News: Meta Rises from the Ashes Under New Ownership, Along with a New CEO
Almost half a year after we broke the story about the demise of Meta Company, there's good news for fans of the augmented reality startup — a rebirth is at hand.
Almost half a year after we broke the story about the demise of Meta Company, there's good news for fans of the augmented reality startup — a rebirth is at hand.
Many of us know that you can make a few bucks from Amazon by helping the company sell its wide array of products, but now there's a very different way to make a buck with the company, and it involves 3D technology.
The long guarded veil of mystery surrounding Magic Leap for years was finally lifted last year when the company revealed its Magic Leap One device.
It looks like it's cuffing season for AR hardware makers and telecommunications corporations. With AT&T aligned with Magic Leap as its exclusive wireless retailer on the high-end AR side, Verizon has also reached a master reseller agreement with Vuzix, according to a filing with the Securities Exchange Commission.
Augmented reality and computer vision company Blippar has a new lease on life, as previous investor Candy Ventures has completed a successful bid to acquire the assets of the beleaguered company.
In the business world, it's sometimes said that "where there's smoke, there's fire." At Snapchat parent company Snap, Inc., it appears the equivalent of smoke is executive turnover.
After entering the UK's version of bankruptcy last month, Blippar's assets are up for sale, and bidding ended today.
Despite the hype and potential of immersive computing, the augmented reality industry is showing that it is not invincible, as another AR hardware maker, this time Osterhout Design Group (ODG), is reportedly going out of business.
In the aftermath of the launch of the Magic Leap One, Magic Leap has ejected two more executives from their leadership roles.
In a move sure to stir up even more speculation about the future of Snap Inc., the company's vice president of content, Nick Bell, is leaving the company after five years.
Smartglasses and AR headset makers like Microsoft, Magic Leap, and Google (and aspiring AR wearables makers like Apple and Snapchat) need display components for their products, and LetinAR is among the companies ready to supply those components.
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."
Magic Leap has been promising to launch a developer conference for years, and now the company is finally making good on that promise. On Wednesday, Magic Leap sent out the official announcement for its first L.E.A.P. conference, which will be held in Los Angeles in October.
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.
Last week's Augmented World Expo felt like a distant memory by this Monday, as Apple unveiled ARKit 2.0 at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference. Certainly, this news would overshadow anything augmented reality this week as it nearly eclipsed AWE when early reports leaked of the toolkit's new superpowers.
We watched the first piece of public-facing content Magic Leap has released so you don't have to, and, well, you didn't miss much.
If it had come out just a week earlier, around April 1, no one would have believed it. But it's true, Leap Motion has developed its own prototype augmented reality headset, and it looks pretty wild.
Flying under the radar during Magic Leap's big week at the Game Developers Conference, the company settled a potentially ugly lawsuit with a former employee.
Accused of violating whistleblower and age discrimination laws by its security director, Magic Leap has taken an internal situation to the US District Court to clear its name of the allegations.
In another move that pushes Meta 2 toward becoming a legitimate workplace tool, Meta Company has partnered with Dassault Systèmes to bring augmented reality support to the latter's Solidworks 3D CAD software.
Intel Corp.'s augmented reality division could ship consumer-focused smartglasses before the end of the year, according to reports.
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.
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.
Shanghai-based Realmax is introducing the crowds at CES to the Realmax Qian, an augmented reality headset capable of a field of view (FoV) that topples anything available on the market today.
Earlier this year at WWDC, Apple made a big show of featuring augmented reality as a central part of iOS moving forward. But since then, other than comments from the company's CEO, Tim Cook, we haven't seen much direct promotion of augmented reality from the company. Until now.
Meta Company has filed its response to allegations that the user interface for their augmented reality headsets infringe on six patents owned by a mostly-unknown company.
Cruise Automation, the driverless car startup General Motors (GM) bought for $1 billion in 2016, is readying a formidable fleet of robo-taxis for rollout in cities throughout the US. But when it comes to details about how the company plans to realize these lofty goals, it's been fairly tight-lipped.
The ride-sharing firm Lyft and Faraday Future, a troubled electric carmaker and potential Tesla competitor, have quietly appointed new top executives, but like the rest of the industry, they struggle to find talent for their driverless programs.
5G is showing up more and more in the news, as an increasing number of companies jump on the bandwagon. AT&T made a splash earlier this year with their embarrassing "5G Evolution" debacle, and the other three major wireless carriers soon followed suit, detailing their own vague plans for 5G. Today we find another company has joined the fray, just not a cellular one — Apple has officially been approved to test 5G networks.
With augmented reality making its way into the mainstream, consumers have been expecting a company bloodbath for a while now, one that will have a ton of casualties. Blippar has been expected to be one of those casualties due to the reported loss of millions of dollars earlier this year. Now, their situation might be made worse as the creators of the Layar app, Raimo van der Klein and Martin Lens-Fitzgerald, are rumored to be asking for their company back.
A new cross-licensing patent deal signed by Nokia and Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi will bring increased collaboration between the two companies. One area of focus in which both Nokia and Xiaomi have already agreed to work together is augmented reality.
Four augmented reality companies made deals this week to grow their businesses. Two companies, TechSee and Car360, completed funding rounds, while DAQRI signed with a production partner and Decalomania landed a prime spot with a top retailer.
Screen mirroring app iDisplay has arrived for Vuzix M300 Smart Glasses. With the app installed on the M300 and the companion software running on a Mac or Windows computer, users can mirror or extend the computer's desktop to the headset's display, which is connected to the computer via Wi-Fi or USB cable. The app does not yet appear on Vuzix's app store.
While two augmented reality companies were recently recognized for their innovative technologies, other companies have turned to augmented reality to innovate in their respective fields. Over the past week, use cases have ranged from selling snacks and video games to raising awareness for public health issues.
While many analysts predict that the market for augmented and virtual reality will continue to grow over the next five years, now is the time for investors to get in on the ground floor.
Baidu signed a cooperation agreement on June 7, the first day of the CES Asia conference, with multiple companies in the autonomous vehicles industry. The companies listed in the press release include Desay SV, United Automotive Electronics, and Hangsheng Electronics, as well as possibly additional auto manufacturers. Baidu plans to "jointly develop" upcoming intelligent driving production plans.
Single and living in NYC? Forget bars, the female-empowered dating app, Bumble, has just opened a place where you can meet up with your online lovers.
After Ford's CEO Mark Fields' three-year tenure failed to keep up with the driverless industry and resulted in a 40% drop in shares since Field's took over in 2014, Ford is going in a new direction. Jim Hackett, who was previously chairman of Ford's self-driving division, has succeeded Fields as the company's new CEO.
An expert in the driverless market has earmarked Porsche as the company to watch in the automated car race.
Magic Leap is no stranger to hype and speculative advancement—when their name pops up in the news, all focus turns to them. And the company is making news again this week, with the knowledge of an acquisition of a startup founded by former Apple employees, and by hiring animators from an Emmy and Oscar award-winning studio.