Quanta Computer Inc. is a manufacturing partner for Apple and many other hardware manufacturers in the PC/smartphone space. They’re one of the most important companies that consumers have never heard of. Recently, they reached out to Lumus, an Israel-based business that designs displays for AR glasses and headsets. If you recall Google’s “Glass” project from a few years back (which included very limited shipments of Google Glasses), Lumus works on similar hardware and has been doing so for quite a while. In 2008, they sold the PD-18, one of the first AR glasses of its kind, and just a few years later they started producing hardware for the US Military. Despite little consumer recognition, these guys are actually one of the biggest names in augmented reality.
So, Quanta and Lumus are two high-influence, little-known businesses partnering up. Quanta will be offering their manufacturing resources for Lumus’ lenses, and in return, they’ll be allowed to reproduce the lenses for the consumer tech companies they work with, like Apple and Microsoft. Bloomberg reported last month that Apple was working on an AR headset with Siri support and since Apple already uses Quanta for manufacturing many of its products…
Well, nothing has actually been confirmed yet. Quanta is working with Lumus, but for what purpose on Quanta’s end has yet to be disclosed. They could be helping Apple, or any number of other manufacturers, with their augmented reality projects. Considering Quanta’s status as a manufacturing partner (rather than its own brand), however, it’s unlikely that we won’t see this in consumer products eventually.
