Magic Leap has had a rough couple of years, highlighted by high-profile executive departures, lawsuits, troublesome patent shuffles, and massive layoffs.
We're still basking in the afterglow of the HUGE Snap Partner Summit last week, where Snap made Snapchat a much stronger augmented reality platform while also unveiling the AR smartglasses version of Spectacles. This week, we got a peek at how Spectacles AR started and got our hands on Lenses from Lego and Disney featured during the keynote.
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.
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.
In the realm of social media, all roads lead to one destination: cracking the code of continuous partial attention dopamine hits. We learned this back in the days of Vine, before Twitter foolishly killed it. And I pointed my lens at the emerging trend back in 2016 when I highlighted Musical.ly for Mashable, just before it was snapped up by China's Bytedance for $1 billion and merged into what is now TikTok.
The powers of the Nreal Light continue to increase incrementally with each passing week. Now, the latest feature added to the device is possibly the most requested feature for anyone who has tried the Nreal Light: hand tracking.
After stealing the show at the HoloLens 2 launch and starring in Qualcomm's unveiling the Snapdragon XR2, holographic video conferencing app Spatial has landed a leading role in Magic Leap's second act with the enterprise segment.
China-based smartphone maker Oppo is ready to put Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon chips in its latest round of smartphones, but, like Qualcomm, Oppo is also preparing to move on to augmented reality wearables.
After three years and change, no one seems to be able to knock Pokémon GO off its augmented reality throne. Zombies, dinosaurs, and ghosts have all met defeat at the hands of the pocket monsters. Heck, not even the world's most popular wizard and Pokémon GO's developer can replicate the original's success.
After entering into settlement talks with Epic Games over the gaming giant's trademark challenge, Nreal is now ready to open up the floodgates to potential early adopters in the augmented reality space.
At least one hurdle to China-based augmented reality startup Nreal going mainstream in the United States may be about to be knocked down, thanks to behind the scenes legal movements Next Reality has uncovered.
The longest-running children's television show in the United States, Sesame Street, hasn't survived 50 years without leveraging new technology along the way.
What if you could combine the fun of Halloween with the process of learning? Well, if you were wise enough to have already snagged a Magic Leap One device, we have good news: the app you're looking for is here, and it's called Zombie Math.
Following on the heels of the announcement that ThirdEye's Gen X2 MR glasses began shipping in September, ThirdEye has revealed it has developed an app that helps soldiers aim their weapons during battle situations.
Following in the steps of Snapchat, Instagram, and YouCam, another popular photo app has gotten into the virtual try-on augmented reality game.
It looks like Jaunt's pivot from VR to volumetric captures services for augmented reality experiences has paid off.
Less than a month after launching its augmented reality Swim Goggles, wearables startup Form is preparing to add a major new feature for aquatic athletes.
Imagine sitting on your patio, scrolling through your phone's photos, reminiscing about the past. Now imagine being able to see those photos floating in the air, at the exact vantage point from where they were taken a year ago.
With Snapchat making the leap into the smartglasses realm, Facebook had to find a way to try and steal its competitor's augmented reality thunder.
Next to map data overlays, one of the most often discussed concepts for apps that could propel augmented reality smartglasses into the mainstream is a real-time language translation app.
In a legal brief entered on Monday, Florida-based startup Magic Leap has filed suit against the founder of Nreal, a former employee of Magic Leap, claiming that the company's Nreal Light smartglasses were built using Magic Leap's intellectual property.
After one of Britain's "Brothers Bling" bought Blippar out of bankruptcy, the mobile augmented reality company is getting back to business with the addition of web-based AR capabilities to its platform.
If you've been putting off upgrading your iPhone or iPad, you might want to start shopping for a current-generation device to take advantage of the latest capabilities in ARKit 3.
After getting its start with models of augmented reality planets that serve as targets for augmented reality experiences, AstroReality is diversifying its portfolio by paying tribute to one of the space agencies that made its products possible.
There's no shortage of augmented reality platforms for remote video assistance, but startup Streem is looking to give its offering a leg up with an infusion of new technology.
Many native New Yorkers, like myself, get a chance to visit the famed Statue of Liberty during school trips when they're a child in grade school. And if you're not lucky enough to be born in the city, you have to make a special trip to the monument as a tourist.
Augmented reality platform maker Zappar and its marker-based augmented reality technology have been around well before Apple and Google brought markerless AR to mobile apps.
Magic Leap's business strategy for bringing augmented reality to the mainstream has become even clearer via its latest funding round.
In the latest update to the ongoing Meta Company patent infringement case, the court has responded to a request from the defendants, and the answer isn't good news.
The legal drama framing the closure of Meta Company continues even after the company's assets have been sold to a new owner.
In the past few years, augmented reality software maker 8th Wall has worked to build its platform into a cross-platform augmented reality toolkit for mobile apps, as well as web-based AR experiences.
Just over two months ago, smartglasses startup North opened the doors at its two brick-and-mortar retail locations in Toronto and New York and began accepting orders for Focals. On Thursday, the company announced that those initial customers can get ready to pick up their wearables, as the first shipments have now arrived in stores.
Not all enterprise augmented reality tools require a high-end headset and heavy computing power. Sometimes, a smartphone can do the job just as well. Along those lines, software maker Atheer is now bringing its workforce AR platform to iPhones and iPads via a native app.
An augmented reality system developed by Lyft might make it less awkward for drivers to figure out who they are supposed to pick up.
After joining Google and Huawei in underwriting the UW Reality Lab at the University of Washington in January, it appears Facebook is already seeing a return on its donation.
Automotive augmented reality display maker WayRay is making a move to help developers get all those slick, futuristic AR functions we see in concept videos into the real cars of today.
Occipital's initial augmented reality module, the Structure Sensor, gave iPhones and iPads the depth-sensing abilities of the HoloLens. Now, the company's latest product promises to do the same for Android devices, as well as augmented reality and virtual reality headsets and other devices.
French cosmetics giant L'Oréal isn't wasting any time putting its new subsidiary, ModiFace, to work. On Thursday, the company launched a new tool that enables a photo-realistic augmented reality simulation of nail polish shades and textures to be accurately displayed on a user's fingers in real time.
Augmented reality and drones already go together like turkey and stuffing, but a new iOS app adds some spice to the combination with a new kind of flight path automation.
The augmented reality smartglasses future that Snap founder Evan Spiegel has teased for so long may be closer than many realize.