Valve working on augmented reality glasses

[Humodour]

Does anybody have more info about this?

 

When I ask you to name the technology world's most secretive company, you'd most likely respond with 'Apple'. However, there's one other technology company that, while substantially smaller than the Cupertino giant, is quite possibly even more secretive: Valve.

Valve is a strange company. So technically, they're a game maker, having created some of the gaming world's most beloved franchises: Half-Life, Team Fortress, Counter-Strike, Portal, and my personal favourite, Left 4 Dead. Their unprecedented support for the modding community as well as their traditional PC-first focus ensures an almost undying devotion from fans.

 

So, despite no Half-Life 3, the silly TF hats, and a by now 12-month delay in the Cold Stream DLC (for us Xbox peasants, at least), we never really take it out on the company. Heck, we give cutesy nicknames to Valve's infamous delays: Valve Time.

 

However, despite being a game maker, Valve has made its biggest impact on the industry not with a game, but with a service: Steam. I would call Steam the iTunes for PC games, but that would be unfair to Valve's service (because unlike iTunes, Steam doesn't suck). Through Steam, you can buy loads of games, both new and old, and it provides features for multiplayer. Add to all this the regular special deals, and Steam turns into the poster child for digital content distribution. People love Steam.

 

As great as all of the above is, it's not the reason for this item. No, I'm talking about Valve because the company is on the threshold of becoming a whole lot more than a 'mere' games and services company. In a long blog post, Micheal Abrash, Valve employee (and Microsoft, Intel, and id vet; he has worked on everything from firmware to drivers to processor design to more), revealed the company is working on wearable computing - more specifically, on augmented reality glasses. Yup, like Project Glass.

 

Before we get to that, though, Abrash offers an intriguing glimpse into Valve's unique company structure - namely, there isn't one. This has been known for some time now, but Abrash confirms it: there are no job titles at Valve, no managers, nobody telling you what you're supposed to do. The desks have wheels, so you can run them around the building to join the project you wish to join. There is no formal management or hierarchy at Valve. At all.

 

"My observation is that it takes new hires about six months before they fully accept that no one is going to tell them what to do, that no manager is going to give them a review, that there is no such thing as a promotion or a job title or even a fixed role," Abrash details, "That it is their responsibility, and theirs alone, to allocate the most valuable resource in the company