According to the latest reports, wearables are out and have been replaced by AR or augmented reality at Intel. CNBC report that Intel has downed the shutters on its wearables division two weeks ago and is now focussing on augmented reality. The New Technologies division which looked after the development and manufacture of wearables was shifted to now oversee the augmented reality division.
Intel replaces wearables with Augmented Reality
The new trend of augmented reality has quickly become the new fad and has replaced wearables as well as virtual reality.
These days AR supported tech are the cool products that everyone needs to own and invest in. AR has become so popular that big shot tech companies such as Apple and Google are developing their own products and services around the technology.
Google is busy with its Project Tango and will be unveiling a brand new smartphone in collaboration with Asus that comes with AR support. The phone has been named Asus Zenfone AR and is touted to be introduced in the latter half of 2017. Apple, in its recently concluded World Wide Developers Conference, announced its intentions of focussing on augmented reality.
Intel was one of the earliest investors to put in their wagers in the development of augmented reality technology when it developed its spatially aware RealSense 3D camera in 2014.
So the shift to AR for Intel is like returning back to home base. Apart from that Intel’s farewell from the wearable product development space points out that the division has no more scope left for improvement in terms of technology.
Intel planning to ditch its wearable division since November 2016
If rumors are to be believed then Intel was planning on shutting down its wearables division since November of 2016.
According to publication TechCrunch, it was at that point of time that Intel laid off many of its employees from the wearables team. However, when Intel was confronted with the news of shutting down the wearables category, the company denied it flatly.
In a statement, the management stated that the company was not closing down its wearables business and also announced that it was working on several products in that division.
Before the news of Intel shutting down its wearables business came to fore, the company had released a limited number of premium wearables in 2017. The Balance IQ smartwatch was launched in February while the Connected Modular 45 smartwatch developed in collaboration with Tag Heuer and priced at $1550 was launched in March.
