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.
Investment in augmented reality remained robust in 2019. For the third consecutive year, we looked back on the biggest funding deals in the AR industry this week, and a familiar name came out on top.
Indian startup Dimension NXG is launching augmented reality headsets into India's consumer market with a bold idea: focusing on immersive computing in education on the high-end. The plan is to give a new kind of AR headset to schoolchildren in remote Indian villages, starting from class 5 (age 10) until graduation.
Wearables startup North has made a smart move to get its Focals smartglasses into the hands of more consumers.
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?"
When it comes to building luxury cars, Bentley certainly knows what it's doing. However, when it comes to building an AR app, Bentley is looking less Continental GT and more Geo Metro.
The longer it takes Apple, Snapchat, Facebook, and other tech giants to build their own version of augmented reality headsets and smartglasses, the longer runway of practical experience Microsoft gains with the HoloLens and its sequel. The latest example: AR cloning.
Sports technology company Form is testing the waters for augmented reality wearables with a product aimed at a very specific user group.
Here at Next Reality, our typical approach to all things augmented reality involves vision combined with remote control, either via a handheld device, gaze control, or hand/finger tracking.
The recent industry whispers in augmented reality are mostly about Apple and its rumored fashion-friendly smartglasses, but one company isn't waiting for the iPhone heavyweight to enter the fray.
During the recent Augmented World Expo (AWE), we had a chance to try out the Lenovo ThinkReality A6 AR headset. Unfortunately, the experience was all downhill from there.
After applying augmented reality as a solution for the sale and marketing of sneakers, Nike is taking the next step in its adoption of AR to improve the customer experience.
As the opening act to the grand unveiling of the long-awaited HoloLens 2 at Mobile World Congress Barcelona on Sunday, Microsoft showed off the standalone Azure Kinect time of flight sensor, which also happens to supply the improved human and environmental understanding capabilities of the next-generation augmented reality headset.
The augmented reality industry had enough twists this week to surprise even M. Night Shyamalan.
While augmented reality made more of a cameo appearance during Samsung's official grand unveiling of the Galaxy S10 line-up on Wednesday, it's the company's move into 5G connectivity that has huge implications for AR.
Beloved toy maker Lego is returning to the realm of augmented reality, this time with an experience that explores supernatural fun.
Move over, cosmetics companies. The athletic footwear industry wants to be able to give their customers the opportunity to try on products in augmented reality as well.
The era of smartglasses designed for consumers has officially begun, as shipments of North Focals began arriving at its stores this week. And the company now has plans to expand its retail footprint.
Among a crowded field of AR cloud companies aiming to power the future of augmented reality by creating a world of persistent holographic content that lives in a cloud, accessible across devices and accounts, Ubiquity6 is hoping it has found a way to differentiate its platform.
Mixed reviews of Magic Leap One aside, it would be hard to deny that Magic Leap has had a big year. And the AR unicorn isn't coasting to the finish line, with a number of new apps dropping and prescription frames finally arriving to bring relief to those who wear eyeglasses.
Location-based gaming pioneer Niantic has been preparing its flavor of AR cloud, the Niantic Real World Platform, to bring more realistic and interactive augmented reality experiences to mobile apps. And now the company is looking for a few good developers to help execute its vision on the platform.
Despite funding difficulties that forced Meta to place employees on temporary leave in September, the augmented reality headset maker is reminding enterprise companies that it remains a viable option for visualizing and working with 3D design models.
Huawei has been in a losing battle with the US government for around ten years, with the last year being the spike of Huawei's problems. Because of US pushback against some Chinese-based smartphone manufacturers due to security concerns, Huawei is hoping to limit its dependency on US-based companies, and recent rumors of Huawei's very own mobile operating system may be the first step.
This week, Next Reality released the fifth and final set of profiles on the NR30 leaders in augmented reality, with this chapter focusing on the influencers in the industry.
One could argue that, at least for the moment, software development is more important to the augmented reality experience than hardware. Since a viable augmented reality headset has yet to emerge for the broader, mainstream consumer market, currently, the same devices that make texting and selfies possible are leading the charge to enable easy-to-use AR experiences.
We've seen all the Magic Leap One glamour shots, and we've even shown you a bit of what it looks like to view augmented reality on the device. But there's something else us super geeks appreciate more than anyone else: the grand unboxing!
If you're not impressed with the current crop of AR content, and you're worried this may put a damper on the industry's growth, these stories should give you cause for some optimism.
Last month was a whirlwind for the augmented reality industry, with the Augmented World Expo, Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, and an exciting Magic Leap Twitch livestream all wrapping up before the ides of June. Now that we've had a chance to fully digest it all, we have a real sense of where the augmented reality industry is heading.
Location-based gaming pioneer Niantic has offered a preview of its augmented reality cloud platform that could change the immersive content game yet again.
On Wednesday, June 6, the people at Magic Leap finally (FINALLY) decided to give the public a dedicated, slow, feature-by-feature walkthrough of the Magic Leap One: Creator Edition. How was it? About as good as it gets without actually getting to see what images look like through the device when wearing it.
The Augmented World Expo is winding down in Santa Clara, where Qualcomm, Vuzix, and Meta Company were among the companies making big announcements.
On Monday, at its annual Build developer conference, Microsoft revealed two new apps for the HoloLens apps.
Modern "mad men" are buying into augmented reality for marketing, with the two latest examples being trendy burger maker Bareburger and department store chain Zara.
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.
The cosmetics industry faced a rude awakening on Friday as beauty behemoth L'Oréal gobbled up ModiFace, one of the leading providers of augmented reality technology to the cosmetics industry (price details for the acquisition were not disclosed).
Just days after Bose did its best to frame a pair of glasses frames with spatial audio as "augmented reality," a patent application from Magic Leap, surfaced on Thursday, March 15, offers a similar idea, but with real AR included.
The once blurry and mysterious vision of Magic Leap's future is slowly coming into focus in the present, despite the company's obsessive attempts to keep any and all information under wraps until the next reveal is absolutely necessary. A new tidbit of information hints at an addition to the company's unfolding story that almost no one had accounted for: retail stores.
On Monday, toy maker Merge virtually blasted its way into CES 2018 with a new tech-meets-toys innovation in the form of an augmented reality gun controller for use with smartphone-powered first-person shooter apps.
Whenever you attend or remotely watch a major Apple event, you're likely to see Phil Schiller, the company's senior vice president of worldwide marketing, unveiling a brand new product on stage. Outside of an official event, Schiller is the second most likely person (after Apple's CEO Tim Cook) you'll find delivering a rare tidbit of new Apple info or perspective to the public.
During its third-quarter earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that "AR is going to change everything."
