Key Takeaway
Apple has paused its Vision Pro overhaul to focus on developing AI-powered smart glasses, following Meta’s launch of the new Ray-Ban Display Glasses. Extended Reality (XR), a term coined in 1991, includes Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and Mixed Reality (MR). AR integrates digital elements into the real world, while VR immerses users in a completely digital environment. MR combines both, allowing interaction between digital and physical elements. Key players in the XR market include Meta Quest, Apple’s Vision Pro, Microsoft’s Holo Lens, and Magic Leap, which are shaping the future of immersive technologies.
This has led the tech giant to reportedly pause its Vision Pro overhaul and redirect its resources towards developing AI-powered smart glasses.
This announcement follows Mark Zuckerberg’s unveiling of the new Meta Ray-Ban Display Glasses at Meta Connect.
What is Extended Reality (XR)?
Extended Reality encompasses a range of immersive technologies that blur the lines between the physical and digital realms.
Though not a new concept, the term was introduced by Steve Mann and Charles Wyckoff in 1991 and now serves as an umbrella term for Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and Mixed Reality (MR).
Augmented Reality (AR) is situated closest to the physical world on the reality-virtuality continuum, where digital elements are integrated into the real environment.
Conversely, Virtual Reality completely replaces the physical environment with a digital space, immersing the user in a simulated world.
Mixed Reality combines elements from both the digital and physical worlds, allowing them to coexist and interact.
Some of the leading Mixed Reality headsets shaping today’s XR landscape include Meta Quest, Apple’s Vision Pro, Microsoft’s HoloLens, and Magic Leap.
