Apple acquires German company specializing in AR and eye tracking
Apple today confirmed its acquisition of a German computer vision company called SensoMotoric Instruments, according to a report from Axios.
The company, founded in 1991 and based in Teltow near Berlin, develops
eye-tracking tech to be used in virtual and augmented reality headsets
and glasses. Given Apple’s increasing focus on AR applications, this
acquisition could help it further develop software to be built either
into future versions of the iPhone or into standalone pieces of
hardware.
Apple has not officially confirmed the deal, as it never
publicly discloses its acquisitions. The company does however hint at
confirmation of an acquisition by issuing the same statement every time,
one it indeed gave to Axios this afternoon. "Apple buys
smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not
discuss our purpose or plans," an Apple representative said.
It’s not entirely clear how Apple plans to use the talent
or intellectual property of SensoMotoric Instruments, and we likely
won’t know for quite some time what type of hardware or software the
iPhone maker might be cooking up in Cupertino. Yet Apple CEO Tim Cook
has expressed in interviews that he thinks AR is a burgeoning and hugely
impactful technology — he thinks it might be as transformative as the smartphone itself.
At its annual WWDC gathering earlier this month, Apple also unveiled its new ARKit platform
to let developers build new apps that take advantage of the iPhone’s
camera and sensors to perform depth estimation and place virtual objects
in real-world environments. Just weeks later, we’re already seeing some
stunning demos that let you do accurate measurements with a virtual
tape measure and even a fun little SpaceX rocket landing animation that places the launchpad in someone’s backyard swimming pool. As my colleague Vlad Savov argued this morning,
Apple’s ARKit could become the vehicle to bring these types of
applications to the mainstream faster than any other software platform
out there, including even Google’s existing Project Tango.
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