Metaio brings world's first Augmented Reality Accelerated chipset to market, signs agreement with ST-Ericsson to integrate future mobile platforms

SAN FRANCISCO and MUNICH, Feb. 22, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Metaio today announces an agreement with ST-Ericsson, a leader in wireless platforms and semiconductors. Under the terms of the agreement, ST-Ericsson will integrate Metaio's augmented reality hardware IP, the so-called "AREngine," into the next generation of ST-Ericsson mobile platforms resulting in the first application processor accelerating augmented reality performance on mobile devices.

Metaio's cutting-edge technology inserts nearly any 3-D and virtual content into the real world by recognizing images, objects and entire environments. In a mobile future that clearly requires smart devices to be 'always on' and connected, the Metaio AR Engine drastically reduces power consumption making all-day AR experiences possible.

This first-of-its-kind collaboration will improve nearly all aspects of an augmented reality experience, yielding performance increases in speed, precision and power consumption, with up to 60 times faster initialization, more than an AR app running on existing platforms – the highest to date in the mobile industry. Both Metaio and ST-Ericsson strongly believe that working together will accelerate the adoption of Augmented Reality as a consumer technology.

"The AR Engine will do for augmented reality what the GPU did years ago for the gaming industry," said Metaio CTO Peter Meier.  "This is a great leap in the AR space, and we strongly believe that the AR Engine working with ST-Ericsson platforms will help realize the Augmented City-the idea of a completely connected environment powered by augmented reality and made possible with next-gen, optimized mobile platforms."

"Working together, this will be the first ever integration of dedicated AR hardware IP on silicon," said Bjorn Ekelund, head of Ecosystem Research and Innovation for ST-Ericsson. "By continuing our relationship with Metaio, this agreement will provide a competitive advantage to both companies and our customers in the smartphone and AR space, where people are looking for differentiating factors when making their purchase decisions. AR will no longer be limited to simple 2-D images - with Metaio's AREngine, the future possibilities are endless."

Visitors to the 2013 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona will be treated to live demonstrations of Metaio's technology and the benefits of augmented reality hardware integration. For more information, please visit http://metaio.com/mwc

Watch the video to learn what the world is like with the AREngine http://youtu.be/6br7NreTwD4

About Metaio

The worldwide leader in Augmented Reality (AR) research and technology, Metaio develops software products for visually interactive solutions between the real and the virtual world. Based on the Metaio Augmented Reality platform, digital and 3-D content can be integrated seamlessly into the user's camera view looking upon the real world. Powering over 1,000 apps for enterprise, marketing, retail, publishing and industrial cases, over 30 Million consumers use Metaio's AR software. Learn more at http://metaio.com

About ST-Ericsson

ST-Ericsson is a world leader in developing and delivering a complete portfolio of innovative mobile platforms and cutting-edge wireless semiconductor solutions across the broad spectrum of mobile technologies. ST-Ericsson was established as a 50/50 joint venture by STMicroelectronics (NYSE:STM) and Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) in February 2009, with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.