US cellular chip large Qualcomm reckons Europeans want an enormous dose of prolonged actuality so it’s opening six new labs throughout the continent.

Qualcomm has been making an attempt to coin the time period ‘XR’ for years, in an obvious try and conflate augmented actuality, digital actuality and whichever different makes an attempt to enhance on mom nature the tech sector desires up. The X signifies ‘prolonged’ and was presumably chosen as a result of it’s a bit much less dystopian than ‘optimised’ or ‘higher’.

Enhancing actuality requires loads of shiny tech equipment, which in flip wants chips to work, you see, so Qualcomm is eager to stake its declare as early as doable. Europe already has a thriving AR/VR neighborhood, we’re advised, so it is sensible for Qualcomm to open XR labs in six cities throughout the continent. It’s not able to say which of them but, nonetheless, which makes you marvel why it didn’t simply delay this announcement till it was.

“The alternatives for XR are vital,” stated Enrico Salvatori, President of Qualcomm Europe. “Mix that with Europe’s wealthy R&D and management in XR and we see the XR labs in Europe as being an enormous contributor to XR growth worldwide. Sensible minds are already working at pace to understand our imaginative and prescient of XR and convey a plethora of revolutionary experiences to everybody from customers, healthcare and industrial. These labs be a part of our already vital R&D presence in Europe.”

“A brand new period of spatial computing is upon us and dealing behind the scenes on a brand new era of experiences has been inspirational,” stated Hugo Swart, GM of XR at Qualcomm. “Bringing XR to life for customers and the enterprise is our mission and we’re strengthening that dedication with the XR Labs in Europe. These labs would be the key to constructing out our XR portfolio which encompasses best-in-class platforms, software program and revolutionary expertise options and to make it obtainable to all builders serving to to construct out the metaverse via Snapdragon Areas. We can’t wait for everybody to see what’s subsequent.”

It appears just like the metaverse is a buzzword we’re caught with for the foreseeable future and we appear to be at the beginning of a dotcom bubble-like land seize round it proper now. Everybody’s banging on about issues like NFTs and common digital mucking about. It stays to be seen how a lot urge for food there may be for strapping a display screen to your face as an alternative of, say, simply going to the pub, but when there may be one Qualcomm is set to be properly positioned to take advantage of it.