News: Amazon Sumerian Now Available to Anyone Who Wants to Create AR & VR Apps
Amazon Web Service's do-it-yourself tool for building augmented reality experiences and VR has graduated from beta and is now available to all interested users.
Amazon Web Service's do-it-yourself tool for building augmented reality experiences and VR has graduated from beta and is now available to all interested users.
If you are an active player of Pokémon GO, you may soon be capturing more than just virtual pocket monsters.
Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges! That is, unless they have augmented reality content embedded in them and give us full access to Facebook's annual F8 developers conference — in that case, yes, we'll take all the badges.
Following San Francisco-based Occipital's successful Structure Sensor Kickstarter campaign, the release of its Bridge AR/VR headset, as well as a string of technology and company acquisitions, the company has built a rather strong name for itself in the AR community. And now, with the first public release of its Bridge Engine on Thursday, the company continues to expand the features its platform has to offer, with hopes of bringing in more developers to utilize it.
Apple released the second beta for iOS 11.4 on Monday, April 16. Its release comes eighteen days after the company pushed the first 11.4 beta to iPhones, as well as the official build of iOS 11.3. This beta fixes issues with AirPlay, Music, and Keychain, and it also adds a new wallpaper.
While Magic Leap may have plans to eventually introduce sign language translation for smartglasses in the near future, students at New York University have demonstrated that such a feat is possible today with a smartphone and a prototype app.
When I'm with my friends on the weekend, we always end up Snapping shots of one another, adding in whatever stickers and lenses we've accumulated over the last week. But these filters are fleeting, so it's always a challenge to keep up with the best new ones. If you want to get a leg up on the competition, this is your one-stop-shop.
Samsung just launched their Galaxy S9 flagship, with preorders shipping in the US already. The Galaxy S9 is an amazing smartphone, with a number of advanced features. Despite this, over time your S9 or S9+ may slow down a bit more than you would like. Thankfully, there is a longstanding trick in the Android community that can speed things up a bit.
Mobile augmented reality developer Blippar's mission is to construct a computer vision map the world, with visual recognition of thousands of notable buildings, bridges, castles, holy places. A major step toward that goal has been taken by the company this month with the announcement of its landmark recognition API.
While the consensus among some in the augmented reality community is that the Microsoft HoloLens is the best device available at present, it also remains the most cost-prohibitive option, with the development edition costing $3,000.
Longtime Next Reality readers may remember my Wish List for Microsoft early last year. It was a post in which I put my head together with a number of other community developers to create a list of features that would make Windows Mixed Reality and HoloLens better for developers. It would seem that one of the most sought-after features is finally here ... well, sort of.
After Vuzix's scorching hot week at CES, the future of AR is so bright, we have to wear (smart) shades. Luckily, Vuzix is making it easier for consumers to grab a pair.
In the wake of reports of slow iPhone X sales and a possible early end to its shelf life, Apple CEO Tim Cook is on a public goodwill tour of sorts, espousing the virtues of Apple AR.
After hosting millions of free 3D models online, Sketchfab is betting that augmented reality and virtual reality developers and creators will be willing to pay for premium 3D content.
On Wednesday, Snap, Inc. unveiled a revamp of its Snapchat app that draws a hard line between content from your friends and content from professional media organizations.
A Brooklyn-based startup has launched a glasses-free holographic display for less than the cost of an iPhone 8 Plus.
Ever since the planet went crazy trying to find augmented reality creatures in Pokémon GO, we've been waiting for the next virtual object game capable of delivering a similar hit. And now, we might finally have one coming, direct from the magical world of Harry Potter.
The would-be role of Snap Inc. as the first step toward mainstreaming wearable tech in the form of glasses has stalled, and now we have proof. In the company's third quarter financial results report, released on Tuesday, Snap Inc. revealed that it will lose nearly $40 million due to unsold Spectacles, the camera glasses first sold at kiosks throughout the US.
The bandwagon for NFL teams using augmented reality to engage fans isn't exactly full, but it is starting to get a bit crowded.
Google just unveiled it's biggest search product in recent memory, except this time the search giant is looking to take over the world of virtual objects.
As we have seen previously with the likes of SethBling's Mar I/O videos and other examples, video games seem to be a great source for training AI neural networks. Augmented reality and machine learning are part of a collection of technologies that seem to be growing toward a point of maturity, and that will likely cause them to be intertwined for the foreseeable future. As developers, machine learning will definitely change the way we create software in the coming future. Instead of going lin...
In off-record discussions with AR experts, the consensus on ARKit is that it takes a software approach to the depth-sensors available on Tango devices. As a result, the toolkit has shortcomings, such as detecting walls and vertical surfaces.
IKEA won't be alone among ARKit apps for visualizing home décor and improvements when iOS 11 arrives next week.
It's fitting that students at the University of Washington can catch a glimpse of the new, 135,000 square-foot computer science building in augmented reality before construction is completed.
James Ashley, Atlanta-based Microsoft MVP and author of Beginning Kinect Programming with Microsoft Kinect, has been running monthly challenges since around the release of the HoloLens Developers Kits. Each month, those of us who follow what happens in the community can look forward to seeing what creative ideas come out of these challenges. It has been a treat, to say the least, and who knows ... maybe one of us here at Next Reality even won one of these before his time here.
Hutch Interiors, Inc., makers of an eponymous augmented reality home design app for iOS and Android, has closed a series A round of funding, led by online real estate company Zillow Group, totaling $10 million.
"Valar morghulis." Don't know what that means? You should probably download Duolingo for Android or iPhone.
Update: Twitter user Benjamin Geskin (@VenyaGeskin1), known for his iPhone renders, tweeted on Monday alleging that the leaks are fake:
A new dating advice site, WittyThumbs, launched today that lets users offer advice to others as well as seek it; the site combines that collaboration with advice from designated dating experts.
Another entrant — Aryzon — has joined the competition to be crowned as the "Cardboard of AR." The Netherlands-based startup launched their Kickstarter campaign Monday (May 29) and the campaign has already surpassed its funding goal. The company expects to ship units to backers in September.
Computer vision technology maker uSens, Inc. has unveiled uSens Fingo, a camera module that enables tracking of hand and head movements for PC-based, mobile augmented, and virtual reality platforms.
Last week, the internet was ablaze with talk about the Galaxy S8's home button, because it subtly changes positions without the phone alerting you. This feature was included to stop burn-in issues with the screen, and the general consensus from tech sites was the screens would not experience any burn-in at all.
Those of us that work with or around augmented and mixed reality have seen a powerful shift in the last year as the popularity and interest have grown in the field. With Microsoft's HoloLens release, the popularity of Pokémon GO, and the constant rumor mill known as Magic Leap, the terms augmented reality and mixed reality have started to become a part of the modern vernacular more and more each passing day.
During his opening address on April 18 at F8, Facebook's developer conference, CEO Mark Zuckerberg launched the company's augmented reality platform centered on artificial intelligence-powered cameras.
Over the past eight months, ten infants at UC Irvine Medical Center tested positive for the same strand of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Despite the danger of this superbug due to its high resistance to most antibiotics, this information was only released to the public on Thursday. Thankfully, all ten babies survived and are currently healthy.
Lyft is experimenting with commuter ride sharing by debuting a new "Shuttle" option, which offers pickups and drop-offs along select routes, much like a metro bus would do. The company is trying out the new option in San Francisco and Chicago, but if all goes well, we might all be ordering a pickup soon through Lyft's new Line ride share option.
In an early morning blog post, Microsoft announced the expansion of the Microsoft HoloLens Agency Readiness Partner Program. This announcement comes on the tail of an expanded HoloLens release over the last few months to many countries outside the initial US and Canada.
If you're in the Windows Holographic community of developers, make sure to mark your calendar and set your alarms for February 8, 2017 because it's Windows Developer Day.
Unity released the Beta 5.6 on December 13 with a bunch of new upgrades in the works, including support for Vulkan, better instancing options, and more improvements to particles—to name just a few that are potentially relevant to the mixed reality community. And today, December 15, Unity has just released the EditorVR that we reported on a few weeks ago as a part of their "Experimental" builds.
Looking to get seriously tatted up? Your best bet is probably to head Down Under. Meet Steve Butcher, a New Zealand native who is changing the tattoo game in a big way. While there are a lot of amazing artists out there, the level of detail Butcher is able to achieve is truly unbelievable.