Asus won’t announce its augmented reality headset until CES 2017, at the request of a mysterious partner.
We’ve known that Asus was working on its own augmented reality (AR) headset for some time now. Many would have expected it to be ready by now, and some kind of VR headset has recently been spotted in the Asus demo area at Computex despite not having been announced.
The Asus AR headset is indeed ready – it’s just that the Taiwanese manufacturer is holding back its announcement. Asus CEO Jerry Shen told CNET that the company had taken this step at the request of a “very big player.”
It now seems we’re likely to see this Asus AR headset at next year’s CES show, which is set to take place in Las Vegas from January 5 to January 8.
So who could this “very big player” be? If we were to take a stab in the dark, it would be Microsoft. This is, after all, the only major tech company working in AR to any significant degree right now in the shape of its HoloLens platform.
Related: What is HoloLens?
It’s also one of the few companies we can think of that a major computer hardware maker like Asus would go out of its way to keep onside.
Asus has also said that it will announce a VR headset alongside its AR product. Which should also happen to fit in nicely with Microsoft’s “mixed-reality” vision of the future.
Trusted Explains: What is VR?
Are you disappointed that Asus was kept from announcing a new AR headset? Let us know in the comments
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
