Earlier this year Microsoft showed off HoloLens and with it its augmented reality technology which enables the glasses to overlay digital images on real world objects. It’s going to take a long time before HoloLens is released for public consumers, developers will be able to purchase it in the future at a cost which takes it out of the reach of public consumers. However Microsoft might not be the only company producing HoloLens, Asus has revealed that it’s in talks with Microsoft to develop its own version of HoloLens.
This was confirmed by both Asus CEO Jonney Shih and executive vice president of Windows and devices at Microsoft Terry Myerson to CNET. Asus really is interested in becoming the first company other than Microsoft to build HoloLens hardware.
Asus jumping in the fray is likely to be beneficial to the development of augmented reality tech for the masses, even though Microsoft is only going to provide it to developers in the first step for $3,000 a piece early next year.
Taiwan-based Asus does have a reputation for making products that compete on pricing so in theory it could create a relatively cheaper version of the augmented reality glasses in the future, cheap enough that average consumers can buy one, fulfilling Microsoft’s goal of having people adopt this new technology.
Asus CEO Jonney Shih told the scribe that he’s “still evaluating” what the company’s augmented reality glasses might turn out to be, we might have to wait a while to see Asus’s take on the HoloLens if it ever decides to do one.
