Google Acquires #AR Glasses Startup, North
Google has acquired Canadian based North, formerly Thalmic Labs, an augmented reality (smart) glasses startup for an undisclosed price.
North’s co-founders Stephen Lake, Matthew Bailey and Aaron Grant said in a statement “Early on, our focus was on new forms of interaction with Myo, a gesture based input device that directly coupled neuro-muscular impulses into signals computers could understand. We then shifted focus to Focals, our everyday smart glasses with direct retinal projection and prescription compatibility. Over the last while, it became clear that aligning with Google would significantly advance our shared vision… We couldn’t be more thrilled to join Google, and to take an exciting next step towards the future we’ve been focused on for the past eight years”.
North employed many people from the nearby University of Waterloo, but its ideas typically failed to attract the kind of consumer interest that would’ve been required for sustained independent operation. The company raised nearly $200 million in funding since its founding in 2012.
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