Snap gets closer to releasing new AI glasses after years-long hiatus

In Brief

Snap has announced a caller concern betwixt its AR-glasses focused subsidiary, Specs, and chipmaker Qualcomm, arsenic the institution revs up for the merchandise of its wearable aboriginal this year.

The Snapchat creator has been teasing the merchandise of the glasses—dubbed Spectacles, oregon simply Specs—for a agelong clip and, earlier this year, it spun disconnected a caller company to specifically absorption connected the concern venture. In February, the institution abruptly parted ways with Scott Myers, its SVP of Specs, implicit a reported “blow-up” betwixt himself and Snap CEO Evan Spiegel.

The recently announced concern with Qualcomm shows signs of beingness for the project. Specs volition be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR platforms, which are its systems-on-a-chip designed to powerfulness augmented and virtual world devices, a property merchandise states.

The 2 companies volition develop “on-device AI, cutting-edge graphics, and precocious multiuser integer experiences” arsenic portion of a multi-year strategical agreement, a property merchandise claims.

“Our enactment with Qualcomm provides a beardown instauration for the aboriginal of Specs, bringing developers and consumers precocious exertion and show that pushes the boundaries of what’s possible,” Spiegel said.

The saga of Specs has been a agelong one. Snap primitively began processing the merchandise implicit a decennary ago. The past consumer-facing mentation of the glasses was released successful 2019. Since 2024, the glasses person been a developer-only product—giving Snap the accidental to enactment connected seeding caller kinds of programs that the institution hopes volition gully users to it upon launch.

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