Apple today showed off its Vision Pro VR/AR headset. The device is powered by the company’s own M2 chip, but in order to do the real-time processing from the company’s wall of sensors, Apple had to develop a brand new processor too – which it dubs the R1.
The R1 chip is taking all the sensors embedded into the headset to create precise head and hand tracking, along with real-time 3D mapping and eye-tracking.
The specialized chip was designed specifically for the challenging task of real-time sensor processing, taking the input from 12 cameras, five sensors (including a LIDAR sensor!) and six microphones. The company claims it can process the sensor data within 12 milliseconds – eight times faster than the blink of an eye – and says this will dramatically reduce the motion sickness plagueing many other AR/VR systems.
Apple says that using all this vision and sensor data means it doesn’t need to use controllers and instead uses hand gesture tracking and eye tra...
