Intel is entering the augmented and virtual reality foray, working on a headset equipped with its 3D camera technology RealSense.
The company is reportedly going to market the upcoming product in more or less the same way it has been doing so for its chips: sell it to PC manufacturers as opposed to directly selling it to consumers.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the PC processor business is gradually dwindling down, and this step beyond that sector is an effort to improve overall business of the company.
Achin Bhowmik, VP and general manager of the perceptual computing group at Intel, supervises the development of RealSense technology. He declined to divulge information regarding the progress of the project.
However, he did mention that the company has a long-running tradition of initially building prototypes to make their products appealing to customers.
"We have to build the entire experience ourselves before we can convince the ecosystem," he says.
Intel has already acquired five companies that specialize in augmented reality in a bid to make a huge splash in the industry. It's also not a long shot to assume that the company could collaborate with Microsoft down the road, as the two have a good relationship.
Intel also presented a smartphone-powered headset from startup IonVR that's fitted with RealSense at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show. The combination of the device and the technology allowed users to see their hands in the virtual reality world and interact with objects inside it, which is comparable to Leap Motion's Orion.
Another partner of Intel is the Los Angeles startup Daqri. The company develops tech-forward hard hats of sorts that features augmented reality technology and takes advantage of thermal sensors to detect objects such as pipes and valves that are overheating.
One of the latest products that Daqri brought to the table is a remodeled version of the said hard hat, which is now loaded with Intel chips instead of the previous Qualcomm components.
"There is an awareness at Intel that they didn't play as big a role in the mobile space as they would like. They understand that wearables and augmented and virtual reality are the next big platform," Brian Mullins, CEO of Daqri, says.
On that note, it's only natural that Intel jumped into the virtual and augmented reality bandwagon, just like Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft.
