Meta is refuting a story it has pulled the plug on its current efforts to develop an operating system for AR and VR devices.
Orignially, a story citing “two people familiar with the decision,” The Information claimed that Meta will return to the status quo of running Oculus devices — and perhaps future mixed reality devices — on a modified version of Google’s Android operating system for mobile phones.
The project, which was internally called XROS, had reportedly been underway for years and “involved hundreds of employees.” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was talking up its potential only a few short months ago.
There were few details about the operating system other than what’s been mentioned publicly by CEO Mark Zuckerberg and CTO Andrew Bosworth.
As noted by The Verge, Zuckerberg mentioned a “microkernel-based operating system” that would provide better control over the Quest’s hardware than what Android could achieve. It was also “pretty far along” and would arrive in the “not too distant future” as of last June.
There’s no sign that canceling XROS will affect Meta’s plans to produce new AR glasses, which include prototypes known as Project Aria and Nazare, but it may apparently mean that they use an Android-based OS.
In a statement to The Verge, a Meta spokesperson said that the company isn’t “halting or scaling back our operations in building a real operating system. The team continues to make progress and we continue to invest in building for future computing platforms like AR glasses and wearable devices to help realize our metaverse vision.”
