Technology 3 min read

Apple News Roundup: AR Glasses, Phone Leaks, and new Watch Designs

With their acquisition of an AR holography startup, Apple could be paving the road towards an AR glasses product in the future. | Image by Andrey Bayda | Shutterstock.com

With their acquisition of an AR holography startup, Apple could be paving the road towards an AR glasses product in the future. | Image by Andrey Bayda | Shutterstock.com

Apple’s recent acquisition of Akonia Holographics has made ripples in the news this week, but it’s not the only development the company has faced recently. 

The tech world has been abuzz with news that Apple has plans for an “Apple car“. But that’s not the only big move Apple made over the last few months.

Though Apple already teased its face detection tech, more details about the upcoming iPhone XS also supposedly leaked recently. Given that there were Samsung Galaxy S10 leaks a few months ago, it’s a curious development.

However, this week Apple also quietly purchased Longmont, CO startup Akonia Holographics.

What does this mean for the cult of personality tech company now?

Perhaps AR glasses are in the Near Future

Akonia Holographics offers “holographic smart glass”, as well as “holographic media”. Specifically, the company offers resources such as:

  • in-house media development
  • exclusive high-performance media creation equipment
  • demonstration devices
  • HoloMirror™ manufacturing setups

They also hold a decent array of patents related to recording technology, multiplex methods, optics, and media manufacturing.

In short: this startup works with augmented reality hardware like AR glasses.

Apple’s purchasing of them indicates that the company has an interest in developing some kind of AR hardware — whether that is a headset or some kind of AR glasses is yet to be seen.

As reported in Reuters originally, Akonia describes its display technology as “thin, transparent smart glass lenses that display vibrant, full-color, wide field-of-view images.

The ~$11.6-million seed funding in their founding year (2012) prolonged their momentum into 2018 with their AR glasses tech.

Alleged new Smartphone and Watch Leak

This week, 9to5Mac published images that seem to showcase the next line of Apple phones and Apple Watches. These new models also appear to have a reveal date of September 12th.

As the photo suggests, the phone will come in two size options (5.8-in. or 6.5-in. screen). The leaked photos do bear a strong resemblance to the phone designs Apple announced last September.

But the phones weren’t alone in this supposed leak.

Though the design is not wildly different, the screen is a bit bigger.

There is a rumored “edge-to-edge” display coming to the new line of Apple Watches. You can kind of see that in the leaked images.

Of course, these could turn out to be totally fake, so don’t take off your skepticism hat yet.

Is Apple doing enough to push the smartphone tech needle forward as it has in past years?

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Juliet Childers

Content Specialist and EDGY OG with a (mostly) healthy obsession with video games. She covers Industry buzz including VR/AR, content marketing, cybersecurity, AI, and many more.

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