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Stories You Might’ve Missed: Snapdragon XR1 and Google’s new VR display

This week with Stories You Might’ve Missed, we’ll be covering the announcement of the Snapdragon XR1, as well as Google and LG’s new VR display technology. If you haven’t seen these segments before, Stories You Might’ve Missed is our dedicated segment for relevant stories that we didn’t cover this past week.

Below are the stories themselves, as well as links to sources so you can read more if they caught your interest.

Qualcomm introduces Snapdragon XR1, their first VR/AR-centric chipset

Qualcomm’s interest in XR (Xtended Reality- blanket term for AR, VR, etc) is no secret. We’ve spoken to them directly about it before. At the 2018 Mobile World Congress, Qualcomm showed off their latest mainline Snapdragon XR1 chipset, which included a number of XR-centric features. They also showed a reference design for an XR headset utilizing this hardware.

As it turns out, they weren’t quite finished. Qualcomm has now introduced the Snapdragon XR1, a chipset that is fully dedicated to XR hardware and applications. The chips even feature an AI engine and machine learning capabilities, which is considerably more advanced than most modern chipsets. In addition to features like these, the Snapdragon XR1 is also packing incredibly high performance, including the ability to handle 4K video at 60FPS.

If this sounds interesting to you, check out the full story at Digital Trends below.

Source: Digital Trends

Google and LG create a new ultra high-definition VR display

Google and LG are working together to create a new VR display, with a resolution of 18 megapixels and a refresh rate of 120hz. This skyrockets to the higher end of human vision limitations, and the refresh rate should also provide an incredibly smooth experience. Most displays (TVs, monitors) run at 60hz, while most VR displays start at around 90hz, for the sake of comparison.

The power requirements for these displays may limit their refresh rate to 75hz when used with mobile devices, however. While this isn’t exactly bad, per se, it is a significant reduction from its full capabilities.

Besides amped-up resolution and refresh rate, this display also offers a high FOV and OLED support, which will provide superior color reproduction.

Source: The Verge