News: Magic Leap's First Twitch Video Show Had Toys, Philosophy, but No New Peeks at the Headset
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.
Enduring Social Search Results
Marketing: Snapchat Sells Advertisers on Augmented Reality with New E-Commerce Features
In an effort to help its advertising partners close sales with its sponsored augmented reality camera effects, Snapchat has launched a set of e-commerce tools designed to encourage users to buy products directly in the app.
News: New Magic Leap Images Appear as Saudi Prince Gets Demo from CEO Rony Abovitz
It turns out that the government of Saudi Arabia has managed to do something last month's Game Developers Conference couldn't — give us a few new glimpses of the Magic Leap One being worn by someone other than Shaq.
News: Japan Startup Launches What Could Be the First AR Barbie Doll for Your iPhone
We already showed you the dark side of augmented reality in the form of a virtual girlfriend from Japan, but now the same country has given us something a lot less creepy that could be the future of virtual pop stars everywhere.
News: Here Are Some of the Cool New Home Screen Features on the Galaxy S9
While millions eagerly await the arrival of the Galaxy S9 and all the new features it has to offer, we can actually get a glimpse of its capabilities right now — if we know where to look. The S9's home screen, in particular, is one such area that has new features we can preview now.
News: Everything on the Galaxy S9+ That You'll Be Missing with the Regular S9
The S9 and S9+ are both fantastic phones. However, there's no getting around the fact that the S9+ has its advantages. In fact, it's an objectively better smartphone than its smaller counterpart — Samsung has given the S9+ features not found in the S9, meaning you'll be missing out if you choose the 5.8" Galaxy over the 6.2".
News: Cover Girl Opts for Browser AR Try-on Tool Instead of Mobile App & the Results Are Tragic
The latest cosmetics brand to launch its own augmented reality try-on tool is Cover Girl, which introduced its browser-based experience this week.
How To: Video or Audio Chat in Instagram Direct Messages for Quick Calls with One or More Users
The app that started as simply a photo-sharing social media platform has expanded to encompass so much more than that. Between live videos, stories, chat, and animated stickers, Instagram is more than the sum of its pictures. Now, there's a new feature to add to that list for Android and iOS — video and audio calls.
Coinbase 101: How to Refer Friends & Family to Earn Bonuses
Every dollar that comes your way is a blessing, especially when it comes to trading in the volatile world of bitcoins. Thankfully, Coinbase rewards you for sending much valued customers their way, giving you more money to feed your cryptocurrency trading needs.
Market Reality: Magic Leap One Says Hello, Google Tango Waves Goodbye & Honda Uses AR for CSR
Everything that has a beginning has an end. This week marked the end of the long wait for the reveal of Magic Leap's first product and the beginning of the wait for more substantive details. Likewise, Google Tango will meet its end in March 2018, when ARCore will officially begin its public rollout.
News: Vuzix & CyberTimez Give Gift of Sight to High School Student via AR Smartglasses
Augmented reality hardware maker Vuzix came to the rescue of a vision-impaired student in Pennsylvania today by delivering a pair of Vuzix M300 Smart Glasses to enhance her eyesight.
Market Reality: Apple Funds Its AR Device Production Future, the Snapchat vs. Facebook War Heats Up & Airbnb Goes AR
With an eye toward future iPhone X-focused augmented reality functions, Apple's new investment in one of its components vendors will increase production capacity for the technology behind its TrueDepth camera, but could also apply to its future AR ambitions.
Market Reality: This Is How AR Is Changing Things at Amazon, Apple & Snapchat
During its third-quarter earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that "AR is going to change everything."
Gmail 101: How to Use Priority Inbox to Automatically Filter Out Clutter
For many of us, getting to inbox zero is the highlight of our day. But if you used your email address to sign up for various sites and services, your inbox is probably cluttered with all sorts of spam, news letters, and unimportant emails. Thankfully, Gmail has a feature that can solve this by using machine learning.
Market Reality: Apple Presents Bright Future for AR, While Snap Shows Reality of Glum Present
We may have to wait a few years before they arrive, but reports of Apple's headset taking shape in Cupertino gives the tech world hope that its white knight for consumer AR is on its way.
News: Arcona Could Cover the World with AR Objects
A Russian augmented reality startup wants the next frontier in real estate to be augmented reality estate.
Market Reality: As Magic Leap & Microsoft Seek Funds, Educators Prepare the Next Class of AR Innovators
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.
News: Google Continues AR Duel Versus Apple with AR Stickers for Pixel 2
Clearly, the next big battlefield for tech gamesmanship between Apple and Google will be augmented reality.
Today's Top News: Waiting for Tesla's Reaction to Former Uber Engineer's 'Faketesla' Claims
Former Google and Uber engineer Anthony Levandowski's scathing accusations challenging the physics behind Tesla CEO and founder Elon Musk's claims about Autopilot should force Musk to make his case that self-drive cars don't need LiDAR in the next few months.
Snapseed 101: Use the 'Healing' Tool to Remove Unwanted Elements from a Photo
Snapseed is an app that you should definitely be using not only if you're really serious about photography, but also if you want to ensure that your online work sets the standard for social media. It's a great companion app to Instagram and VSCO, and it will save your day many times over when you find yourself on your phone, on-the-go, needing to edit an image beyond the typical everyday filters.
How To: Use Google Maps to Share Your Location with Friends & Family
Life is all about spending time together with loved ones, experiencing new places together to enjoy and create memorable moments. Luckily, Google has made it easier for us to rendezvous with friends and family at specific places by letting us broadcast our locations using Google Maps.
How To: Get Your Hands on the New SNES Classic Edition
Nintendo's Super NES Classic system, a pint-sized version of the iconic Super NES from the '90s, is highly anticipated in the gaming world. The retro system has already met its fair share of controversies and it's been a long journey to preorder. Finally, the Super NES Classic is officially available for preorder, but it's selling out fast.
Brief Reality: Augmented Reality Applied to Makeup, Medical & Sports Marketing
If it's not official by now, it really should be: if you're going to sell cosmetics, you need an augmented reality app. Of course, that's not all augmented reality is good for. It can be used to animate medical models and engage sports fans. Read on below…
News: A Really Cheap Augmented Reality Headset Is Coming Soon
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.
How To: Enable the Hidden Grayscale Mode on Your Pixel or Nexus — No Root Needed
Most newer phones come with a grayscale mode that you can activate when you want to save some battery life. The way it works is simple: If your graphics chip only has to render elements in black and white instead of full 32-bit color, it won't consume as much power.
News: Microsoft's 'Seeing AI' App Helps the Visually Impaired Through Narration
When the iPhone first came out, using them seemed like an impossibility to the visually impaired. Luckily, the iPhone now provides a multitude of resources to make sure that the visually impaired have accessibility to the phone.
Facebook 101: How to Block Commenters from Spamming You During a Live Broadcast
If you are fond of going live or watching live videos on Facebook, then you've probably experienced a number of viewers commenting. Sometimes these comments are good. Sometimes ... well, sometimes we could all go without them.
Facebook 101: How to 'Go Live' from Your iPhone or Android Phone
It looks like "going live" is another thing we all have to figure out how to do to remain relevant in this very Facebook-driven world. But why would you ever want to go live? That's really up to you.
Fyre Starters: Meet the 15 Stars Whose (Undisclosed) #Spon Brought the FTC's Wrath on Instagram
Now that Fyre Festival co-founder Billy McFarland is charged with fraud, this is the perfect time to list off those top 15 influencers who promoted tickets to the disastrous event to their loyal followers, right?
Instagram 101: Here's How to Turn Off Instagram's New Comment Filter
One of my favorite things about Instagram, and the reason why it's still my go-to app, is the fact that it's not like Facebook or YouTube. After our last presidential election, well, I think we've all been scarred from going anywhere near Facebook. And YouTube, I'm not sure why comments on that platform are some of the worst, but they are.
Instagram 101: Take Your Hashtag Game to the Next Level with Focalmark
Typing out thirty hashtags on Instagram is always such an annoying process. Figuring out the best hashtags to use to get more likes is also tricky. You can't just keep copying and pasting the same hashtags on every post — that's like attacking the same tribe every time. You got to diversify, which takes a lot of conscious effort to be on top of the current best hashtags to use.
News: Ready or Not, Augmented Reality Is Coming to Fantasy Sports & Dating Apps
It seems that mobile app developers are constantly coming up with new ideas to apply augmented reality, with Apple's ARKit promising to increase adoption in apps exponentially.
iOS Users: Prepare to Have Your Twitter World Rocked with Redesign
You seriously won't even recognize Twitter after this. Twitter has launched a major redesign, their first in years and it seems the app is finally starting to listen to what users are looking for — starting to being the keywords.
News: Niantic Promises More AR in Pokémon GO on the iPhone with ARKit
Pokémon GO's augmented reality journey is continuing with Apple's newly announced ARKit. It's no surprise considering Pokémon GO is the largest mainstream augmented reality game, with 500 million downloads.
News: As FTC Cracks Down, Instagram Will Start Letting You Know Who's Getting Paid to Post
Get ready IG influencers, the Instagram promotional world as you know it is about to change. Instagram is one of the top places for influencers to make money with product promotion. So, of course, it is to be expected that these IG dominators would run into their fair share of disasters. Especially since over 90% of celebrities and influencers on Instagram don't follow FTC guidelines.
News: Magic Leap Opens Up Applications for Early-Access Beta Developers
Magic Leap has always been intensely secretive about its work on its augmented reality headset, so it's interesting that they're now publicly recruiting developers to build software for the device before its launch.
News: Captain Blimey Seeks to Plunder the Pokémon GO Craze
A Seattle development team is putting the "ARRRR" in AR with the maiden voyage of Captain Blimey, an augmented reality game for iOS and Android devices that puts a pirate premise on Pokémon GO.
How To: The Fastest Way to Transfer Photos & Videos from Your DSLR to Your Android
Connecting your devices with a cable is the fastest and most reliable way to transfer files between them. Now that most Android devices have either USB Type-C or a Micro-USB port that supports USB OTG, phones are capable of importing media files directly from a camera using a simple (and cheap) adapter.
News: Drone Prix Finishes as First AR Game for DJI Drones
Augmented reality software developer Edgybees has launched Drone Prix. The new mobile app immerses DJI drones and their pilots in more than 30 augmented reality obstacle courses.
News: Apple Just Hired an AR Specialist from NASA
Apple likes to play their cards close to the vest, don't they? The iconic company doesn't usually reveal much about their projects until it's time for an official announcement. But sometimes ... They can't stop a leak of information from happening, or they just leak the news themselves like Steve Jobs used to. That brings us to today's news. It appears the tech giant has hired an augmented reality specialist from NASA to join their AR team.