Qualcomm gives up on its augmented reality business
There's a renewed excitement around Augmented Reality (AR), driven largely by Microsoft's HoloLens headset. Not everyone is so enthused, though, most notably Qualcomm, which is selling its AR business to the Internet of Things (IoT) company PTC for an undisclosed sum. The unfortunately named Vuforia is a platform and SDK for developers and partners to build AR experiences from. It's been running for five years and has seen use in projects like a miniaturized TARDIS, a Sesame Street app and, most recently, Mini's weird and wonderful driving goggles.
It's not clear if PTC is interested in the underlying technology or keeping Vuforia as-is, but it's buying the entirety of the business. That includes "the developer ecosystem," meaning projects currently in development should be able to carry on as normal for now. For Qualcomm's part, although it's clearly getting out of the AR world, it says it will "continue to drive computer vision technology that will unlock a wide variety of applications for consumers and businesses around the world."
