Apple hires VR researcher Doug Bowman to catch up with Facebook, Google and Microsoft in Silicon Valley virtual reality race
Apple has hired a leading VR researcher in a bid to catch up to its rivals in the great Silicon Valley virtual reality race.
Doug Bowman can now add Apple employee to his cv, joining the company from his current role as the director of the Centre for Human-Computer Interaction at Virginia Tech, reports the Financial Times.
Bowman’s research has focused primarily on 3D interface design, with experience of both fully immersive VR and augmented reality.
This is the latest push into artificial intelligence and virtual reality from the tech giant, which has filed several patents and been shopping for a string of similar startups lately.
Most recently it bought emotion-detecting startup Emotient, but it’s also recently acquired Faceshift and Metaio.
Silicon Valley rivals are already on a similar path, with Facebook, Microsoft and Google among those investing heavily.
Facebook is one of the early players, buying VR headset firm Oculus Rift for $2bn two years ago, as the wildly anticipated headsets are gearing up for launch at the end of March.