Google is reportedly set to accumulate Canada-based eye-tracking startup AdHawk Microsystems Inc., one thing that will strengthen the corporate’s ongoing foray into XR headsets and glasses.
As reported by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Google is allegedly buying AdHawk for $115 million, in keeping with folks with information of the matter.
The deal is alleged to incorporate $15 million in future funds based mostly on the eye-tracking firm reaching efficiency targets. Whereas the acquisition is purportedly slated to conclude this week, a deal nonetheless hasn’t been signed, leaving some room for doubt. Moreover, ought to the deal undergo, the report maintains AdHawk’s workers will be part of Google’s Android XR group.
This isn’t the primary time AdHawk has flirted with an acquisition by a key XR participant. In 2022, Bloomberg reported the corporate was within the closing levels of an acquisition by Meta.
Notably, AdHawk is greatest recognized for its improvements in eye-tracking, which replaces conventional cameras with micro-electromechanical programs (MEMS), which is alleged to end in sooner processing and diminished energy consumption—two issues extremely prized by AR and good glasses creators at the moment.
Its flagship product, the MindLink glasses, is a research-focused machine that’s meant to attach eye actions with neurological and ocular well being, human conduct, and mind-set, the corporate says on its web site. Moreover, the corporate gives its camera-free eye-tracking modules for researchers working with VR units, akin to Meta Quest.
Whereas neither Google nor AdHawk have commented on report, Google is ramping up its XR division to compete with the likes of Meta and Apple.
In December, Google introduced Android XR, marking a decisive shift for the corporate’s XR efforts, as the corporate is bringing a ‘full fats’ model of Android to headsets for the primary time, which not solely contains XR-specific apps but additionally the complete slate of Android content material. Android XR is ostensibly set to debut on Samsung’s Venture Moohan combined actuality headset, which nonetheless has no launch date or value.
Then, in January, Google introduced the acquisition of a variety of HTC’s XR engineers, a deal amounting to $250 million. On the time, Google stated HTC veterans would “speed up the event of the Android XR platform throughout the headsets and glasses ecosystem.”
Along with supporting its Android XR software program efforts, the acquisition of a novel eye-tracking startup would additionally show helpful within the firm’s inside XR {hardware} efforts, which has been nothing wanting fragmented through the years.
Google has summarily cancelled quite a lot of XR tasks prior to now, together with its Daydream VR platform in 2019, Google Glass for Enterprise in 2023, and its Iris AR glasses undertaking in 2024.
