We've heard a lot about self-driving taxis, as car and ride-sharing companies compete to win the driverless gold rush. But FedEx wants to bring its enterprise into the mix, as the head of its freight division has asked the US government to develop laws for self-driving trucks.
While not quite a true self-driving car, Mercedes is gearing to release a vehicle with a plethora of assistive-driving features, some that might have you excited about what autonomous vehicles can do in the future.
It isn't too hard to see John Hanke's bias towards augmented reality. His company, Niantic, created the astronomically profitable game Pokémon GO, which revolves around AR technology. However, Hanke has a case against virtual reality—he believes it just won't be healthy, in more than one sense of the word.
Have you ever wanted to catch up on Homeland or Shameless, but are out and about and don't want to use up your data? Those problems are for days of old now, as Showtime has announced their mobile app will allow titles to be downloaded and viewed without an internet connection.
The race for the future of the automative world has never been tighter, with reports earlier this week that Tesla is now almost as valuable as Ford. The neck-in-neck companies are focused on the same next big step for automobiles: the driverless car.
For a long time, Apple has kept the upper hand on Android as far as app revenue is concerned. However, this tradition looks likely to change this year, as Android's app sales are expected to surpass Apple's.
Adidas' new app All Day isn't going to be your average fitness app. Oh no, the company had the "versatile athlete" in mind when it came to creating the well-rounded program that not only encompasses fitness, but also provides nutrition plans, encourages a balanced mindset, and makes sure you get an adequate amount of rest.
The rumor that the iPhone 8 will ship with 3D camera system is not a new one, but a new analysis by Morgan Stanley's Charlie Chan lends credibility to the speculation. Now, it appears more likely than ever that Apple's next iPhone will ship with 3D capabilities, increasing potential for AR and VR integration in the future.
Disney Chairman and CEO Bob Iger has out and out rejected Virtual Reality (VR) as a component of any Disney Theme park. While Knott's Berry Farm, why-hasn't-this-chain-shut-down-yet Sea World (seriously, RIP Tillikum), and Six Flags have all invested in VR to help spice up their parks in this theme park depression period, Iger has "ordered his team not to even think about it." Iger instead is very much onboard the Augmented Reality (AR) train.
Just like a rapper engaged in tweet feud, Elon Musk was working overtime on Twitter this morning, dropping information about the upcoming Tesla Model 3. He even gave a sneak peek of the "release candidate" version of the car, sharing a brief clip of the car driving, which, let's be real, doesn't really tell us anything. Aside from the video, Musk also revealed the fun fact that the car gots its name after Ford sued Tesla for trying to name it the Model E, which would make the abbreviation of ...
A proof of concept for an overhead crane training simulator is in the works. Using Microsoft HoloLens and an industrial-style controller, trainees can pick up holographic loads and transport them throughout a warehouse setting.
Lately, the biggest news in driverless has been the raging lawsuit between two autonomous spearheads, Uber and Google's Waymo. A new bill back by General Motors, however, could take them both out of the race towards driverless.
The conversation around augmented reality has largely been focused on apps and gaming, and how AR can be used as a marketing tool. However, a new exhibit at France's Scène Nationale Albi is using AR for more artistic expression.
Mobile gaming is a huge industry that raked in more than $91 billion in revenue in 2016, and of course, all of the major players get most of the glory. But smaller, independent game developers make some of the most fun and unique games out there — it's just harder to find their stuff because they don't have the promotional budget of studios like Rovio and Gameloft.
Every year, 100-200 people in the US contract leptospirosis, but usually 50% of the cases occur in Hawaii where outdoor adventurers are exposed to Leptospira bacteria found in freshwater ponds, waterfalls, streams, and mud. That's why it's so alarming that two people in the Bronx have been diagnosed with the disease and a 30-year-old man has died from it.
WhatsApp recently updated their emojis (or emoji, depending on your preference), but it wasn't exactly a welcome change. Many users have complained that the new smilies are just way too big, others aren't too fond of the shinier appearance, and countless folks have been venting their frustrations on Twitter.
Kazendi, a London-based HoloLens development and rapid prototyping studio, just released a new iOS app in Apple's App Store that lets developers stream HoloLens applications live from the headset to an iPad or iPhone. It's called HoloStream, and is the first iOS/HoloLens crossover app we've seen so far.
Earlier today, Alphabet announced that the Self-Driving Car Project has officially graduated from their innovation factory (X) and will now operate as an independent company called Waymo.
The theme running throughout most of this year's WinHEC keynote in Shenzhen, China was mixed reality. Microsoft's Alex Kipman continues to be a great spokesperson and evangelist for the new medium, and it is apparent that Microsoft is going in deep, if not all in, on this version of the future. I, for one, as a mixed reality or bust developer, am very glad to see it.
We've seen many things get gummy-ized over the years—worms, insects, Coke bottles, glass cleaner, Legos, brains, Nutella, and even tiny LEDs—but nothing compares to YouTuber and WonderHowTo favorite Grant Thompson, aka The King of Random, who made one helluva creepy gummy chicken that's just as big as the real deal.
With the death of Google's Nexus line, the market for phones with top-notch specs at midrange prices is now wide open. OnePlus is apparently ready to fill this void, as they've just announced the OnePlus 3T, an iterative update to their OnePlus 3 flagship only five months after initial release.
It's now common knowledge that the blue light emitted by phone screens makes it harder to get a good night's sleep. Apple's Night Shift in iOS and its steamrolled predecessor, f.lux (still available for desktop computers), are attempts to combat these harmful effects by limiting the amount of blue light from the screen at certain times of day (nighttime, say). For Android users who installed the Developer Preview build of Android 7.0 Nougat, the included "Night Mode" feature was all set to do...
What happens when a entrepeneur/theme park creator and special effects artist/magician team up? You get a team crazy enough to create the first true virtual reality theme park (sorry, Six Flags). They only have a single experience so far, but it's already taken a giant leap beyond the wonders we've seen in today's consumer virtual reality headsets.
Virtual reality headsets like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive tether to desktop computers with robust GPUs in order to harness their power. The free-roaming, cordless Microsoft HoloLens forgoes those chains but loses a bit of graphical processing power in the mix. However, a recent report suggests we may get the best of both worlds.
Cancer is a complicated illness, but the more we understand it, the likelier we are to beat it. The 3D Visualisation Aesthetics Lab at the University of New South Wales took to virtual reality to help improve our odds by allowing scientists to walk through virtual representations of actual cancer cells.
Jurassic Park makes a great (and sometimes mediocre) action movie, but hopefully isn't the sort of thing we're dumb enough to actually make. Fortunately, on the HoloLens, you can now walk with the dinosaurs with no risk to your life and limbs.
People fear virtual reality will isolate us, but the right experience can prove it does the opposite.
Apple announced their new iPhones today, and the 7 Plus features two camera lenses on its backside. That could push smartphone photography ahead in a major way. It may also serve as the basis for their foray into virtual, augmented, and mixed reality.
Among the many new changes ushered in by the iPhone 7, only one has the potential to completely change the way you interact with your smartphone—a new 3D Touch-enabled home button. Instead of the mechanical click we've grown accustomed to, your home button will now behave like the rest of the phone's touch screen interface.
Humans learn best by doing or through an experience, and so the holographic environments provided in virtual and mixed reality are ripe with educational opportunities. HoloStudy took this to heart and created an educational science app that teaches you with animated models you can explore in your own space.
LARPing, or live action role-playing, can look a little silly because it requires a lot of imagination to suspend reality. But mixed reality technology like the Microsoft HoloLens can change all of that with voice commands and special effects.
As people experiment with mixed reality software, we're seeing applications that cover the entire spectrum of human interest. Anything that can exist in the physical world has a place in the holographic one. And just as we enjoy building various contraptions with real parts, a new app called ARails knew we'd feel the same about digital ones.
We can't be in two places at once, but with virtual touch interfaces we can theoretically use a machine to act as our second body in a remote location. Over at MIT, Daniel Leithinger and Sean Follmer, with the advisement of Hiroshi Ishii, created an interface that makes this possible.
Microsoft recently announced that they're producing HoloLens units fast enough to keep up with demand, which means you can acquire up to five dev kits right now—if you've got the $3,000 fee for each one.
If you want to quickly understand EtherWars, imagine a game like StarCraft where you build out your base on your living room floor instead of on a computer screen. Before we had computer games to help us imagine what space wars might feel like, we played with toy ships and used our imaginations. EtherWars combines those two elements by replacing toys with holograms that actually react to your choices.
Mozilla helped get the ball rolling with WebVR, but support for the technology has been notably absent in Google Chrome until recently. Now, the latest Chromium developer build offers limited support.
Don't Miss: The Difference Between Virtual, Augmented, & Mixed Reality
If not the future of computing in general, augmented, virtual, and mixed reality certainly will change the world of gaming. If you want to try your hand at shaping this evolved medium, the Unite Europe conference posted a talk that explains the first things you need to learn to develop holographic games.
Most virtual and mixed reality headsets offer unnatural controls, making you use awkward movements or physical devices to control the holographic elements in your direct view. This doesn't make a lot of sense because using your hands is more natural, so Manus developed a set of gloves that solves that problem entirely.
Deaf people primarily communicate through sign language, so understanding spoken languages can prove challenging. To bridge that gap in communication, the HoloHear team built a mixed reality app at a Microsoft HoloLens Hackathon in San Fransisco that translates the spoken word into sign language.
