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We're accelerating the Android XR platform with a new agreement with HTC
- DiabloD3 2y agoWhy, though? Nobody wants yet another state-sponsored corporate data gathering malware "product", especially if its promoting a product that's virtually already discontinued.
- gunian 2y agoeverything is a state-sponsored corporate data gathering malware "product"
- szundi 2y ago*almost (99,9% is not by count, 10% is not by market cap)
- gunian 2y agoeverything is a state-sponsored corporate data gathering malware "product" you don't even have to cross either side be guilty by association and see what happens :)
- DiabloD3 2y agoYes, and the market is saturated. We don't need yet another one.
- niklasrde 2y agoWhat, in your mind, is the "product" here? The one that's been discontinued?
- Macha 2y agoHTC Vive as a SteamVR/PC hardware device. Possibly the name will live on as something else, but it's probably not going to be the same category as the current product
- LeoPanthera 2y agoIf the overnight success of RedNote proves anything, it's that actually quite a lot of people want that.
- Macha 2y agoI think that's a mix of defiance and marketing - "you ban the thing I like, I'm going to the other thing you don't want me to use"
- cladopa 2y agoStates are somebody. They show a demo on the street. Every person on the street at any street in the world analysed on real time. Imagine the surveillance possibilities.
- oldpersonintx 2y ago[dead]
- tuyguntn 2y agoI got burned out multiple times by Google's product discontinuation (Tango, Stadia, Glass) Not going to jump into this anytime soon.
- firtoz 2y agoSo.. Meta has Meta Horizon OS, which feels quite inaccessible to non-corpos AFAIK, and now we have Android XR. Is it more accessible? I was working with Razer back in the day (as a third party contributor, not part of the team) for Razer OSVR and that was very exciting. They shut that down though. So, what I'm asking is, could someone do the equivalent of the Open Source Laptop[1] but for XR? [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42797260 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42797260
- verdverm 2y agoThere are several open XR projects, here is one: https://gatlee21.github.io/TritonProject-Guide/ https://gatlee21.github.io/TritonProject-Guide/
- firtoz 2y agoWow, thank you, looks better than I expected! Update: ah, the source code is not really open: > For full access to the Github repository please screenshot a receipt of your purchase along with your Github email and username and email it to ... Also unsure if it's standalone or wired because it mentions it requires a launcher from Windows... Still, cool.
- verdverm 2y agoI've been waiting for some XR glasses with a VR level FOV. Really liked the Hololens 2, passthrough sucks by comparison. I'm probably going to stick to commercial projects that tend to be more polished. (had a bad experience with framework, which is halfway between). I've pre-ordered the Visor in the meantime and check https://vr-compare.com/ar https://vr-compare.com/ar every few months to see what new AR devices might be out there Here's another project with code apparently living on various branches: https://github.com/egemenertugrul/Wisor https://github.com/egemenertugrul/Wisor
- blensor 2y agoWe are currently trying to hack together something akin to what the AR glasses like Meta Orion and Snap Spectacles are trying to be in the future, but with tech that is available today, and by using a more limited use case of fitness. What we are aiming for is a general compute puck + display glasses + added 6dof tracking. In this video we tried the Nintendo Switch as the compute plus self tracked HTC Vive Ultimate trackers for the head tracking plus Viture Pro XR glasses: https://youtube.com/shorts/U4vhEPQw-Uo https://youtube.com/shorts/U4vhEPQw-Uo The Nintendo Switch was more a "can we do it" rather than a "that's what we should do" but it shows the overall idea
- jillesvangurp 2y agoThe announcement is a bit lacking in detail. What are they actually announcing here beyond doing something related to XR? I talked to some IOS developers recently doing an app with some AR features. They were doing things with lidar and indoor maps on the iphone. I asked them if they were working on an Android version as well (I have a pixel 6 phone) and they told me that they tried but that the Android APIs are a bit limited for the types of things they were trying to do. Also, there don't seem to be a lot of Android phones with lidar. It seems Google does have some catching up to do here.
- jdietrich 2y agoGoogle are launching a version of Android specifically tailored for XR applications. A preview version of the SDK is available now. The first hardware is expected to launch later this year, with devices announced by Samsung and Sony. Google have paid HTC $250m in exchange for technology licensing and an unspecified number of staff. It's a deal that's vaguely reminiscent of the 2017 deal, which saw Google acquihire around 2,000 HTC staff who had been involved in hardware development on Pixel. Google have been working on their own XR hardware under Project Astra, but it's unclear if there's a firm plan to bring that to market. https://developer.android.com/xr https://developer.android.com/xr https://www.vive.com/us/newsroom/2025-01-23/ https://www.vive.com/us/newsroom/2025-01-23/
- verdverm 2y agoQualcomm is also telling devs who have been targeting the Spaces SDK to move to Android XR The Visor is also coming out this year and the fan base believes they will eventually target Android XR (currently they target Spaces)
- ytch 2y agoThe announcement is similar to Google acquired Android Inc, which helps them join smart phone war. Or acquire nest for smart home Eco-system. I guess they want to accelerate the development of Android XR.
- aboardRat4 2y agoHas anyone found any real use for VR? HL Alyx notwithstanding
- tux3 2y agoHL Alyx notwithstanding, BeatSaber is a good workout.
- fh973 2y agoFlight simulators
- edd25 2y agoSecond this, VR is perfect for workouts. I'd also recommend checking out Sprint Vector if you have a decent PC for PCVR (via Steam Link) - I was fully drenched in sweat after a 30 min gameplay session. Gorilla Tag is also nice for workouts while being fun, no PC needed.
- thecupisblue 2y agoAgain? Seeing HTC do this makes me sad. They will get burnt by Google again. HTC was an amazing technological frontrunner for Android phones. The team got absorbed by Google. They had people working on VR/XR. That team got absorbed by Google too. Now, the VR team is getting absorbed again. Google tried this already - and failed. And as someone who held multiple workshops educating people to use Google's AR/VR tech, I see nothing but a barely-useful Android fork coming out of this that will be used for cheap VR/AR headsets. So to recap: - There was the AR (https://developers.google.com/ar https://developers.google.com/ar) - There was the VR (https://developers.google.com/vr https://developers.google.com/vr) - There was Google cardboard - There was Google Glass. All of these projects were: - Early to the market - Had a huge advantage over competition - Were (relatively) simple to build on/use All of these projects ended up abandoned as the responsible person probably got promoted and moved on, leaving them to die. Now, when the competition stepped up their game and is gaining some serious ground in the field (META) it's someone else's turn to get their big promotion by releasing a half-assed product that they will forget about in a year. In the end, all that this signals to me is to be bullish on Meta, as their VR play seems to be sticky enough to draw out the competitors.
- jeroenhd 2y agoHTC's standalone VR headsets already run Android as their OS. They could've gone with Windows, had Microsoft not shut down their mixed reality ambitions last year. It's not like Apple is going to open their VR iOS software (whatever it's called) and Facebook won't just give them their Quest OS either. At the moment, their choices are "build a custom OS" or "continue using the existing Android OS". And to be honest, I doubt HTC will be able to pull off a new OS/Linux distro to run VR on either.
- jasongill 2y agoI believe that Apple's platform is called visionOS
- andybak 2y agoAndroid will almost definitely be the base OS for all standalone headsets that aren't made by Apple - the question is which layer and associated ecosystem to use on top of Android - Google, Meta - or go it alone. (OpenXR abstracts away some of this - but not enough)
- yu3zhou4 2y agoI can’t wait for really good AR glasses that allow for reading text in any language and additional insights to the real world while preserving privacy and don’t look like a crap at the same time