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.
Luxury automaker Mercedes-Benz has joined the growing list of automakers adopting augmented reality to provide an assist to its manufacturing operations, in this case, via the Microsoft HoloLens.
The mainstreaming of augmented reality won't happen overnight, but it's becoming increasingly clear that traditional media is leading the charge in the effort to introduce the public to immersive computing. A recent example came from none other than USA Today via its 321 Launch app.
The long and slow road toward the actual release of the Magic Leap One appears to be accelerating, with a couple of new demonstrations of how the system works revealed in this week's creator's portal updates along with the company's developer documentation.
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.
The availability of space for filming immersive content has just gotten bigger with the launch of Innovation Studios by Sony Pictures Entertainment.
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.
Just a year after facing trade secret theft allegations from his former employer, ex-Meta Company employee Kevin Zhong and his new company are ready to ship the product that triggered the lawsuit.
Electronics maker Epson is courting developers to its Moverio smartglasses with an updated software development kit (SDK) and integration with a web-based tool for publishing augmented reality experiences.
It will likely take a few more years before smartglasses are ready for primetime as component makers achieve the innovations necessary for consumer-centric device designs. Nevertheless, two technology companies are making steps in that direction as Qualcomm is rumored to be working on a chip dedicated to AR & VR headsets, while DigiLens has reduced the size of its waveguide displays for motorcycle helmets.
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.
Following the surprise release of Magic Leap's SDK on Monday, March 19, Unity, Unreal Engine, and Mozilla followed up by announcing official partnerships with the company.
Augmented reality startup 6D.ai is now accepting applicants for the closed beta of its 6D SDK. While operating in the background on a smartphone, the computer vision platform captures a dense 3D mesh in real time using just the device's camera (such a feat typically requires a depth sensor).
During the unveiling of its content partnership with the NBA, Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz, with an assist from former player/current pitchman Shaquille O'Neal, described at least one of the ways fans would be able to experience sports using the augmented reality device.
A new smartglasses powerhouse is rising in Europe, led by two of the region's leading brands, optical systems company Zeiss (also known as Carl Zeiss) and telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom.
This week, two companies looking to capitalize on the growing augmented reality industry, raised funding from starkly different sources.
As more companies begin adopting augmented reality in the workplace, providers like Vuzix reap the benefits.
More platforms and more tools to make content for those platforms. It seems like the Dev Report —Next Reality's breakdown on the latest information on tools and processes to make augmented reality experiences — is going to be coming out on a much shorter cycle.
With so many companies announcing news or demonstrating technologies at the Augmented World Expo 2017, it can be a challenge to see it all. In fact, we are still unpacking some of our in-depth on-site coverage. So, this edition of Brief Reality is focused on the news we did not cover last week.
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.
Are there any benefits to watching a movie in a holographic mixed reality headset, or should you just stick with your TV? It's not as cut and dried as you might think. While TVs have some advantages, so does the virtual screen of a Microsoft HoloLens.
Roughly half of all Americans believe in extra sensory perception... Are you part of that statistic? Ever get the feeling you have a paranormal ability? You can investigate your psychic abilities and hone your skills with these tips.
Wedding insurance, vacation packages, travel discounts – the American Automobile Association offers its members more than free towing.
Throughout Thursday's virtual Snap Partner Summit, Snapchat's parent company made a profound statement: If you use Snapchat, you're a creator.
This week, developer Niantic began rolling out a new feature called AR Mapping to Pokémon GO that has bigger implications on the realism of augmented reality in mobile gaming and beyond.
Apple's latest mobile operating system for iPhones, iOS 12, was released to everyone Monday, Sept. 17, and it's the same exact build that developers and public beta testers received as the "golden master" on Sept. 12, the day of Apple's 2018 special event. Install it to start taking advantage of the 100+ features iOS 12 has to offer right now.
Facebook's earnings calls are generally focused on numbers—revenue and user growth. But this week the company's founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, carved out a significant portion of the call to elaborate on Facebook's plans for immersive computing.
The last few weeks were fairly busy in the realm of augmented reality and remote meetings developments. Most of that activity was generated by some mammoth announcements from Snap and its Spectacles AR smartglasses, and Google, with its Project Starline experimental holographic video conferencing system.
June is Pride Month, an annual celebration of LGBTQ+ communities in commemoration of the Stonewall uprising of 1969.
Apple has a sterling reputation when it comes to managing its supply chain; it's where CEO Tim Cook proved his mettle to succeed Steve Jobs. Now, the company has made a strategic investment with a supplier that will be crucial to its future plans for AR wearables.
As a company, Facebook is not shy about talking up its AR smartglasses plans. The latest missive comes from two executives in charge of developing AR software and hardware.
Snapchat and its augmented reality capabilities have become a haven for music artists seeking to promote their new albums or simply amplify their art with immersive experiences.
The year is still off to a roaring start, with augmented reality at the center of nearly everything, from enterprise solutions, to entertainment, to safety.
The Lens Studio creators have published more than 1.5 million AR effects to Snapchat. One of them is Audrey Spencer, who shared her story with us and provided her insights into Lens Studio as a storytelling device. Meanwhile, Snap has added new capabilities to the platform to stoke more creativity from its creators.
In the three years since Snapchat launched Lens Studio, developers and artists have created more than 1.5 million AR camera effects with the desktop tool.
A lot of digital ink has been spilled heaping scorn on Magic Leap. Much of that media schadenfreude was due to what some believed were unmet promises versus some of the early hype around the product. Others just seemed to be rubbed the wrong way by the startup's Apple-esque secrecy and penchant for attempting to coin new terms and frameworks for things that were, mostly, already in play.
Just as predicted (but perhaps with less fanfare than usual), Apple has made the move of adding a depth sensor to the rear camera of its latest edition of the iPad Pro.
We may or may not see Apple's long-awaited take on AR smartglasses this year, but the company is more than getting its practice swings in with its current wearables business, which hit record revenue in 2019 according to financial results released this week.
While the long-awaited HoloLens 2 officially arrived this week, details leaked about another, arguably longer-awaited AR headset, the fabled wearable from Apple, and a previously undisclosed partner assisting the Cupertino-based company with the hardware.
It's no secret that Samsung is working on augmented reality hardware, as the company has been candid about its intentions. However, what we don't know is exactly how many AR projects the company is working on, as patent filings and reports revealed two more over the past week.
