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A top augmented reality startup is suing its former head of optics for breach of contract and misappropriation of trade secrets in the creation of his own AR company.<\/p>\n
Meta<\/a>, which builds augmented reality hardware and software, filed suit earlier this week in a Northern California court against former employee Zhangyi Zhong, his company DreamWorld\u00a0and 20 unnamed defendants.<\/p>\n The lawsuit alleges that Zhong \u201cshamelessly leveraged\u201d his time at the company to \u201cmisappropriate confidential and trade secret information relating to Meta\u2019s technologies, supply chain, manufacturing methods and relationships, as well as business, investment and market strategies,\u201d in the creation of his augmented reality startup,\u00a0DreamWorld<\/a>.<\/p>\n Zhong joined Meta in March of 2015 as a Senior Optical Engineer before his \u201cabrupt resignation\u201d in July of 2016.<\/p>\n Meta has raised more than $73 million in funding for its AR systems from top investors, including Y Combinator, Tencent, Comcast Ventures and Lenovo.<\/p>\n The San Mateo-based company has built a tethered augmented reality device, the \u201cMeta 2,\u201d which boasts a much wider field-of-view (FoV) than competitors, though its optics rely on less complex (and less expensive) technologies than the waveguide displays used by products like Microsoft\u2019s HoloLens.<\/p>\n While Meta 2 has an FoV measured at around 90-degrees, Zhong claims that his company\u2019s DreamGlass device will have an FoV of 100-degrees. Dreamworld plans to launch pre-orders for the device soon at a price of $350. The Meta 2 development kit currently costs $949.<\/p>\n