capacity were better. There's nothing that Dark Sky does that can't be replicated by another app. Voysis is just one of many AI/ML startups now supporting one of the voice assistant behemoths (Alexa, Siri, GOOG, Cortana, Bixby, etc.)
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday April 07 2020, @06:54PM (2 children)
With all that stimulus money flying around and the slightly down market, now is a good time to buy anything and everything.
Get in on the fun! [fool.com]
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday April 07 2020, @07:22PM (1 child)
I don't think the stimulus package affects megacorps like Apple that much. The $350 billion Paycheck Protection Program is geared towards small businesses, for example.
Apple will absolutely benefit from the many bankruptcies and stock drops, and could emerge stronger than it was before the pandemic. This might be their last/best chance to acquire Disney, too.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday April 07 2020, @08:02PM
I don't think the stimulus package affects megacorps like Apple that much.
The megacorps get a much more generous package directly from the fed [wallstreetonparade.com], without any interference from congress. That well is now officially bottomless.
This might be their last/best chance to acquire Disney, too.
With their (Apple's) debt load? Eh, that might work. They can plead for another bailout after they spend all of this one
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 07 2020, @07:43PM (1 child)
Tesla.
A perfect gay merger.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday April 08 2020, @03:28PM
https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/apple-tried-to-buy-tesla-it-all-fell-apart-for-a-truly-stunning-reason-according-to-a-new-report.html [inc.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]