Google takes over parts of the HTC Vive engineering team
Google is ramping up its XR efforts by acquiring parts of the technical team that develops HTC Vive products.
Google made the announcement on its blog. There, the company writes:
"We’ve been investing in XR for more than a decade, and just last month introduced the Android XR platform with our strategic industry partners. Today we signed an agreement to welcome some of the HTC VIVE engineering team to Google, which is subject to customary closing conditions. They are an incredibly strong technical team with a proven track record in the VR space, and we are looking forward to working with them to accelerate the development of the Android XR platform across the headsets and glasses ecosystem."
The move is reminiscent of Google's acquisition of HTC's smartphone team in 2017, for which it spent $1.1 billion. At the time, about 2,000 HTC employees joined Google.
It is not known how many employees of HTC's XR team Google has taken over with the latest agreement.
Things have gotten somewhat quieter around HTC Vive recently. The company traditionally uses the CES electronics show at the beginning of the year to announce new products. The standalone Vive XR Elite headset was announced at CES 2023, while only a face-tracker accessory for the device was shown at CES 2024. Not much has been heard from HTC at this year's CES. The last headset product HTC launched was the HTC Vive Focus Vision in September 2024.
In December, Google unveiled Android XR, a spatial operating system for upcoming headset and glasses products. The first device to use Android XR is a mixed reality headset developed with Samsung called Project Moohan. Other Android XR devices from Sony, Lynx, and Xreal will follow later.
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