Snap buys NextMind neural interface for its AR glasses

On March 23, Snap acquired French startup NextMind. These are developers who create neurotechnologies to control devices with the "power of thought". According to The Verge, Snap wants to add such technology to the company's future AR glasses: Spectacles.

The transaction amount is not announced. Last year, Snap acquired WaveOptics, a startup that makes parts for AR glasses, for.500 million. It is also known that NextMind's first product — a neural connection on the head for.400 — will be discontinued. Instead, the team will move to the Snap Lab division, which is responsible for technology for Spectacles and other gadgets. As before, NextMind employees will work in France.

Snap isn't the only company focused on this area. For example, Elon Musk creates Neuralink, a technology that is literally implanted in the human brain and is now being prepared for testing. Then there's Valve, which develops the openbci neural interface, and Meta, which once acquired CTRL-Labs for about a billion dollars. These are developers who create a wristband for controlling devices from a distance.

NextMind technology instead measures brain activity using sensors. They non-invasively read brain activity and analyze it using machine learning. The developers described this principle in more detail at the Slush conference in 2019.