Lokesh Choudhary · · 1 min readMidjourney hires ex-Apple Vision Pro engineer for hardware push
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Midjourney has appointed Ahmad Abbas, previously hardware engineer manager on Apple’s Vision Pro team, as head of hardware.
This move, made in December, hints at the company’s potential entry into the hardware market.
Founded by David Holz, Midjourney is already working on Orb, a project that focuses on 3D data capture for AI training. However, details about the hardware remain scarce.
At the beginning of January 2024, however, Nick St. Pierre – a creative director specializing in AI – tweeted that the company had established a hardware team.
Pierre also mentioned that the company is working on multiple hardware projects this year, with potential launches anticipated as soon as next year.
Before Midjourney, Holz co-founded Leap Motion, a company that produced a sensor device for hand and finger motion input in computing – similar to what can be found with Apple’s Vision Pro.
In 2016, Leap Motion introduced software for hand tracking in virtual reality. In 2018, the company was nearly acquired by Apple itself, but the deal fell through. Leap Motion was finally acquired by British company Ultrahaptics in 2019 and both were rebranded as Ultraleap.
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Editing by Miguel Cordon and Dhania Putri Sarahtika
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