News: Xiaomi Wearable Uses Waveguide Tech to Mount Challenge to US Smartglasses Market
As if answering Apple's major iPhone event on Tuesday, Chinese mobile giant Xiaomi held its own product launch event the following day.
As if answering Apple's major iPhone event on Tuesday, Chinese mobile giant Xiaomi held its own product launch event the following day.
On Monday, Apple unveiled its Apple Card, the company's boldest move yet toward becoming a truly mainstream mobile payments company. And the product has vast implications for our augmented reality future, some of which may not be immediately obvious to many.
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.
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.
Whenever a new, category-defining Apple product is in the works, we usually get a series of creative concept designs to accompany the rumors swirling around the prospective launch.
This year's CES seems particularly obesessed with VR, but augmented reality is offering a few surprises as well. One of those surprises arrived on Monday in the form of China's Rokid Glass.
In years past, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) mostly dabbled in the future as far as the long-term vision for augmented reality was concerned. This year, however, objects in the future are much closer than they appear.
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.
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.
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.
I had the opportunity to speak with the COO of Osterhout Design Group, Pete Jameson, shortly before the announcement of the company's R-8 and R-9 smartglasses models at CES in January. And while I sadly could not make it to CES to test the smart specs out right away, ODG invited me to do just that while I was in San Francisco for the Game Developers Conference.
Roughly a year ago, Samsung demoed its AR smartglasses prototype on stage at CES 2020. Now, videos showing off a new smartglasses model along with the company's imaginings of future AR experiences have surfaced through unofficial yet reliable channels.
You can almost detect the collective breath-holding of the augmented reality industry as it waits for Apple's inevitable entry. A new Apple wearable built with augmented reality technology is likely the device that will finally make the smartphone take a backseat.
Wearables startup North has made a smart move to get its Focals smartglasses into the hands of more consumers.
This week, Snapchat parent Snap came closer to fulfilling its smartglasses destiny by adding new 3D content capabilities to its third-generation Spectacles. At the same time, the now defunct Meta Company continued its fall from grace, as a judge ruled in favor of the plaintiff in the patent infringement case against the Meta 1 and Meta 2 headsets.
Smartglasses maker Vuzix has emerged with the first hardware powered by the Snapdragon XR1 chip, roughly nine months after Qualcomm introduced the chipset designed to drive augmented reality wearables at the Augmented World Expo in Santa Clara.
A year after making a splash at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas with Amazon Alexa integration, smartglasses maker Vuzix is bringing a notable weather app to its Blade smartglasses for the 2019 edition of the conference.
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.
Consumers are chomping at the bit for augmented reality smartglasses from Cupertino's finest, but one market analyst is saying not so fast, Apple fans. Meanwhile, automotive AR is gaining speed, with the latest milestone coming courtesy of a major investment in waveguides by Continental. And although mobile AR apps have already arrived, retailer Target is taking a different approach. So why is Target tinkering with web-based AR? Answers below...
One of the best recent outings in the Marvel universe is the animated series What If...?, which explores alternate universe takes on various superhero storylines that deliver fascinating scenarios if one single factor had been different in the story.
Part of the mainstreaming of augmented reality is learning to adopt new habits around the hardware delivering these groundbreaking next-gen interface experiences.
While consumer-grade smartglasses are the holy grail for tech companies, smartglasses maker Vuzix knows where its bread is buttered, and that's in the enterprise segment.
The Apple rumor mill is getting its first real workout of 2019, and this time the whispers are more exciting than usual.
Among the various components of the emerging augmented reality space, the most lucrative is the advertising market. The prospect of turning every object, every location, ever signpost in the real world into a discount code or virtual transaction interface is why AR will ultimately be more profitable than VR.
Away from the hype around Facebook's smartglasses, the high-end fascination with the Microsoft HoloLens, and the unending rumors about Apple's AR wearable is the small but powerful darling of the enterprise AR world—Vuzix.
On Tuesday, the smartglasses startup known as North finally took the wraps off its Focals product, but in a very unique way: The team simply opened a couple of stores and invited the public in.
The average business person likely recognizes Epson for its printers or even its projectors, not the futuristic AR wearables.
Augmented reality software developer Maxst has made the move into hardware with Revelio, their new untethered AR smartglasses. These stereoscopic glasses feature an Octa-core processor, 2 GB of memory, a 40-degree field of view, and a 720p display, and they do not require being connected to a phone or computer.
Just hours after an early leak via Twitter, Facebook and Ray-Ban have officially released their new wearable collaboration.
While Apple has been rather secretive about its work on AR wearables (despite the abundance of leaks revealing details about their unannounced devices), Facebook has been rather chatty about its plans for smartglasses.
Just as Apple, Snapchat, and other tech giants are working on augmented reality wearables in the race to replace smartphones for the future of mobile computing, so is Samsung.
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.
The idea of remote assistant apps in augmented reality has been taking off in the last couple of years, but Epson is introducing a differing kind of solution for companies that may benefit from a more straightforward dynamic before going full-on immersive with higher-end AR remote assistance tools.
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.
As we predicted earlier this week, the focus has already begun to move from Magic Leap back onto Apple's rumored augmented reality smartglasses. The latest credible whispers come from none other than longtime Apple-focused analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.
A couple of months ago, I got the opportunity to get a sneak peek at a new media interface for ODG's R-9 Smartglasses, and the experience was impressive. Now, after weeks of keeping it under wraps, I can finally show off what I saw.
Like gas on an open flame, rumors and whispers have flared up in recent months around hopes of augmented reality smartglasses from Apple. But among all the false leads and unsubstantiated chatter, we finally have a credible report that some sort of Apple AR smartglasses are actually in development.
Smartglass maker ThirdEye Gen, Inc. has introduced an augmented reality solution for enterprises that includes their X1 Smartglass and a suite of software applications that enable completely hands-free computing.
While augmented reality is mostly in the minds of consumers in the form of Pokémon GO, AR has been popular behind the scenes, with AR companies marketing it as a tool to help business operations become more efficient. This business-to-business market is the target of the new app DOTTYAR, which "provides 3D visualization tools for augmented reality viewers."
There are already a few ways to use your home computer on the go, but none of them feel very natural when you're out and about, and are clunky options at best. Samsung wants to change that with Monitorless, their upcoming augmented reality smartglasses, which offer remote desktop viewing capabilities as well as the ability to switch between augmented and virtual reality modes using electrochromic glass.