Free beer and AR? What could be better? Amstel, a Dutch beer brand, has launched an innovative sampling campaign using an AR app called "Snatch." Snatch is a treasure hunt gaming app, and if you win the game, your prize is 10,000 free pints of Amstel beer, redeemable at Mitchell & Butler pubs.
Merge VR, a company mostly known for its virtual reality experiences, is moving into and creating an augmented reality experience that combines an iPhone or Android smartphone, a set of goggles to put your phone in, and a box about the size of a Rubik's Cube which looks more akin to the Lament Configuration seen in the Hellraiser film series. When used in concert with the smartphone and goggles, the toy cube, called Holo Cube, becomes one of many AR experiences.
The battle for augmented reality and social media supremacy starts with the people working behind the scenes, and this week Snap pulled off a telling win that could indicate a shift in the AR space.
The business world is currently figuring out how to deal with the coronavirus crisis, with many offices opting to work remotely for at least the next few weeks as a safety precaution. Predictably, this has thrown remote meeting software back into the spotlight, especially augmented reality solutions.
We've been predicting the rush of augmented reality wearable makers from China for a couple of years, and now it looks like it's in full swing, with one of the most promising entrants coming from startup Pacific Future.
With Google taking on the sidewalks with augmented reality walking navigation for Google Maps, Apple has its sights set on the road.
What does mainstream augmented reality look like? I'm not talking about the stuff you see in concept videos and science fiction films. No. What does it really look like?
Pottery Barn has teamed up with Google to create 3D Room View, a new mobile app to allow all wannabe interior designers (like me) to pick out the perfect couch, table, or whatever, and then overlay it onto a spot in his or her house.
We've seen a variety of AR experiences related to athletic footwear over the years, but Puma is betting sneakerheads will buy into a version of interactive design where sneakers are the augmented reality experience
The Apple rumor mill is getting its first real workout of 2019, and this time the whispers are more exciting than usual.
Magic Leap continues to launch new AR apps on its fledging app store before the door closes on 2018, and this time the app is a sequel from a veteran VR developer and early Magic Leap development partner.
The app that Lego demoed at this year's iPhone launch event is now available in the App Store, and it showcases several new capabilities available in ARKit 2.0.
Despite the launch of ARKit a year ago, and ARCore this year, a true killer app has not arrived for either platform, that's according to the head honcho for one of the leading development environments for 3D applications.
Move over, Hype Williams, it looks like Snapchat is about to take some of your music video-making business, and pop rock group Maroon 5 is the proof.
The augmented reality industry made great strides in 2017, but its apex is not even in sight. In terms of software, augmented reality is approaching meaningful mainstream awareness, thanks mostly to Apple and ARKit. Meanwhile, on the hardware side, AR is very much in its infancy, with headsets mostly limited to enterprise customers or developer kits and the majority of smartphones lacking the sensors necessary to achieve much more than parlor tricks.
One of the defining parts of my childhood was getting extremely frustrated with claw machines at arcades. Usually, that was because as fun as they were, they were probably rigged and wouldn't actually grab anything. Which is why a new claw machine demo made with Apple's ARKit is all the fun of the game, without the rigged frustration.
If you're a Doctor Who fan, you've likely always hoped to see that iconic blue box appear on your doorstep with the Doctor asking you to come on an adventure. With the 13th Doctor just announced, this seems like the perfect time to tell you that thanks to Apple's ARKit, exploring the TARDIS is now possible!
While Microsoft dominated the augmented reality news at this year's Mobile World Congress, a small AR startup we've covered in the past arrived in Barcelona, Spain, to unveil the next phase of its mission.
The emergence of Microsoft's HoloLens 2 as a cutting-edge US Army tool has focused a spotlight on the marriage between augmented reality and the military.
Brace yourselves: Nreal Light clones are coming. Since the China-based startup wowed the crowd at CES 2019 with its consumer-centric smartglasses, a number of followers from Asia have emerged, and all with very similar aesthetics to Nreal Light.
With the consumer edition of its Nreal Light headset, scheduled to ship in 2020, Nreal is prepared to bring the entire Android app ecosystem into augmented reality.
We've got almost a full year until the next installment of Ghostbusters arrives, but in the meantime, it turns out that Sony is about to launch an augmented reality experience that will let fans use immersive computing to combat the franchise's whimsical apparitions.
The Association for Computing Machinery's annual Siggraph conference, taking place next week in Los Angeles, will bring researchers from around the to show off their latest innovations in imaging and display technology.
Now that we've had a few days to recover from the VR geek versus augmented reality nerd battle between Oculus founder Palmer Luckey and Magic Leap founder Rony Abovitz, we can get back to taking a closer look at the Magic Leap One. This time, we take a very brief dip into the Abductor app.
While many of you were off surfing and lounging on some sandy beach or trying to figure out how to balance work with sky-high summer temperatures, I've been talking to all the companies that make augmented reality what it is today.
This month, the power of artificial intelligence will be coming to more augmented reality developers as a leader in the game and 3D software development space and a major force behind the current school of cloud-based AI have officially announced a new partnership.
Globes used to be standard in households, usurped in many ways by modern mobile and desktop applications. But one company believes they can upgrade the globe for the 21st century.
The Meta 2 developer kit has finally begun shipping! Gary Garcia, the senior director of customer success at Meta, just sent out an email that they are shipping out to the first round of preorder customers. Waves will be building from there, up to far higher manufacturing rates near the end of Q1 of 2017.
The world of augmented reality has seen a myriad of different products, from sensor-laden smartphones to robust holographic headsets, but Google Glass's failures nearly killed the middle ground.
It took a while, but one of the most anticipated Magic Leap One accessories is finally here. Magic Leap has quietly added the official Magic Leap One carrying case, which we previewed last year, to its website.
You can almost detect the collective breath-holding of the augmented reality industry as it waits for Apple's inevitable entry. A new Apple wearable built with augmented reality technology is likely the device that will finally make the smartphone take a backseat.
While a release date for Harry Potter: Wizards Unite has not yet materialized, co-developers Niantic and WB Games have finally released gameplay footage and an in-depth game description to whet the appetites of eager Harry Potter fans.
On Thursday, Epic Games released Unreal Engine 4.20, which finally includes support for the latest iterations of ARKit and ARCore, as well as Magic Leap One early access.
Sure, Blippar was first to market with an AR navigation app for iPhones (and iPads) compatible with ARKit, but does it know how to party? Hotstepper does.
Mira Reality unveiled the Mira Prism yesterday and people immediately got excited about it. The Mira Prism uses no electronics besides your iPhone and it works pretty simply. You have a semi-transparent screen in front of your face. Once you open the Mira app on your phone, you just slide it into the Prism and your screen will be reflected across your vision. The Prism seems to be fairly similar to the HoloLens and Google Glass.
Facebook's annual earnings call on Wednesday didn't come with any big surprises, that is, if you took everything at face value.
Apple's augmented reality teases just keep on coming from the halls of its Cupertino labs. The latest comes in the form of an invitation to Apple's next public-facing event.
You won't have to ask Santa for holiday-themed augmented reality experiences, because practically any social and shopping app that offers AR effects has them available now.
If we were to assign a theme for the 2019 edition of the Next Reality 30 (NR30), it might be something along the lines of, "What have you done for me lately?"
In a previous tutorial, we were able to place the Mona Lisa on vertical surfaces such as walls, books, and monitors using ARKit 1.5. By combining the power of Scene Kit and Sprite Kit (Apple's 2D graphics engine), we can play a video on a flat surface in ARKit.
