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Google joins forces with HTC Vive to boost Android XR Development
Google LLC announced today that it’s acquiring parts of HTC Corp. Vive’s engineering team to accelerate the development of its new Android XR operating system for virtual reality and extended reality headsets.
The new OS, which Google developed in partnership with Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Qualcomm Technologies Inc., represents a new operating system for next-generation VR and augmented reality devices that will ship with the company’s flagship Gemini AI model.
In its announcement, HTC said Google agreed to pay $250 million in cash. As part of the transaction, Google will receive a nonexclusive license for HTC’s XR intellectual property and “certain HTC employees from its XR team” will join Google.
HTC has a long and storied history in the extended reality industry, having launched one of the first high-powered virtual reality headsets, the HTC Vive, in 2016 as part of a collaboration with video game distributor Valve Corp. In the past decade, the company has continued to innovate its technology with a track record of producing capable and powerful VR headsets.
Google debuted Android XR late last year as an open, unified platform for XR headsets and glasses. Similar to the way that the company created Android for smartphones, Android XR could become a way for VR and AR hardware developers to compete with the biggest industry participants, including Meta Platforms Inc. and Apple Inc.
The company said that would give Qualcomm partners such as Lynx Mixed Reality, Sony Group Corp. and Xreal Inc. a path to build Android XR devices with the full breadth of extended reality capabilities to accelerate mass adoption.
Apple launched its own operating system, VisionOS, that runs on its Vision Pro mixed reality headset that shipped in 2024 and Meta launched Horizon OS for its Meta Quest headsets in the same year.
The first device expected to ship with Android XR is a headset from Samsung codenamed Project Moohan (pictured). From hands-on reports, it’s similar to Apple’s high-end Vision Pro with some inspiration from Meta’s discontinued Quest Pro. Samsung said it intends to launch the headset for developers first but did not give a timeframe for commercial launch.
Photo: Pixabay
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