IFA BERLIN RECAP
In this Episode Thomas Riedel and Thomas Bedenk share their takeaways from IFA Berlin, balancing stage debates on the societal impact and privacy of smart glasses with hands-on tests of new hardware from RayNeo, Rokid and Meta. Cutting through the show floor’s generic gadget noise, they highlight Android XR as a much-needed unifying layer to standardize development across fragmented wearable form factors.
HARDWARE NEWS & INDUSTRY ANNOUNCEMENTS
HTC is doubling down on smart glasses as traditional revenue streams decline, expanding the Vive Eagle into North America, Europe, and Australia. We examine its rounded Panto design, slow-motion capture, and snap-on magnetic battery, alongside the viability of its post-trial AI subscriptions. They also look ahead to Meta’s newly announced workflow tool Muse and its upcoming glasses integration, followed by expectations for Apple’s imminent product event. Because if the ApirPod Cameras are coming that is Spatial Computing!
FEATURE: NEXTAPP DEVCON & BRIDGING MOBILE, GAMING, AND XR
Where will the developer base for mass-market XR originate? NextApp CEO Greg Fawson traces the event’s journey from Berlin’s 2009 Android meetups to a cross-platform summit, arguing that mainstream mobile engineers hold the real key to scaling spatial software. Previewing the upcoming three-day conference, the discussion covers dedicated tracks for XR, mobile gaming, and agentic AI coding, emphasizing the need for open community exchange to solve shared platform bottlenecks.
Get your tickets for NextAppCon here:
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- next.app devCon | The biggest mobile developer conference 2026 | Berlin, Germany
- xr & mobile game developerCon | next.app devCon
- Thomas Bedenk | next.app devCon
- LinkedIn: Greg Fawson
- IFA Berlin 2026 – Innovation For All
- HTC Unveils VIVE Eagle AI Glasses
- HTC's AI Glasses March into Europe and US; Smartphone Business to Wind Down by Year-End — BigGo Finance
- VIVE Eagle – Neue KI-Brille mit Übersetzung, Bluetooth, Musik | VIVE Deutschland
- RayNeo iO AI Glasses | Smart Glasses with Invisible Display – RayNeo.EU
- KI: Meta stellt KI-Assistenten Muse für persönliche Aufgaben vor
GenAI transparency notification: For this episode the audio of Greg has been optimized using the speach improvement tool of Adobe Podcast. No edits have been made with GenAI and no additional content was generated. All edits are made by hand with Adobe Audition.