the movement that shows it takes mixed reality seriously

At this point, it's already obvious that the Pixels have completely changed the Android mobile sector, in a way that Google couldn't achieve with the Nexus (even if that's not what it wanted). Instead of just being the benchmark mobile phones, Pixels are full-fledged competitors in the market, and the new Google Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro demonstrate that. That's why the company's latest move is so important to its future.

In 2017, Google bought a large portion of HTC's smartphone division, adding around 2,000 employees. specialized in mobile development. The results of this multi-million dollar investment are already visible, with the Pixel phones, which since the sixth generation use a processor designed by Google itself and which are already one of the most recommended phones in the Android sector. We can already say that the investment of 1.1 billion dollars in the purchase of HTC equipment was worth it.

Today, Google may have repeated history. Google announced today that it has acquired part of HTC Vive Virtual and Mixed Reality Engineering Team; This movement, which cost him 250 million dollars, will be well known to readers of EL ESPAÑOL – El Androide Libre who have been following us for a while. In fact, the goal appears to be the same: to make it easier for Google to gain a foothold in the relatively new mixed reality sector.

Google itself is very clear about the objective of this acquisition: accelerate the development of the Android XR platformalthough for the moment she has avoided confirming whether she would create her own mixed reality glasses.

Remember that Android

However, Google has already hinted that this acquisition could have significant consequences for its future products. Although the main motivation for the move was to get HTC's software engineers working on Android “Explore future collaboration opportunities” between HTC and Google. The possibility of Google mixed reality glasses created in collaboration with HTC is therefore on the table.

An important detail is that HTC has not sold its Vive division to Google and will continue the development of virtual reality and augmented vision glasses for video games and businesses, such as the HTC Vive Focus Vision launched last year. This news therefore does not mean the end of HTC in the sector, as the sale of its smartphone division unfortunately did; Although HTC continued to release mobile phones from time to time, it did so in a very limited way and only in certain markets.