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Mobile chips leader Qualcomm (QCOM) is planning to launch a variety of 'augmented reality' software for use in different consumer applications, according to Bloomberg/Businessweek.
Qualcomm wants to drive demand for its powerful processors that can handle high speed computing tasks for mobile devices. To do that, it intends to promote processor intensive augmented reality applications. Augmented reality aims to aid consumers with what they see. By pointing the phone's camera to objects and scanning them, the application can then identify them in the database, and find relevant material.
While for now augmented reality will be used mostly for games, future consumer applications would be able to, for example, find deals and ads when pointing to items while shopping, or find instructions on how to use a washing machine.
Qualcomm plans to make the software free and won't combine it to its Qualcomm chips. Other chipmakers can use the application in their own products.
The company plans to introduce augmented reality on its Snapdragon processors this year.
So far, the market for augmented reality is limited, but it is expected to develop into a $3 billion segment by 2016. Last year it garnered only $21 million, according to ABI Research, as Bloomberg reported.
Qualcomm's stock closed at $58.84, up $1.74. The 52-week high and low are $59.84 and $31.63 respectively.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-06-2011 @ 6:29PM
Steve said...
Augmented reality is cool. I love the yellow lines when watching football for instance. It does sometimes go too far and limit people's ability to explore on their own. Eventually people will want a balance.