Facebook parent company Meta has recently acquired Luxexcel, a 3D smart glass company as it intensifies its Metaverse vision for 2023.
The acquisition would likely see Luxexcel integrate the elements needed to create an augmented reality (AR) experience, with a prescription lens, such as holographic film and projectors.
Speaking on the acquisition of the eyeglass company, Meta said in a statement “we’re excited that Luxexcel team has joined Meta, deepening the existing partnership between the two companies”.
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Meta however did not disclose how much it spent to acquire the company.
Luxexcel is a technology company based in the Netherlands that has developed and patented the methodology to 3D print glasses. This includes a suite of proprietary hardware, software, materials, and processes that work together to create high-quality lenses unlike any other lens available.
The company’s experienced team helps its customers to develop their designs while guiding them to harness the unique abilities of 3D lens printing technology.
Reports disclose that Meta and Luxexcel have worked together on Project Aria, a research device that is worn like regular glasses that will help Meta build the software, including a live map of 3D spaces and hardware necessary for future AR devices.
By acquiring Luxexcel, Meta will likely leverage the company’s technology to produce prescription AR glasses, a product that has long been anticipated to come out of Meta’s billions of dollars of investment into its Reality Labs.
Recall that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in 2021, laid out the vision of the metaverse as the successor to the mobile internet, a set of interconnected digital spaces that lets one do things they can’t do in the physical world.
The Metaverse has been generally characterized as a growing 3D virtual universe where individuals can live their digital life as an avatar, working, playing, shopping, or just hanging out.
The digital environment will eventually encompass work, entertainment, and everything in between. Like phones and laptops today, the platform needs to be flexible enough to accommodate all these different use cases.
Meta looks at the metaverse as a sort of successor to the mobile Internet, which has taken more than a decade to assume its current form.
The social media giant has disclosed that it will stay on course in 2023 with investment in its metaverse division Reality Labs expected to account for 20 percent of its overall expenses.
The company’s Reality Labs Chief Technical Officer, Andrew Bosworth, disclosed in a blog that Meta plans to spend about as much on the metaverse division next year as it did this year, despite a reported loss of $9.4 billion through the first nine months of 2022.