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North has acquired the patents and tech behind Intel's Vaunt AR glasses
North, the company behind the Focals AR glasses, has acquired the "technology portfolio" behind another set of AR [Augmented Reality] glasses, the cancelled Intel Vaunt glasses. The company wouldn't disclose the terms of the deal, but Intel Capital is a major investor in North and led its last financing round in 2016. Both Focals and Vaunt had the same basic idea: use a tiny laser embedded in the stem of your glasses to project a reflected image directly into your retina. Unlike other AR and VR [Virtual Reality] efforts, the goal is to create a pair of glasses you'd actually want to wear — something that looks relatively normal and doesn't weigh too much.
[...] Focals have the same basic idea as Vaunt but are actually set to ship to consumers fairly soon. The Canadian company already has a couple of stores where you can select the right style of glasses. But more importantly, you need to get them fitted, North says, because aligning the projector so you can see the image requires that the glasses be adjusted for your face.
[...] North CEO and co-founder Stephen Lake tells me that his company is acquiring 230 patents or applications along with some "technology and assets," which will mean the company should have over 650 patents by the end of the year.
[...] In some ways, North's Focals are a little more advanced than the Intel Vaunt prototypes I tried back in February. The image it displays is slightly larger and displays in full color instead of Vaunt's red monochrome. But Intel had some tech that North wanted, Lake tells me that the Vaunt team "did a lot of work in MEMs technology and the optics related to that." More specifically, Intel seems to have done a lot of work to miniaturize the display system.
Lake says that North is acquiring the patents for future versions of Focals and not to go on a lawsuit spree. "It's really about a defensive position," he says. Intel also had done work related to the core interface of using AR glasses. The patents North is acquiring cover "everything from new techniques, user interfaces, to ways to interact with the glasses."
Also at TechCrunch.
Previously: Intel Unveils "Vaunt" Smartglasses
Intel Abandons Vaunt AR (Augmented Reality) Smartglasses
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday December 20 2018, @04:50PM (1 child)
The two technologies share enough challenges that a win for AR is a win for VR in my book. Hopefully, they come up with something great and are able to get it to a large market.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Friday December 21 2018, @01:43AM
I think it would be nice to see them combined into a single system. Flat in a glasses form factor [roadtovr.com], not a boxy headset. Ability to switch between AR and VR modes. Foveated rendering. The CPU, GPU, NPU, etc. on the SoC should use a new type of transistor [soylentnews.org] that can be arranged into vertical layers on a monolithic IC. With any luck, we could see 1 petaflops of GPU performance with less than a Watt of power draw, and real-time raytracing.
Camera(s) should be built into the frame. The ability to record and livestream VR180 video [google.com] would be ideal.
Based on my extensive calculations [soylentnews.org], the resolution target should be roughly 32K over the entire 360° sphere, or about 16K resolution for a 220º horizontal, 150º vertical field of view. This could actually be the easy part. [roadtovr.com]
That full list of stuff could be achievable within 15 years. The hardest part will probably be the super 3D SoC since there doesn't appear to be any great effort to change the way we do things within the next 10 years. We are on course to see "5nm" and "3nm", and possibly a couple more nodes. But if something like the metal-based field emission air channel transistor pans out, I believe the industry could switch to it within 5 years if they were forced to by competition. It's just so much better that they will all have to jump on the bandwagon and license it if one company pursues it.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]