An American company, Akonia Holographics, specializes in the production of eyeglass lenses with extended reality, has been acquired by Apple. Although Apple’s team was reluctant to confirm the purpose of the acquisition, it was reported that the company was working on Apple Glass.
It’ s been about a year since we started hearing that Apple is planning to develop augmented reality glasses. Such rumors became increasingly important in recent weeks when Ming-Chi Kuo, the renowned analyst at TF International Securities published a report with a possible roadmap for the products that the company could bring to market in the coming years.
So it comes as no surprise to us to acquire Akonia Holographics, and although Apple has not spoken about the purpose of the acquisition of this start-up, it seems clear that the goal is to incorporate the company’s expertise in the development of augmented reality lenses into the project.
Akonia Holographics is a Longmont (Colorado, USA) based company founded in 2012 by a group of holographic scientists. Originally focused on holographic data storage, it later concentrated on the development of lenses for augmented reality glasses.
The company holds more than 200 patents for holographic systems and materials and as explained on its website, its Akonia HoloMirror technology enables the production of thin, transparent, intelligent glass lenses that produce vivid, full-color, large-area images. They also point out that this technology has already shown a single layer transparent display performance that is superior to other commercial technologies.
Apple’s acquisition of Akonia Holographics joins a number of other companies in connection with the Augmented Reality glasses project acquired by Apple in 2017: InVisage Technologies, a producer of quantum dot-based image sensors; Regain, a French company for machine vision; Vrvana, a Canadian company for augmented reality screens; and SensoMotoric Instruments, a developer of eye tracking hardware and software.