Metaio, a company that created software for building augmented reality applications, has stopped selling its products, according to a message posted prominently on different pages of the company’s website.
Now rumors are flying, just a few hours before Google holds its major I/O conference where it’s expected to talk about progress in augmented reality or virtual reality.
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The 2015 InsideAR conference in San Francisco that Metaio has supported in previous years has been canceled. Metaio’s Twitter account has been taken down.
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People started tweeting about the cryptic message yesterday.
And now are wondering if Google itself has acquired Metaio.
My bet on the @metaio mystery – Google bought them & makes announcement at #googleio keynote with Glass 2 #purespeculation #placeyourbets
— Eric Mizufuka (@XREricM) May 26, 2015
Lots of speculation today that #Google acquired #Metaio for its upcoming Android AR platform. Guess we will know tomorrow. #io2015
— Amir Efrati (@amir) May 27, 2015
OH: @metaio the #AugmentedReality pioneer may have been purchased. Rumors source @apple or @google. #SVLife #googleio #wwdc2015
— R “Ray” Wang 王瑞光 #AI #1A R.NFT (@rwang0) May 27, 2015
Whatever has happened to Metaio, the time seems to have come for the company’s technology.
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Google unveiled its Cardboard virtual reality system at I/O last year. Facebook bought virtual reality startup Oculus VR last year, too. And this year Microsoft has introduced the Hololens augmented reality headset and developer platform.
Oh, and in October Google said it had led a big $542 million round in augmented reality startup Magic Leap.
Metaio started in 2003 and has headquarters in Munich, Germany.
The company did not respond to VentureBeat’s request for comment. Neither did Google.
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