Samsung, Google and Qualcomm Team Up To Build a New Mixed-Reality Platform (cnet.com) 24
During Samsung's Unpacked event on Wednesday where it unveiled its new Galaxy S23 smartphones, the company said it'll work with Google and Qualcomm on an upcoming mixed-reality platform. Samsung didn't mention any specific products or timeline. CNET reports: "It's more of a declarative announcement about how we are going to get it right in trying to build the XR ecosystem," TM Roh, president of Samsung's mobile division, said in an interview with CNET through a translator ahead of the event. "Google's been investing for a long time across both experiences and technology in AR and VR," Lockheimer said onstage. "Delivering this next generation of experiences requires cutting-edge advanced hardware and software. That's why our collaboration with Samsung and Qualcomm is so exciting."
Samsung has been relatively quiet about virtual reality aside from its Gear VR headset, which it launched several iterations of between 2015 and 2017. That device is a head-mounted holster for smartphone-powered VR experiences. Roh says there's been more demand from consumers for augmented and virtual reality, which is why the company chose this time to start discussing its plans. He says that the company has been researching the category for a while. "And now we believe that we have reached a certain threshold," he said.
The collaboration makes sense since Samsung, Google and Qualcomm already work together to develop smartphones. Samsung builds the hardware of its Galaxy phones, while Qualcomm supplies the processor and Google manages the software's underlying Android operating system. Roh said Google and Qualcomm will play similar roles in the development of this upcoming XR platform, although they will likely overlap in certain areas. Even though Qualcomm would supply the processor, for example, Samsung might make some optimizations, just as it's done for the chip inside the Galaxy S23 lineup. "Each player is taking leadership in each category, and then we will be working very closely together across the different categories," Roh said.
Samsung has been relatively quiet about virtual reality aside from its Gear VR headset, which it launched several iterations of between 2015 and 2017. That device is a head-mounted holster for smartphone-powered VR experiences. Roh says there's been more demand from consumers for augmented and virtual reality, which is why the company chose this time to start discussing its plans. He says that the company has been researching the category for a while. "And now we believe that we have reached a certain threshold," he said.
The collaboration makes sense since Samsung, Google and Qualcomm already work together to develop smartphones. Samsung builds the hardware of its Galaxy phones, while Qualcomm supplies the processor and Google manages the software's underlying Android operating system. Roh said Google and Qualcomm will play similar roles in the development of this upcoming XR platform, although they will likely overlap in certain areas. Even though Qualcomm would supply the processor, for example, Samsung might make some optimizations, just as it's done for the chip inside the Galaxy S23 lineup. "Each player is taking leadership in each category, and then we will be working very closely together across the different categories," Roh said.
Good Luck (Score:2)
This is a solution in search of a problem. Until there is a "killer app" equivalent of AR/VR this is another stillborn platform with the chicken-and-egg problem of no content because no users because no content.
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And on the other hand Google is laying the groundwork for this. Already Google has Google Earth, Google Lens (search by pointing your camera at something), and Google Translate, which literally translates a foreign language to any oth
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I don't know. When 4G and 4G LTE were coming out, the talk was about streaming television to your mobile device. While that happened it wasn't so big, but was big was mobile face-to-face calling in things like Facetime and Zoom which basically piggybacked the technology.
Streaming video on a phone was something that had been an evolutionary progression for quite some time. Verizon tried this on its 3G network with VCast (admittedly in SD-at-best resolution, and for shorter form video), and something tells me they weren't the first, either. With LTE came data caps and so forth. Facetime and its ilk were similarly evolutionary; Skype was doing video chat in the early 2000s over low grade DSL; I worked with a college that did real-time, 30fps video chat over an ISDN back in 2
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Actually, Luck has been good lately Thank You :-) (Score:4, Informative)
This is a solution in search of a problem. Until there is a "killer app" equivalent of AR/VR this is another stillborn platform with the chicken-and-egg problem of no content because no users because no content.
^^^This is Pre-Pandemic Punditry,
While it's been pretty fashionable to play to the audience saying VR is dead, VR today is doing quite well now that Standalone VR has come on the scene, and some of us (myself included) are producing well received content that's paying the bills.
I will concede that 8 years ago it was impossible to make a sustainable VR business in the consumer market.
However Today the world has changed and there are over 10M Quest 2 VR headsets in the market and now everything is different:
Solo Indie Developer "Another Axiom" Makers of Gorilla Tag has seen over 700K Daily Users and reported over $26M in Revenue
https://www.roadtovr.com/goril... [roadtovr.com]
There are now more than 100 VR Titles with $1M+ in Revenue, 8 have over $20M in revenue
https://www.roadtovr.com/oculu... [roadtovr.com]
Also in October of last year, Bonelabs netted $1M in its first hour of sales:
https://www.roadtovr.com/bonel... [roadtovr.com]
https://www.theverge.com/2022/... [theverge.com]
https://www.cnet.com/tech/comp... [cnet.com]
https://www.iotworldtoday.com/... [iotworldtoday.com]
https://www.pcgamer.com/apples... [pcgamer.com]
And while other sectors in Tech may be struggling, Linkedin is presently showing over 2,000 Job postings for VR in the past 24 hours
https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/... [linkedin.com]
Obviously VR is no where as large as other areas of tech, but keep in mind that Apple only sold 13M iPhones in their first 2 years, about the same as Quest 2. So VR is here, it's doing just fine and getting better every year.
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Son, I've been doing graphics since the early 80's. VR has been tried since 1968. It is extremely niche because most people don't want to wear a toaster on their head where they get nausea. Only 2% [steampowered.com] of Steam has VR. The fad of VR will continue until we can interface with the optical nerve.
Is it too soon ... (Score:2)
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Probably sometime before they settle the lawsuit with the Feds.
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Bring down cost (Score:1)
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The betting pool is up (Score:2)
How long 'til Google announces the sundown on this one?
Better screens/durability (Score:2)
My S22 picks up scratches worse than my S20 or even S9 did. For the first time in a while, I've had to put a screen protector on my phone. My S22 will also flex, which has been disturbing.
assumptions (Score:3)
Seems like a lot of tech companies have decided that I really want some kind of headset or glasses to augment or virtualize my reality. Truth is, I don't want that.
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Are they only for white people or something?
"Mixed reality." What a dystopian term. (Score:3)
Involve some standards body (Score:2)
If they don't do so, this will fail too as some kind of a super expensive niche product (for example used by engineers and process operators in factories).
Right now everybody seems to be doing their own thing and, as such, doesn't allow the product to get in range of those who would be interested. If the manufacturers want this to become interesting enough, some kind of a standards body is going to be needed, so not everybody needs to reinvent the wheel. The other issues are battery life and convenience.
Pot
Idiots (Score:2)
They should be partnering with Epic, or Unity, not Google .. google doesn't know anything about creating environments and experiences.
uninformed writer (Score:2)
The article writer is only writing about GearVR as if that's the only entry to VR Samsung had, and completely forgets the excellent Samsung VR WMR Odyssee and Odyssee+ headsets, which didn't rely on a smartphone. It's still a shame Samsung didn't release another headset after that, except some patent applications with regard to curved displays. Samsung might actually release a killer headset, as the Odyssee+ was already one of the best headsets of that time/category.
let's just hope Samsung will come out wit