Category: Xiaomi

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China’s Largest Telecom Forms Metaverse Industry Alliance, Including Xiaomi, Huawei, HTC & Unity

China Mobile, that country’s largest wireless carier with over 940 million subscribers, has formed a metaverse industry alliance including some of the biggest names in China-based tech.

As reported by Shanghai Securities News (Chinese), China Mobile announced during Mobile World Congress Shanghai what it calls the ‘China Mobile Metaverse Industry Alliance’, something the company says will be “the world’s strongest metaverse circle of friends.”

At MWC Shanghai, state-owned China Mobile announced the first batch of 24 members of the alliance, including Huawei, Xiaomi, HTC Vive, Unity China, NOLO, XREAL (formerly Nreal), AI company iFlytek, video streaming platform MGTV, and cloud streaming platform Haima Cloud.

Image courtesy China Mobile

Main objectives include improving the state of metaverse development in China, sharing resources to deepen cooperation between the companies, and developing a “win-win concept” to share the new dividends of the digital economy. China Mobile additionally announced a member alliance fund that will support outstanding metaverse projects as well as R&D for both hardware and XR content creation.

At the MWC Shanghai press conference, Zhao Dachun, deputy general manager of China Mobile, said that the metaverse represents a new opportunity for trillions of yuan (hundreds of billions of USD) and “an important carrier to accelerate the construction of digital China and realize the digital economy.”

China Mobile isn’t new to the space. In 2018, China Mobile partnered with HTC to “accelerate the proliferation of 5G infrastructure and devices in China” and provide HTC with greater push to get its VR devices into more retail channels.

In 2021, the company launched its own XR interoperability standard called GSXR (General Standard for XR), which included support from many of the companies listed above in addition to Pico, Rokid, Oppo, Baidu, Tencent, China Telecom, and Skyworth.

Migu, China Mobile’s streaming content subsidiary, has also recently built a new ‘Metaverse Headquarters’ in Xiamen, China. There, the company says it will leverage 5G and XR technologies to help build Xiamen into “high-quality, high-value, modern and international” city with digital intelligence, China Daily reports.

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Xiaomi Unveils Wireless AR Glasses Prototype, Powered by Same Chipset as Meta Quest Pro

Chinese tech giant Xiaomi today showed off a prototype AR headset at Mobile World Congress (MWC) that wirelessly connects to the user’s smartphone, making for what the company calls its “first wireless AR glasses to utilize distributed computing.”

Called Xiaomi Wireless AR Glass Discovery Edition, the device is built upon the same Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 Gen 1 chipset as Meta’s recently released Quest Pro VR standalone.

While specs are still thin on the ground, the company did offer some info on headline features. For now, Xiaomi is couching it as a “concept technology achievement,” so it may be a while until we see a full spec sheet.

Packing two microOLED displays, the company is boasting “retina-level” resolution, saying its AR glasses pack in 58 pixels per degree (PPD). For reference, Meta Quest Pro has a PPD of 22, while enterprise headset Varjo XR-3 cites a PPD of 70.

The company hasn’t announced the headset’s field of view (FOV), however it says its free-form light-guiding prisms “minimizes light loss and produces clear and bright images with a to-eye brightness of up to 1200nit.”

Electrochromic lenses are also said to adapt the final image to different lighting conditions, even including a full ‘blackout mode’ that ostensibly allows it to work as a VR headset as well.

Image courtesy Xiaomi

As for input, Xiaomi Wireless AR Glass includes onboard hand-tracking in addition to smartphone-based touch controls. Xiaomi says its optical hand-tracking is designed to let users to do things like select and open apps, swipe through pages, and exit apps.

As a prototype, there’s no pricing or availability on the table, however Xiaomi says the lightweight glasses (at 126g) will be available in a titanium-colored design with support for three sizes of nosepieces. An attachable glasses clip will also be available for near-sighted users.

In an exclusive hands-on, XDA Developers surmised it felt near production-ready, however one of the issues noted during a seemingly bump-free demo was battery life; the headset had to be charged in the middle of the 30-minute demo. Xiaomi apparently is incorporating a self-developed silicon-oxygen anode battery that is supposedly smaller than a typical lithium-ion battery. While there’s an onboard Snapdragon XR 2 Gen 1 chipset, XDA Developers also notes it doesn’t offer any storage, making a compatible smartphone requisite to playing AR content.

This isn’t the company’s first stab at XR tech; last summer Xiaomi showed off a pair of consumer smartglasses, called Mijia Glasses Camera, that featured a single heads-up display. Xiaomi’s Wireless AR Glass is however much closer in function to the concept it teased in late 2021, albeit with chunkier free-form light-guiding prisms than the more advanced-looking waveguides teased two years ago.

Xiaomi is actively working closely with chipmaker Qualcomm to ensure compatibility with Snapdragon Spaces-ready smartphones, which include Xiaomi 13 and OnePlus 11 5G. Possible other future contributions from Lenovo and Motorola, which have also announced their intentions to support Snapdragon Spaces.

Qualcomm announced Snapdragon Spaces in late 2021, a software tool kit which focuses on performance and low power devices which allows developers to create head-worn AR experiences from the ground-up, or add head-worn AR to existing smartphone apps.

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Xiaomi Unveils Smart Glasses Vision Featuring MicroLED Waveguides

Xiaomi Smart Glasses

Xiaomi is one of China’s leading technology companies, previously partnering with Facebook during the Oculus Go era to create the Mi VR Standalone for its home market. Today, the company has teased plans for a future entry into the smart glasses market, a very compact looking device brimming with tech.  

Xiaomi Smart Glasses

Simply called Xiaomi Smart Glasses, the device is being designed as an augmented reality (AR) system that can connect to a smartphone to display key information like calls and messages. Crucially, Xiaomi also notes that the smart glasses won’t just function as a second screen, it’ll have independent functionality to make it a true smart wearable supposedly.

The core component of the (very thin looking) Xiaomi Smart Glasses is its microLED optical waveguide technology, allowing for a compact, monochrome (green) display solution with a peak brightness of 2 million nits. The information displayed won’t be in 3D, however, as the waveguide only features on the right side of the glasses, on the other are components including the camera.

Xiaomi claims the smart glasses “integrates a total of 497 components including miniature sensors and communication modules,” powered by a quad-core ARM processor. Those modules include a touch pad and Wi-Fi/Bluetooth, all weighing in at a respectable 51g. Then there’s the built-in dual beamforming microphone and speaker to take calls. And let’s not forget the 5MP camera that can be used for taking pictures as well as services like translating text.

Xiaomi Smart Glasses

When it comes to all those software options Xiaomi plans on ensuring the glasses are feature-rich. Apart from getting those basic notifications off your phone, the device can be used for navigation on its own, you can tap the side to take a pic or use the glasses hands-free with the XiaoAi AI Assistant – the company envisions this as the primary interaction method.

Sound too good to be true considering others like Nreal Light and Rokid still have to cable to a smartphone, whilst Facebook’s new Ray-Ban Stories isn’t even AR? While the spec roster of the Xiaomi Smart Glasses is impressive, the announcement is missing crucial details such as the battery life, the actual ARM processor and when the company plans on making it available.

The announcement could be to get the jump on Apple which is holding a press event later today, widely expected to feature an AR component considering some of the PR teasing that’s been going on. When further details have been made available regarding Xiaomi and Apple’s AR plans, VRFocus will let you know.

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Xiaomi Teases Smart Glasses Concept with MicroLED Display & 5MP Camera

Chinese tech giant Xiaomi unveiled its first pair of smart glasses today, sensibly called Xiaomi Smart Glasses. They aren’t a product you can buy for now, as the company calls the concept device “an engineer’s look into an advanced future.” With the world’s largest smartphone manufacture expressing interest though, it may mean we’ll be hearing a lot more about consumer smart glasses in the years to come.

Hot on the heels of Facebook & Ray-Ban’s Stories camera glasses, Xiaomi released a video showing off its own concept smart eyewear which not only includes a 5MP camera and speakers, but also a microLED display that serves up information such as notifications, turn-by-turn directions, and real-time text and photo translations.

Based around a quad-core ARM processor running Android, Xiaomi Smart Glasses are said to contain a microLED on silicon chip measuring 2.4mm × 2.02mm, something the company says is roughly the size of a grain of rice, with individual pixels sized at 4μm.

Image courtesy Xiaomi

For a concept that may or may not be built, Xiaomi doesn’t boast specs like a full RGB display, rather showing one in green monochrome that’s supposed to optimize for brightness—2 million nits, Xiaomi says—serving info to the user’s right eye via waveguide optics.

Xiaomi Smart Glasses house a single 5MP camera for taking photos and doing machine learning tasks like translating text between languages. Like Ray-Ban Stories, an adjacent indicator light is included so others know when its in-use. The whole package is said to weigh in at only 51g, which is about the weight of two alkaline AA batteries.

Image courtesy Xiaomi

The company is positioning it as a standalone device that won’t act as a “second screen” for your smartphone. That’s a bit of a stretch for now though since it only has a few functions, such as displaying basic notifications, incoming calls, turn-by-turn navigation, taking photos, and serving up what it claims is “real-time text and photo translations.”

Image courtesy Xiaomi

Optical wearables such as smart glasses and AR headsets (learn about the difference here) are still in such an early state that input is far from solved. Xiaomi says its primary input will be handled by XiaoAi AI voice assistant, which can do things like audio-to-text transcription. It’s also said to contain a touchpad, which is ostensibly integrated into one of the glasses’ arms.

It’s uncertain if Xiaomi Smart Glasses are simply a “what if” at this point, or if it’s truly looking to productize the fledgling wearable in the near future. Xiaomi generally seems at home making smaller design risks to better differentiate itself from Samsung and Apple, with things like retracting selfie cameras and edge-to-edge displays making headlines. That said, if Xiaomi is gearing up to enter a market, you can bet they’ll bring their patent one-upmanship to the table in any class of smart device they produce.

The post Xiaomi Teases Smart Glasses Concept with MicroLED Display & 5MP Camera appeared first on Road to VR.

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Black Shark 2 review

With incredibly powerful flagship specs and a unique design, the Black Shark 2 should be on your shortlist when looking for a gaming phone. But does it have the polish to fend off contenders like the Red Magic 3?
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DESIRIUM’s VR Platform Comes to Xiaomi Store

Russian virtual reality (VR) company Fibrum first started out designing and manufacturing its own Google Cardboard style headsets, before slowly entering the software market by creating its own experiences. Fibrum then took this one step further by developing its own content distribution platform DESIRIUM, for Oculus Go and Samsung Gear VR. The platform expanded onto Viveport in November, and now the VR eco-system has arrived for the Xiaomi Store.

China is a big market for VR, hence why Oculus partnered with Xiaomi to launch the Xiaomi Mi VR standalone headset – a near identical carbon copy of the Oculus Go – which proved to be instantly popular.

Xiaomi Mi VR owners will now be able to go to their online store, download the DESIRIUM VR platform and check out all the videogames and apps available. The platform features both in-house content created by Fibrum as well as a growing roster of third-party experiences. Currently, there are 15 experiences to choose from, including recently released sci-fi horror Moon: The Dark Side.

Previously, we have conducted research stating that with time, users have a tendency to enjoy long-duration content less, especially when it comes to VR. Hence, Fibrum has decided to create DESIRIUM experiences lasting for 2 to 20 minutes,” notes the company in a statement. “A wide range of such unique experiences are designed to deliver a specific spectrum of different emotions, depending on the chosen genre. These experiences are labeled as “DESIRIUM Originals” and offer highest quality standards and engagement for VR. Our main DESIRE is to create a real, sophisticated ecosystem in the industry, attract as many people as possible to the technology of virtual reality and raise the quality standards.”

FIBRUM
EXPERIENCES DESIGNED BY FIBRUM EXCLUSIVELY FOR DESIRIUM (PRNewsfoto/FIBRUM)

The platform also offers a “Descoin” in-app currency, a savings system with bonuses. Users earn extra Descoins for taking and completing achievements within the experiences. But in case they can’t afford an experience, Descoins can be accrued by watching short commercials within DESIRIUM VR.

Fibrum managed to secure a $1 million USD investment round led by The FunCubator and NP Capital Funds in 2018 to help bring the DESIRIUM platform to life. As further details are announced, VRFocus will keep you updated.

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Wands Fires On To Xiaomi Mi VR

In early 2018, Chinese technology company Xiaomi announced that it was working with Oculus to produce a version of the Oculus Go standalone virtual reality (VR) headset for the Chinese market, called the Xiaomi Mi VR. Now Cortopia Studios have announced that it is bringing its popular magic duelling VR title Wands to the Xiaomi Mi VR.

Wands is a first-person VR experience that casts players as a powerful magic users who needs to battle against other magic users in arena battles. In order to be victorious, players need to get the measure of the arena and pick up items which can unlock powerful spells which can provide an edge in combat.

Wands was designed to be a multiplayer social-oriented PvP experience that lets players take part in magic duels, which other players can watch using the built-in spectator mode. As players progress, more powerful spells can be obtained, and users can also take advantage of the dynamic environments.

The title has been previously released on HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR, Lenovo Mirage Solo and Google Daydream as well as the Oculus Go.

Andreas Skoglund, CEO of Cortopia Studios: “With the success of Wands on the Oculus GO we always knew that the Mi VR was a platform we wanted to be on. And Xiaomi has demonstrated that they understand what is needed to push the VR technology forward and make it more available and enjoyable. We are very excited to keep bringing our games to the players together with Xiaomi.”

The Xiaomi Mi VR headset is almost identical in specification to the Oculus Go. The initial release of the Xiaomi headset proved to be extremely popular, with reports showing that 30,000 Mi VR headsets being sold on the first day, selling out in some retailers.

For future coverage on Wands, the Xiaomi Mi VR and other VR headsets, keep checking back with VRFocus.

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Xiaomi Mi VR Standalone Sells Out in China

The Chinese variant on the Oculus Go was launched last week by the Chinese firm responsible for the manufacturing of the Oculus Go. Reports have now emerged that the device is doing extremely well in its native China.

A report from intelligence firm Greenlight Insights showed that 30,000 Mi VR Standalone headsets were sold on the first day alone, and the headset sold out completely on the official Xiaomi website in only three minutes.

The headset’s sales were only limited by stock availability on some places, with retailers selling out of the devices selling out incredibly quickly. Greenlight Insights report showed that the 32GB version of the device sold out in only a few hours at JD.com, one of the biggest online retailers operating in China.

As noted by Greenlight Insights notes that Xiaomi are the largest Chinese consumer brand to launch a standalone VR headset so far, and also says that the Eastern market has a familiarity with standalone headsets, with several others such as the Pico Goblin previously being made available.

The Xiaomi Mi VR Standalone is almost identical to the Oculus Go, something that was made possible by a deal between Oculus and Xiaomi, which meant Xiaomi was permitted to make its own version of the headset in return for manufacturing the Oculus Go.

Over 50,000 users have signed up on the official Mi VR standalone product page in order to be notified when the headset comes back in stock. Figures gathered by RoadToVR show that for the breakdown of stock notifications show 33,300 for the 32GB version and 24,000 for the 64GB version. Both versions of the device are currently sold out on the Xiaomi website and on JD.com.

Oculus Go headset

The Xiaomi Mi VR Standalone is priced at ¥1,500 ($235) and ¥1,800 ($280) for the 32GB and 64GB versions respectively, with the headset using the Xiaomi proprietary platform instead of relying on the Oculus store.

Further news on Oculus Go and the Xiaomi Mi VR Standalone will be covered here on VRFocus.