Latest news with #OnePro
The Star
2 days ago
- The Star
Xreal's One Pro are a stopgap ahead of true AR smart glasses
Xreal Inc's new One Pro augmented reality glasses are a taste of the future, giving a preview of what devices from Meta Platforms Inc, Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc's Google may feel like. The impressive new glasses resemble normal spectacles from a distance. They're discreet and comfortable to wear. But they're not an example of true, standalone AR glasses that blend digital content with the real world while also supplanting a phone. Instead, they excel at one important feature: plugging into smartphones, computers, gaming devices and other equipment and turning into a virtual, high-definition external display. Because they use augmented reality, you can see your PC's screen, a video on your iPhone, or a Steam Deck game surrounded by real-world views through clear lenses. Unlike Apple's Vision Pro and Meta Quest – mixed-reality devices – the Xreal product isn't using pass-through cameras; you're actually seeing what's in front of you like real glasses. The One Pro glasses are an impressive example of how rapidly wearable AR gadgets have progressed in recent years. And the floating picture you see when peering through the lenses is bright, colorful and crisp enough to give the illusion that you're watching videos (or playing games) on an enormous projection screen. The glasses, which cost about the price of a mid-tier smartphone, connect to devices over an included USB-C cable. Within the increasingly crowded glasses space, Xreal's profile is rising as the market leader. Next year, it'll team up with Google to release true AR glasses that don't require a phone or PC. Instead, they'll hook up to a puck and function similarly to Meta's planned AR glasses for 2027. Even more competition is emerging, though, with Meta announcing new smart glasses with Oakley on Friday and the company planning its first glasses with a display this fall. Apple, for its part, is planning non-AR smart glasses for next year and is working on a lighter and cheaper mixed-reality headset. The next-generation Xreal glasses aren't expected to go on sale until 2026. For now, then, the One Pro glasses serve as a stopgap, with technical compromises that reflect the category's current limitations. The hardware The most fundamental of those shortcomings is the most obvious one: That the glasses must physically be tethered to a source device – your smartphone, a laptop or a gaming handheld like the Steam Deck. Essentially, they function as a head-worn external display for the gadgets you already own. The positive is that there's no battery to worry about charging; the One Pro is powered by whatever they're plugged into. But if the cord accidentally gets pulled, they'll immediately shut off. There are other trade-offs that come with this design. For instance, the glasses offer capable dimming technology that reduces distractions when looking straight on, but your periphery never fully vanishes, and this can lessen the private theatre sensation you'd get from a fully enclosed mixed-reality or virtual reality device. Samsung Electronics Co's upcoming mixed-reality headset, for instance, will offer both fully enclosed and open modes dependent on the content being viewed. Xreal has also bumped the price of the One Pro since it was first announced in January; it was originally supposed to cost US$599 (RM2,550), but that will increase to US$649 (RM2,763) at the end of June. The company squarely attributes this increase to tariffs. Wearing the One Pro is surprisingly comfortable – even for two or three hours at a time – and several different nose piece sizes are included to help the glasses stay put on your face. (Prescription lens inserts are also available for those who need them.) The weight distribution is balanced enough to avoid pressure points. Xreal lets wearers choose between several different viewing modes when using the glasses. The company's custom X1 chip does a commendable job synchronising all of this in a way that prevents motion sickness, but if you're susceptible to that sort of ailment, the anchored option is a much better choice. Even at the higher price, the Xreal glasses cost a fraction of Apple's US$3,499 (RM 14,900) Vision Pro, but then again, the hardware is nowhere near as advanced. Each of the One Pro's two displays has 1080p resolution, far below the sharpness of Apple's category-leading panels. That makes these glasses better suited for entertainment and gaming as opposed to extended reading or web browsing. Still, when watching movies, TV and YouTube videos, I felt satisfied with the glasses, and their peak brightness is impressive. Gaming is just as enjoyable as movies. When plugged into one of Lenovo Group Ltd's handheld gaming consoles, the device's short three-millisecond response time resulted in no perceptible delay between button presses and corresponding movements in games. Compared with Xreal's previous glasses, these have a broader 57˚ field of view, which makes it easier to get lost in whatever content is in front of you. The less expensive Xreal One glasses top out at 50˚. That difference might seem small, but the difference is very noticeable up close. A 57˚ FOV is nowhere near as wide as what you'd get on industry-leading mixed-reality headsets, but it's about as good as it gets with augmented reality-only devices. In practice, the device's field of view provides a comfortable level of immersion, but it can still feel like there's a window between your eyes and the big digital screen – and the picture can sometimes get blurry at the edges. If you're not a fan of tilting your head to see everything, you can shrink the size of the image in settings so that everything fits within your vision. Like other smart glasses, the temples of the One Pro feature built-in speakers, and their Bose-tuned audio sounds fine for casual viewing at home. (You can pair wireless earbuds or headphones to your source device for richer, fully private sound; the loudspeakers on the glasses are audible to others nearby at louder volumes.) The takeaway Xreal's One Pro glasses aren't trying to be a next-generation computing device. Their displays aren't intricate enough for productivity work. But the relatively normal design goes a long way in making these appealing in those moments when someone else is using the TV – or when your laptop proves underwhelming for watching movies on a plane. As an entertainment gadget, the One Pro doesn't need to offer a glimpse of the future; they're fun enough to use in the here and now. But it's that lack of a futuristic operating system, the persistent technical constraints, and sacrificing untethered freedom that still makes these AR glasses, like others before them, a nice-to-have gadget instead of an essential wearable. – Bloomberg
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
4 China Tech Stocks Resilient Despite U.S.-China Trade Tensions
Despite escalating trade tensions marked by unprecedented tariffs of 145% on Chinese exports to the United States, China's technology stocks, including Alibaba BABA, JD, Baidu BIDU and Tencent Holdings TCEHY, are showing remarkable resilience and growth potential in 2025. This ongoing trade conflict has paradoxically accelerated China's technological self-reliance and innovation Xi Jinping's recent Southeast Asian tour has strengthened regional ties, creating new market opportunities for Chinese technology exports. These strategic partnerships provide alternative growth avenues as U.S. markets face restrictions. The trade battle has inadvertently accelerated China's push for technological independence, catalyzing innovation across ahead, Chinese tech stocks appear well-positioned to benefit from the nation's comprehensive technological development strategy, robust domestic market and growing regional partnerships, making them increasingly attractive to investors seeking exposure to innovation-driven growth stories. DeepSeek, the groundbreaking Hangzhou-based AI startup, exemplifies China's technological prowess by developing the R1 model that rivals Western counterparts at a fraction of the cost. The company's upcoming R2 model promises enhanced coding capabilities and multilingual reasoning, demonstrating China's ability to innovate efficiently despite constrained access to advanced U.S. Chinese tech companies are capitalizing on this momentum through strategic investments in AI infrastructure and emerging technologies. These moves strengthen China's digital ecosystem and create new growth opportunities, positioning these stocks for continued advancement despite trade semiconductor sector showcases remarkable adaptability in navigating Western export controls. While not leading in cutting-edge chip fabrication, China dominates advanced packaging technologies with over 25% of the global market share. Innovations like 2.5D/3D stacking enable enhanced chip capabilities at competitive costs, effectively mitigating the impact of U.S. technological renaissance extends beyond semiconductors. In 2025, Chinese companies have unveiled impressive advancements across multiple sectors. Unitree Robotics demonstrated humanoid robots with 43 joint motors, while Zeekr and Great Wall Motor showcased cutting-edge electric vehicles. Supporting suppliers like Hesai have achieved dramatic cost reductions, with automotive-grade lidar units dropping from $80,000 in 2017 to $200 in 2025. The augmented reality sector flourishes with Xreal's One Pro glasses and Rokid's multilingual translation eyewear, reflecting China's comprehensive technological believe that rapid advancements in Chinese technology and huge spending on its development efforts offer significant growth opportunities for investors. Our China Tech Screen is an invaluable source for identifying stocks with massive growth prospects in the 30 cutting-edge investment themes with Zacks Thematic Screens and uncover your next big opportunity. Alibaba Group presents a compelling investment opportunity in 2025, driven by three transformative catalysts. First, the company's core businesses are experiencing a remarkable acceleration, with customer management revenues growing 9% year over year and AliExpress recording a 27% increase in U.S. orders, highlighting successful monetization initiatives and international expansion momentum. Second, Alibaba's AI infrastructure strategy is yielding exceptional results, with Qwen AI models garnering over 290,000 corporate users and AI product revenues maintaining triple-digit growth for six consecutive quarters, culminating in the company's largest-ever investment commitment in cloud and AI infrastructure over the next three years. Third, the company's robust financial position with $51.9 billion in net cash, combined with aggressive shareholder returns — including $11.3 billion in buybacks resulting in a 5% share count reduction — demonstrates strong capital discipline. With Fliggy's innovative AskMe AI travel assistant and Accio's rapid adoption reaching one million users in five months, this Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) company is strategically positioned to capture substantial market share across multiple high-growth sectors. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank stocks is poised for exceptional growth in 2025 as the company executes ambitious initiatives across its core business segments. The New Product Growth Initiative aims to incubate 600 100-million-yuan bestsellers through tens of billions of RMB in traffic and funding investments, complemented by the strategic upgrade of JD Little Cube to JD New Products for enhanced product discovery. With 250 million users already purchasing new products and merchants participating in launches, which have increased by 130% year over year, JD's Marketing 2.0 Framework and digital tools like JD Innovation Center demonstrate strong momentum. Meanwhile, JD Super's partnership with Thailand's Ding Fong Group, securing 2,500 metric tons of premium frozen durian, exemplifies the company's direct-sourcing strategy in the $7 billion Chinese durian market, where JD maintains industry leadership with 30% compound annual growth. It has doubled frozen durian sales since 2022. This Zacks Rank #1 company's integrated ecosystem approach, combining advanced logistics, AI-driven marketing and strategic global partnerships, positions it to capture significant market share across multiple high-growth categories while delivering sustainable competitive advantages in China's rapidly evolving e-commerce one of China's tech giants, is positioning itself as a formidable player in the autonomous vehicle sector through a strategic partnership with battery powerhouse CATL. The companies announced on Thursday that they will jointly develop "competitive" driverless vehicles, combining Baidu's autonomous driving expertise with CATL's advanced battery technology. This collaboration will integrate CATL's power batteries, battery swapping capabilities, and skateboard chassis technology into next-generation autonomous to its momentum, this Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) company launched its upgraded Ernie 4.5 AI model, featuring enhanced reasoning capabilities and advanced multimodal functions that process text, images, audio, and video. In a significant strategic shift, Baidu made Ernie 4.5 open source, responding to increasing competition in China's AI landscape. Meanwhile, Ernie X1 has been developed as a multimodal reasoning model, featuring capabilities such as advanced search, image and document comprehension, code interpretation, webpage analysis, and TreeMind mapping. This dual focus on autonomous vehicles and AI advancement makes Baidu a compelling tech stock to watch in 2025, as it strengthens its position in two of technology's most promising groundbreaking Hunyuan Turbo S model is expected to be a game changer. This Zacks Rank #2 company's latest AI innovation has captured market attention by delivering responses within a second, significantly outpacing competitors, including the widely acclaimed DeepSeek-R1. This remarkable speed doesn't come at the expense of performance. Tencent stated that Turbo S matches DeepSeek-V3's capabilities across knowledge, mathematics, and reasoning company's strategic pivot toward cost-efficient AI solutions has also made advanced artificial intelligence more accessible, with Hunyuan Turbo S operating at a fraction of the cost of previous iterations. This competitive pricing strategy, coupled with Tencent's vast ecosystem spanning gaming, social media, and fintech, positions the company to potentially capture substantial market share in China's booming AI sector. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Baidu, Inc. (BIDU) : Free Stock Analysis Report Tencent Holding Ltd. (TCEHY) : Free Stock Analysis Report Inc. (JD) : Free Stock Analysis Report Alibaba Group Holding Limited (BABA) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research ( Zacks Investment Research Sign in to access your portfolio
