Market Reality: North Secures More Funding, Google Unveils New Glass, & McGraw-Hill Takes AR to School
After a rough run of news, smartglasses maker North still has the confidence of investors, as evidenced by its latest round of funding.
After a rough run of news, smartglasses maker North still has the confidence of investors, as evidenced by its latest round of funding.
Magic Leap and Samsung are putting their money where their augmented reality plans are, with the former acquiring an AR collaboration technology and the latter funding a waveguide display maker.
Developers in the augmented reality industry got a lot of love this week.
Just when we thought the AT&T partnership with Magic Leap wouldn't really take off until the latter launched a true consumer edition of the Magic Leap One, the dynamic duo jumped into action this week to offer the current generation headset to customers.
While the long awaited HoloLens sequel is scheduled to arrive later this year, Apple may force Microsoft to share the AR wearables spotlight, if reports of the company's first entry into smartglasses territory end up coming to fruition.
Now that the Magic Leap One is out in the real world, the mystery behind the company lies not in whether it will actually ship a product, but when it will ship a consumer product. Or, does CEO Rony Abovitz steer the company in a different direction first?
Fresh off shipping an augmented reality game for Magic Leap, Resolution Games has farmed another $7.5 million in funding through a Series B round.
In an SEC filing published on Monday, Snap, the company behind Snapchat, disclosed that Imran Khan, its chief strategy officer and a member of the NR30, is leaving the company to "pursue other opportunities."
If you subscribe to notifications for Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz's Twitter feed, you'd think everyone in the world already has a Magic Leap One. Alas, that is not the case, but those not within the geographic areas of Magic Leap's LiftOff service now have a loophole through which they, too, can join the "Magicverse."
The long, long, loooong wait finally ended this week for the augmented reality community as the Magic Leap One was finally released. The Florida-based company has loomed over the industry for years promising something big, and now the AR cat is finally out of the bag. Now we get to see if it will live up to expectations, but early reviews are a bit skeptical.
The price tag for the Microsoft HoloLens might be out of range for the average consumer's budget, but for enterprises, like BAE Systems, adopting the AR headset is yielding a return on the investment. And for those with even slimmer wallets, Best Buy just made the Lenovo Mirage, part of the Star Wars: Jedi Challenges package, more affordable.
It doesn't matter how cool or groundbreaking a particular technology is, if it doesn't offer the promise of big returns on investments, you'll have trouble drawing interest from both Silicon Valley and Wall Street. That's why we're increasingly seeing existing augmented reality players doing everything they can to focus in on revenue generation, which was the message coming from Snap Inc. this week.
The augmented reality business was all about audiences this week. Vuzix looked for an audience with the Supreme Court of New York regarding a defamation lawsuit against an investor. Magic Leap held an audience with royalty, showing off the Magic Leap One in a rare public appearance. And Snapchat wanted to remind its consumer audience of all the things its camera can do.
This week's Game Developers Conference came at just the right time for Magic Leap, a company that was riding a wave of bad news from legal troubles and rumors regarding Magic Leap One.
The Microsoft HoloLens has a fairly passionate, yet relatively small group of users pushing the developer-centric device forward, mostly spreading the word about the device through word of mouth and meetups. But this weekend, during the annual NBA All-Star festivities, we got a look at how Microsoft may be planning to market the device if it ever goes truly mainstream.
While the company is adamant that the Magic Leap One: Creator Edition will ship this year, currently, it seems its CEO is more interested in striking deals with content partners than releasing details about the headset.
With the Super Bowl just days away, it seems appropriate to draw parallels between football and the professional sport of technology business, or, more specifically, the augmented reality segment.
This week, saw two companies leaning on AR to prop up their financial futures. On one hand, Apple made quite a bit of AR-related news ahead of its quarterly earnings report next week. On the other hand, Vuzix launched a pre-order program for its Blade smartglasses and closed the largest financing deal in the company's history to fuel its ongoing headset production.
It would be difficult to discuss the business of augmented reality without acknowledging the annual tech meat market of CES.
On Tuesday, original design manufacturer (ODM) Flex used the CES spotlight to help introduce a smartglasses reference design aimed at companies interested in bringing their own enterprise AR headsets to market.
The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is the first big tech event of 2018. This year, if the early news is any indication, augmented reality could be the big star of the show.
Augmented reality was recently named the "Mobile Disruptor of the Year" for 2017 by Mobile Marketer, but the technology is showing no signs of slowing down as we head into 2018. In fact, the technology appears to be gaining momentum.
Investors are ready to throw their money at augmented and virtual use cases that demonstrate a business purpose and a return on investment.
For a company who hasn't released a product and has a reputation for being secretive, Magic Leap sure has a tendency to make waves. Over the past few weeks, they've refreshed their website design, released an abstract YouTube video, and announced a partnership with Madefire to offer mixed reality comics on its device whenever it launches. Next, they are gearing up for another round of funding.
As augmented reality gains popularity, the demand for delivering related services and generating content increases. This is demonstrated by a pair of investments from the past week, one in the expansion of a technology lab and another in the form of seed funding for a content studio.
Millions of dollars continue to pour into the Chinese driverless market. Now, according to research firm CB Insights, $929 million have been invested in the first quarter of this year.
Winter is coming for Amazon. It looks like the company is having another go at the smartphone world with its release of new smartphones branded as "Ice".
The leading platforms enabling augmented reality technology lead our headlines in Market Reality this week.
Huawei is making a fresh attempt at launching into the US market to challenge Apple and Samsung's monopoly on premium smartphones. In its latest attempt to break into America, Huawei is trying to get its Chinese mobile chipset accredited by AT&T.
Vodafone India has merged with telecom company Idea Cellular to become India's largest mobile player this week.
HoloLens developer Michael Peters of In-Vizible has released quite a few videos since receiving his HoloLens last year. Many of his experiments are odd and funny, but some include serious potential approaches to data visualization. In the videos embedded below, you'll specifically see stock market information beautifully rendered in different ways to help understand the data.
There's a new operating system on the horizon, and this one's so big that it may actually live up to its galactic moniker. Andromeda, a merging of Android and Chrome OS, has the potential to bring Google to the ubiquitous status that Microsoft's Windows enjoyed in the '80s and '90s.
Welcome back, my hacker apprentices! Although there is a multitude of different hacker types, the one target they all share is the database. I often refer to the database as the hacker's Holy Grail, or the ultimate prize for an effective hack.
What's the most installed Android app in the world? Facebook? Gmail? Maps? While those all have well over 100 million installs, the one that takes the cake—and always will—is Google Play.
A Day at the Market: Talk to Lorenzo and he'll hand you another codex. Take it to Leonardo da Vinci across town and he'll translate it for you. For more info, watch the whole gameplay.
With Tim Burton's revival of Alice in Wonderland, throw one of the hottest parties in town with a "mad tea party" themed party. Recreating one of Alice in Wonderland's most famous adventures is a great theme for all kinds of celebrations. Set the scene with these suggestions.
Attention aspiring screenwriters! In this tutorial, learn how to sell that script. You may have written the next Hollywood blockbuster – but unless you can finance the film yourself, you’ll need to sell the screenplay to a producer who can make it come to life.
Adams Holland and his design assistant Debra now decorate a cake. They start with an angel food cake that has already been baked and cooled. They next add an apricot glaze between the layers. It doesn't have to be perfect, it can be messy, that just makes it feel more homemade. They have stiffened some whipped cream, then fill the middle and apply it around the edges. Adams starts low and moves up, that way the whipped cream has something to rest on. Once covered, you might think what a mess ...
The Pioneer DJM-909 mixer is one of the finest and most expensive DJ mixers on the market. If you can afford one, you're a lucky dog. And if you've gotten one and are wondering just how much you can do with it, watch this video. It will teach you how to use the many effects and other tricks in the mixer to make the best music you can.
Have you ever tried oven-baked cauliflower before? Sprinkled with olive oil and a bit of sea salt, baked cauliflower is juicy, smoky, and makes a delicious side dish. But working with cauliflower can be intimidating, given that when you purchase it from the market it looks like a big chunk of hard white matter.