While Meta’s Quest line of headsets has dominated the digital actuality area, blended actuality — utilizing digital shows overlaying the actual world — is a brand new frontier that is simply beginning to be explored, going past the brand new Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2 to gadgets extra akin to the Ray-Ban Display glasses. That’s the place Google’s Project Moohan MR show goals to make headway. Unlike its prior efforts within the area, like Google Glass, the corporate hopes to realize an edge by partnering with Qualcomm and Samsung to bolster its probabilities. At the Snapdragon Summit 2025 in Maui, I sat down to talk with Sameer Samat, Google’s head of Android, and Alex Katouzian, Qualcomm group common supervisor of cell, compute and XR, to test in on Project Moohan and the way the broadening of Android and Gemini coalesces with their collaboratively constructed headset. Which, regardless of CNET Editor at Large Scott Stein getting hands-on time with an early model of it final December, continues to be in improvement.”We’re super excited about the device coming along really nicely,” Samat mentioned. “We’re definitely getting closer.”It was clear to Snapdragon Summit attendees that Project Moohan continues to be in improvement. The headset was quietly tucked into an simply missed nook of the occasion, proven off for under a few hours beneath glass and out of anybody’s palms. But Samat was bullish in regards to the progress made within the final 12 months, which has “subtle but very important refinements to the hardware,” he mentioned.Read extra: You Got Your Phone OS in My Laptop! Here’s How Android and ChromeOS Will Merge Qualcomm group common supervisor Alex Katouzian and Google head of Android Sameer Samat chatted with CNET’s David Lumb on the Snapdragon Summit 2025. David Lumb/CNETDesign-wise, Samat explicitly pointed to enhancements within the weight steadiness, making certain the ergonomics are right and that the sunshine ingress is the place it needs to be. Where the burden is balanced is essential within the design of good glasses which are anticipated to be worn for hours at a time. When the Apple Vision Pro launched in early 2024, CNET’s Stein famous that the headset felt top-heavy after solely half an hour when utilizing the usual single strap. However, utilizing the twin strap was extra snug, however, in his phrases, “Looks like the headband on my CPAP machine.” In abstract: “A bunch of changes there that I don’t think you see when you look at it, but when you put it on from before and after, I think people would very much notice,” he mentioned.”I saw early prototypes until now, big difference,” added Katouzian. “I think the weight and the balance is really good and mechanically very well designed.”Project Moohan makes use of Qualcomm’s XR2 blended actuality chip. The firm labored with Google and Samsung to optimize the whole lot, Katouzian mentioned. The software program has come a great distance, Samat continued, and he was fast to affirm that there is been a variety of refinement in incorporating Gemini into the headset. That loops Project Moohan into the drum Qualcomm and Google had been beating all through Snapdragon Summit 2025: the Gemini expertise that makes use of a number of giant language fashions to reply queries shall be an more and more vital a part of utilizing gadgets, from telephones to laptops to headsets, going ahead. “What would happen if, in the user experience, your AI assistant can see and hear what you’re hearing … if they could see the same virtual world as you at the same time, and you could ask them to walk through and explore that world with you?” Samat mentioned. “I’m playing around a lot with that. Even to explore places, like you go somewhere in [Google] Maps and then you walk around and ask questions of Gemini and just explore an entire city with it.” The Project Moohan headset on show. Tara Brown/CNETBringing contextual info to the display screen whereas going about your day was the dream of older experiments, such because the Google Glass blended actuality glasses launched in 2013 and the 2016 Google Daydream, which turned your telephone into an augmented actuality headset. Samat obliquely referenced these, saying the corporate has “had our fair share of innovation and being first, but also some things that could have worked better.” But Samat additionally pointed to what’s modified within the interim — considered one of which is computational energy from chips just like the Qualcomm XR2 that powers Project Moohan. This silicon “opens up another level of fidelity,” he mentioned, pointing to different technical developments, like optics within the {hardware} for eye monitoring. And AI normally has improved too, with non-Gemini purposes that may, as an illustration, increase Google Photos with uniquely enabled AI experiences within the XR world — experiences that “you’ll see soon enough,” Samat teased. The corporations imagine combining Google’s software program, Qualcomm’s silicon computational horsepower and Samsung’s ergonomic product design will create one thing particular that matches the blended actuality format higher than something we have seen earlier than. In addition to Project Moohan, Google is exploring an entire vary of concepts, together with good glasses. At some level, they’re going to take what was developed for its blended actuality headset and shrink it right down to one thing that may extra straight compete with Meta’s Ray-Ban Display and others prefer it. And with Samsung within the combine, there’s a variety of potential.”The close proximity between the glasses and the phone will bring an advantage that hasn’t been in the market before,” Katouzian mentioned. Read extra: Smart Glasses Are Going to Work This Time, Google’s Android President Tells CNETIf and when a wise glasses collaboration occurs, Google has one other benefit that could be extra interesting than Gemini integration: particular person model. Not everybody desires good glasses from Ray-Ban or Oakley. Google has beforehand introduced that it is working with Warby Parker and Gentle Monster to presumably put a Project Moohan successor in a wide range of frames, which might entice customers who aren’t followers of wrap-around sports activities shades. “The aesthetic of it is super important,” Samat mentioned. “Yes, of course, it’s a piece of technology, but it also has to be something you want to wear.” Watch this: Everything Announced on the Snapdragon Summit 2025 Keynote in 21 Minutes
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