Apple hired a specialist in virtual and augmented reality of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Jeff Norris to develop products in the areas of virtual and augmented reality, including Augmented Reality glasses. This is reported on Tuesday by the publication Bloomberg.

The newspaper points out, with reference to its own sources, that the appointment of Norris was aimed at creating new products in the Apple product line.

According to the site of Norris, at NASA he was engaged in creating new ways to control space vehicles and robots in space with the help of VR and AR technologies. In NASA, Norris worked, in particular, software for controlling rovers from the Earth's surface and glasses of augmented reality for observing the species of Mars. In Apple Norris will be included one of the senior managers in the team to create AR-products. It is alleged that these products will be glasses of augmented reality and related new iPhone functions. Norris and Apple did not comment on Bloomberg's plans for the company.

Hardware AR-products under the Apple brand, according to sources, can enter the market as early as 2018.

About the fact that Apple employs NASA engineers, also wrote The Wall Street Journal. According to the source, the agency experts will conduct tests of unmanned vehicles.

Apple in this segment of the automotive market lags behind its competitors and is currently trying to catch up.

According to the newspaper, the corporation informed the US authorities about hiring six specialists, including robotics engineers NASA. In addition to sharing knowledge and experience, they will have to sit on the front seat of Lexus cars equipped with unmanned technologies. At the first stage of the project, it was decided to test three samples of such machines.