Qualcomm Inc., the largest manufacturer of processors for mobile phones, has announced a new Snapdragon XR2+ chip, designed for virtual and mixed-reality headsets.
The new microcircuit will be used in devices that will be competing with Apple Inc’s Vision Pro.
Qualcomm, based in San Diego, reported the announced chip can function with 12 or more high-definition cameras. The microcircuit will be used in Samsung Electronics Co. and Google Alphabet Inc. devices, which are still under development.
The market for alternative reality headsets that project information onto a user’s view of the physical world has intensified after Apple announced last year its intention to sell a device for immersive to mixed reality. Qualcomm chips have been at the center of attempts by many companies to gain consumers into this category of technological products, which so far has a limited distribution scale.
Augmented reality imposes graphics and written content on top of a person’s view of the world around them. Virtual reality is an autonomous digital space of being, where a process is carried out that can be conditionally called a computer existence. Apple’s Vision Pro and the latest Quest 3 headset from Meta Platforms Inc. combine two digital measurements.
Previous versions of the Qualcomm XR chip were used in devices from Microsoft Inc. and Meta.
Said Bakadir, senior director of product management at Qualcomm, stated that headsets with XR2+ will have applied processors and graphics components that are 20% better than their predecessors. This equipment will allow to projection of 4K images onto each lens.
Said Bakadir stated that improving the quality will reduce eye fatigue from reading the text. Also, according to him, in this case, the probability of motion sickness will decrease. Aside from this, more powerful processors and graphics components will allow manufacturers to implement new features.
The chip’s ability to work with many cameras will improve depth perception and eye tracking, which are necessary for user orientation in the real world and object recognition.
Said Bakadir states that many people need more energy to do more things. According to him, consumers want to enhance the functionality of the virtual reality platform. He also said that Qualcomm is working with several other partners besides Google and Samsung. The media reports that other partnerships may be announced as early as next week at CES. New products with Qualcomm components are expected to be available in the current year.
Last year, the chipmaker, Samsung and Google announced a collaboration to create mixed-reality devices. The new microcircuit, which can be used to launch apps based on the Android operating system, provides the possibility of developing a headset that, in terms of the price range, will be more affordable than Apple’s Vision Pro, equipped with an M2 processor, which is an element of for some computers of Tim Cook’s firm.
Google and Samsung have not yet announced their devices with Qualcomm’s new chip.
As we have reported earlier, Qualcomm CEO Says AI to Revive Smartphone Market.
