Augmented reality developers are rapidly bringing science fiction tropes into the real world, with the latest example leveraging the TrueDepth camera on the iPhone X to emulate the cloaking technology made famous by movies like Predator and Marvel's The Avengers.
Apple's codec for photos and videos in iOS 11, HEVC (High-Efficiency Video Coding), as well as the container, HEIF (High-Efficiency Image File Format), result in a reduction in size for pictures and movies without sacrificing quality. Seems like a win-win situation, but Windows-users can't open the .heic extension that these files use. In order to open HEIC files on a Microsoft Windows PC, you'll have to turn to third-party apps and tools. One of these tools, CopyTrans HEIC for Windows, essen...
Usually paper beats rock. With augmented reality, The Rock beats paper. Using the Life VR app for iOS or Android, Entertainment Weekly readers can point their smartphones at the cover of the Dec. 8 edition to view a holiday greeting from Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, star of the forthcoming reboot, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.
To create a destination for coffee connoisseurs, Starbucks has ordered up a venti cup of augmented reality to make the visit more interactive.
Introduced along with the iPhone X, Animoji are animated characters, mostly animals, that are rendered from the user's facial expressions using the device's TrueDepth camera system to track the user's facial movements.
To the best of my recollection, Fruit Ninja was one of the first touchscreen games that appeared to really take advantage of the new paradigm of user input, turning the player's finger into a produce-slicing katana.
Up until now, experiencing augmented reality through Vuzix's next-generation Blade 3000 smartglasses would have required a trip to a tech conference where the company has an exhibition booth.
A few months ago, we gave you a small peek at a new entrant in the race to deliver augmented reality smartglasses to the masses, and now the device is finally ready for the public. ThirdEye Gen is now accepting preorders for its X1 Smart Glasses, which will also provide users with an AR-centric app store.
The latest portal demo made with Apple's ARKit is one small step for man, one giant leap for augmented reality. That's right, the latest demo allows you to venture through a door onto a moon from wherever you are.
At the risk of breaking a few rules, we're going to talk about Fight Club. More specifically, digital artist Mateusz "Marpi" Marcinowski has mimicked a scene from the movie using Apple's ARKit.
Your Apple TV is just that — your Apple TV, which means you probably want to personalize it a bit, to make yours stand out from everybody else's. And the easiest way to do this is by renaming it. If you live in an apartment building, this will help differentiate your Apple TV from your neighbors' when trying to use AirPlay.
Move over, Spike Jonze; Microsoft has published a mixed reality music video featuring holograms of Reggie Watts filmed through a HoloLens.
When you think of AR experiences, you typically think of something that either involves a headset or a handset. Augmented reality without either of those things has seemed impossible in the past. But if anyone is going to try to find a way to have an augmented reality experience without electronics, it's Disney.
The Force is strong with Lenovo, who is working with Disney and Lucasfilm to deliver an augmented reality headset and lightsaber handle for the forthcoming Star Wars: Jedi Challenges game.
Chromecast comes to mind when "casting" video from a smartphone to a big screen television, but it's not the only way to "cast" streaming content. This is especially true for Netflix, where you can cast movies and TV shows to not only a Chromecast-enabled TV, but to smart TVs, video game consoles, and other streaming media players so that you have complete control right from your smartphone.
If you're on Instagram, you may start to see Babadook all dressed up this month. This beautiful monster is taking Instagram by storm by #babashooking it's way all around the world in its brand new Pride attire.
Verizon launched the $80 unlimited prepaid plan this week and we've found that it actually isn't as limitless as they would have you believe.
Samsung's new Galaxy S8 can turn into a PC with its DeX dock, but while that may sound like the future of mobile computing on the surface, there are definitely a few issues with the entire setup.
A market research report, posted on February 27, 2017, forecasts that the image recognition market will grow to nearly $40 billion worldwide by 2021. The market, which includes augmented reality applications, hardware, and technology, generated an estimated $15.95 billion in 2016. The report estimates the market to grow by a compound annual growth rate of 19.5% over the next five years.
Lenovo, the company that now owns Motorola, just announced two new entries in their wildly successful midrange Moto G series. The Moto G5, and its bigger brother, the Moto G5 Plus, were both shown off in detail at Mobile World Congress 2017 in Barcelona, Spain.
Kodi, formerly known as XBMC, is one of the most versatile media players available. With it, you can play virtually any internet and media file in a large variety of formats, and it can be used on practically every single operating system out there, including iOS 10. Kodi, an open-source software, was originally designed to connect to your TV so you could control your media from up to ten feet away, and the core functionality still shines today. All of this is what makes Kodi so popular today...
Samsung began offering Android 7.0 Nougat to users in its beta program on November 10, 2016. The beta came to a close last month after the fifth and final version was pushed out to users under the build number ending in 1ZPLN. This update was released a couple of days after Christmas and fixed a couple of bugs, including a fairly annoying one that caused your device to randomly reboot.
If there's one thing you'd never think to play music on, it's probably a coffee stirrer, right? But that didn't stop this guy from playing one of my favorite theme songs on one — "Darth Vader's Theme," aka "The Imperial March."
Kryptowire, a company specializing in mobile security solutions, released a report on Tuesday, November 15 that exposed firmware in a number of Android devices that was collecting personally identifying information (PII) and uploading it to third-party servers without users' knowledge.
Google's Tilt Brush has proven to be one of the most compelling VR experiences for the HTC Vive, letting you paint with crazy materials like electricity and duct tape. It is clearly an experiment in bringing the joy of imagination to life—or creating some form of virtual LSD—and the app's latest update brings a variety of features that only continue to support that theme. There are few to no rules in virtual reality app development, and that can both be freeing or absolutely paralyzing when t...
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.
Unless you had a master of visual effects for a parent, you had to imagine the floor was actually lava when playing the classic furniture-hopping game. With a Microsoft HoloLens, however, you don't have to imagine anything.
After updating your iPhone to iOS 10, you may have noticed that your screen will wake up whenever you pick up the device to look at it, or even when it's just in your pocket or dangling in your hand.
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.
It's impossible to predict the future, but it's fun to try. Adapted from Daniel H. Wilson's short story of the same name, filmmaker Giacomo Cimini's short film "The Nostalgist" shows a futuristic world where mixed reality serves as an escape from a less-desirable physical world.
The mysterious Magic Leap just partnered up with Lucasfilm's ILM xLAB to bring Star Wars to their mixed reality headsets. Based on the video demo making its way around the internet, it looks pretty impressive.
The headsets of tomorrow offer some amazing possibilities in both gaming and work, but what we've seen so far only begins to scratch the surface. The US Navy saw the potential to use augmented reality in a helmet to provide divers with an incredible amount of information we have so far only seen in Hollywood movies.
One of the major criticisms of virtual reality, and much modern technology in general, is the antisocial nature it creates. But vTime wants to overcome the isolating nature of VR headsets with a virtual hangout space for you and your friends.
T-Mobile is going for broke. The carrier recently announced it will be giving away free stuff to its customers every Tuesday through a new app called T-Mobile Tuesdays for Android and iOS, and that's in addition to one share of stock and free in-flight Wi-Fi. The app will give out "food, movie tickets, gift cards, subscriptions, ridesharing, and more," the announcement said. You just have to be the primary account holder and you're good to go. One person will win a huge prize every Tuesday, l...
Since it was released last fall, Super Mario Maker has offered us a glimpse into the minds of some of the most evil people on the planet. The game, for Nintendo Wii U, lets players create their own Super Mario levels using a deep list of objects, enemies, and green pipes, which can then be uploaded for anyone to play.
Hearthstone is a collectible card game by world-class developer Blizzard Entertainment. It has taken an entire generation of casual and professional gamers alike by storm. So many people play it, chances are you've already sunk some money into it. So, if you're going to pay a little anyway, you may as well get a discount.
Back in August, Google unveiled a new YouTube Gaming service meant to compete with e-sports streaming sites like Twitch. At its launch, the service was capable of broadcasting desktop PC gameplay, but when it came to the mobile segment, users were only capable of viewing streams hosted by others.
Technology can move really fast. Just consider the format for which we consume videos and movies, which has transformed from film reels to VHS to DVD to Blu-ray to steaming with nothing physical at all. But for some odd reason—maybe because it strikes a nostalgic chord or it's just the new hipster trend—VHS is in again. Yes, shaky, grainy, low-quality videos with timestamps are cool again, and I dig it.
Google Now is great for looking up movie times or finding your parking spot, but if you need to track down a file you downloaded, you're relegated to using a file explorer and, depending on your organizational skills, this can either be extremely easy or a huge pain in the ass. Unfortunately I land in the latter category, which is why I started using Fast Search by developer Mohamad Amin.
Baking thinly sliced salami in the oven changes it to an awesome and savory crispy snack. They're dippable, crowd-pleasing, and healthier than your average slice of salami —the amount of oil that drains from each slice is a little scary!
