Google has reportedly killed its Venture Iris augmented actuality glasses

Final January, we revealed Google was constructing an AR headset, too — “Venture Iris” could be the corporate’s guess in opposition to the then-yet-to-be-announced headgear from Meta and Apple. However now that its rivals have been revealed, Google is reportedly pulling the plug on glasses-shaped AR: Insider is reporting that Google has shelved its plans for Venture Iris, citing three individuals “acquainted with the matter.”

In keeping with the publication, Google is now targeted on software program as a substitute of {hardware}. It’s constructing a “micro XR” platform it might license to different headset producers, very similar to how Google offers Android to a broad ecosystem of telephones.

Qualcomm president and CEO Cristiano Amon, Samsung’s TM Roh, and Google SVP Hiroshi Lockheimer focus on XR on stage in February 2023. Picture by Allison Johnson / The Verge

Nonetheless, Insider suggests the ski goggle-like headset we initially talked about may very well nonetheless be within the playing cards — as Google is now not creating all of them by itself. In February, Google, Samsung, and Qualcomm made an extremely obscure announcement about how the three firms had been partnering collectively on a brand new blended actuality platform, and whereas we’ve heard nothing significant about it since, Insider’s sources say that Google’s goggles “had been really the foundations” of the upcoming Samsung headset.

It wouldn’t be the primary venture the place Samsung and Google collaborated to supply a cutting-edge gadget that Google wasn’t able to construct by itself. Google labored to switch Android to assist the Galaxy Fold line of folding telephones, lengthy earlier than launching its personal Pixel Fold this summer time.

Initially, we reported that Google needed to ship an AR headset in 2024. At Google I/O 2023 final month, Google VP Sameer Samat stated that the corporate would “share extra later this 12 months” concerning the collaboration with Samsung.

Insider experiences that that Venture Iris was tormented by layoffs and shifting methods throughout growth, and Google’s head of VR/AR Clay Bavor notably left the corporate 4 months in the past. Kurt Akeley, a distinguished engineer who we reported was connected to the venture, is now listed as “retired” on his LinkedIn web page. Two others are nonetheless listed as being concerned with AR, together with Mark Lucovsky, the corporate’s senior director of working methods for AR.

Google didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.