It seems that premium-priced device creator Apple is looking to expand its hold on the digital and software industry by carving its own niche into the blossoming field of virtual reality and augmented reality; as part of this effort, the company recently added two experts to working on development for projects.
Business Insider reported the turn of events, as shared via The Verge, indicating that Apple recently expanded its roster of employees to include two new experts with major individual backgrounds in augmented reality and virtual reality. The iPhone creator is apparently seeking to create new technology that might compete with the likes of the Oculus Rift and Google Glass.
One of the experts the company hired is Yury Petrov, who came into the Apple company last June as a research scientist. Petrov previously worked at Oculus, one of the leading companies in developing technology for virtual reality and in a partnership with Facebook.
Petrov's LinkedIn profile reads his self-description as "a specialist in experimental psychology, human vision, optics for head-mounted displays, brain imaging, and mathematical methods of signal processing and analysis." It is with this background that Petrov helped fine tune the technology held within the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset.
As for the augmented reality expert, Apple hired Zeyu Li just this month as a senior computer vision algorithm engineer. Li previously worked on Magic Leap, a startup focusing on developing augmented reality software and technology.
As augmented reality has been around for some time, with Google Glass, from one of Apple's biggest rivals, being one of the main leading pieces of technology for the feature, Li has his work cut out for him at Apple. One of Li's likely responsibilities is finding out how to incorporate augmented reality into Apple's devices and software, like the iOS.
Meanwhile the virtual reality market is still quite new, with both leading devices Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive only releasing this year. Furthermore, both devices were also built lesser competitors in the mobile hardware market, with the Rift produced by Oculus with Facebook and the Vive developed by HTC and Valve, so Apple seemingly has less obstacles in that direction.
