Qualcomm Connected Experiences, a subsidiary of Qualcomm, has sold its Vuforia augmented reality platform to Internet of Things software maker PTC for $65 million, according to Fortune. The Vuforia is a five-year-old mobile vision platform for augmented reality (AR), a technology that has largely been used in games and in retail during the last few years.

Jim Heppelmann, CEO of PTC, states that the purchase of Vuforia is a strategic move on PTC's part.

"More and more we see products that are part physical and part digital - and we see new models wanting to be part physical and part digital. The idea of being able to project a digital experience onto a physical product to figure out how to service it or show operating metrics is a killer idea," he said.

Augmented reality involves the superimposition of computer-generated imagery on top of real world objects. Its use has so far been focused mainly on games and on retail, where it is used as a means to provide a visual representation of data fields.

Qualcomm states that the Vuforia is currently being supported by more than 175,000 registered developers. The tech company also states that the platform is currently powering over 20,000 useful apps, reports ZD Net.

Though the large-scale adoption of AR technology has been somewhat slow during the last few years, the emergence of innovations such as Microsoft's HoloLens seem to herald a renaissance for the technology.

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