Augmented reality sells, but who's buying? Over the past week, two companies made executive hires to capitalize on the growth of augmented reality as a service to sell to other businesses. Meanwhile, two companies joined forces to offer augmented reality tools to headset makers and content providers.
So while it is the weekend of San Diego Comic-Con, and it should not be a complete surprise — without a word of warning hitting my feed — the trailer for the upcoming film, Ready Player One was released today. And wow it looks amazing.
China's Baidu, the Chinese equivalent of Google, live streamed a video yesterday of CEO Robin Li riding a self-drive vehicle along the streets and highways of Beijing.
Today it was revealed that Avis Budget Group will now support and maintain Waymo's driverless car fleet in Phoenix, the company's first public trial of self-driving cars. This is an unprecedented partnership in the autonomous vehicle field and conveys the steps driverless companies are taking to make their vehicles more accessible to the public.
Walsh, a new community under construction on 7,200 acres of former ranch land near Fort Worth, Texas, will one day contain 15,000 homes.
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.
Augmented reality is quickly becoming a popular tool for marketing use cases, as demonstrated by new projects serving the automotive, entertainment, and tourism industries this past week.
When building anything of a social nature, be it a local roller derby or softball team, a club dance night for chiptune, or building new technology markets, the community around those ideas are an important factor in helping these things not only come into existence but to grow into something that enlightens everyone involved. The community around an idea can actually make or break these new ventures — and this applies to augmented and mixed reality as well.
The Disney Research Lab is using projector-based illumination to paint actors' faces during live performances. You know what that means? Disney just took Halloween to a whole new level.
The Gorillaz have launched a new app in promotion for their new album Humanz that allows you to "[s]tep inside the hallowed halls of the Gorillaz house" through the power of augmented reality.
NextReality will be giving readers a rundown of the augmented and mixed reality news briefs from the preceding week that we didn't cover already. This way, you'll never miss anything of importance in the NextReality landscape, and will always know what's going on with new augmented and mixed reality tech and applications. The first one starts right now, and you can enjoy future ones every Tuesday going forward, so stay tuned.
Upskill, an enterprise software developer for industrial augmented reality applications, recently received an influx of funding and a major vote of confidence from two of their top customers.
Lightform might just be the thing to have at your next party. The San Francisco-based company just created the first computer ever able to connect to a projector and instantly scan 3D scenes to mix reality with projected light.
Nokia, the Finnish telecommunications company, is about to shake things up a bit after its networks sales in the final quarter of last year declined 14% compared to sales in 2015.
Trimble is integrating its mixed reality applications into the DAQRI Smart Helmet to enable outdoor and on-site support for design, construction, and heavy industry as part of a collaboration the companies announced today.
Ask anyone that works on the development of driverless vehicle technology and there is a very good chance that AutonomouStuff will have supplied something to their project.
DigiLens, a company specializing in optical waveguide technology, recently announced that they had closed a $22 million round of strategic investment, also known as Series B funding. This round brought in Sony, Foxconn, Continental, and Panasonic, as well as more traditional venture investors such as Alsop Louie Partners, Bold Capital, Nautilus Venture Partners, and Dolby Family Ventures.
When the "Just another day in the office at Magic Leap" video was released last year, it was called a mind-blowing, stunning, and breathtaking take on mixed reality gaming. It was a great presentation of what the technology could be, but not for a second did I think it was anything other than a concept video, and I'm not the only one who thought that. This was a goal to reach for mixed reality, not the reality.
Our brains do a magnificent amount of work to process visual stimuli, but they aren't difficult to fool. Optical illusions can trick our minds into believing what we're seeing is real, even if it's not—and virtual and mixed reality technologies take advantage of this little loophole in our brain to help us accept the unreal.
Our future technology has a lot of amazing possibilities, and few have more promise than augmented and mixed reality headsets. But these advancements come with several concerns over privacy, and if we don't understand them, we may lose control of our own data without even knowing.
Not content with bringing the first untethered mixed reality headset to market, Microsoft wants to expand their Windows Holographic operating system beyond HoloLens into vastly more robust technologies.
I honestly believe that everyone on earth owns the same blue cooler—you know the one. Cooler technology hasn't changed since the '50s, and frankly, it's time to mix things up, with a built-in blender perhaps? With the Coolest Cooler, it's actually possible!
Last year, Todd Blatt ran a Kickstarter campaign to make 3D-printed accessories for Google Glass, and has turned it into a company: GlassKap.
Say hello to the Sony Xperia T3, a light and slim Android smartphone—in fact, it's the thinnest 5.3" smartphone on the market.
We recently gave you a peek at what Amazon's first smartphone will look like, and its 3D technology. With six (six!) cameras and no-touch motion control, the product is intriguing to say the least. Now, Amazon's put out a teaser video, and it's got Amazon Phone written all over it.
It's been rumored ever since the 2012 release of the Kindle Fire, and now Amazon's first smartphone is set to debut a little later this year.
Welcome back, my hacker trainees! A score of my readers have been begging for tutorials on how to hack Wi-Fi, so with this article, I'm initiating a new series dedicated to Wi-Fi hacks. This will probably be around 6-9 articles, starting with the basics of the technologies. I can hear you all groan, but you need to know the basics before you get into more advanced hacking. Then hopefully, developing your own hacks.
This step-by-step tutorial will show you how to install Mac OS on Windows 7 on Virtual Box. Video: .
The Jetsons may not have gotten everything right about the future, but even though we may not have flying cars or live in the sky (yet), one thing they imagined correctly was our electronics eventually being able to understand us.
Wouldn't it be awesome if your glasses could detect when it's bright outside and automatically darken? Well, the technology has been around for a while, but it'll set you back a few hundred bucks.
Is "Last Resort" Steampunk? Well, no. I mean, how could it be?
Until recently, brainwave-reading devices have pretty much only existed in science fiction. Sure, electroencephalography (EEG), the technology that powers these devices, has been used in medicine and psychiatry since the late 1800s, but diagnosing people's brains and reading their minds are two totally different things. The first EEG headsets available to the public were used mostly in gaming and even in fashion, but in the last few years, they've gotten a little more sophisticated.
At one point in time, Tesla coils were actually used for things like wireless telegraphy and electrotherapy, but as technology advanced, they shifted to a slightly more enjoyable purpose—entertainment. What's even more entertaining than using a Tesla coil? Building your own. One of the best portable Tesla coils out there is this mini acrylic version by Daniel Eindhoven, aka TeslaCommander. It's made almost entirely of acrylic plastic, minus the steel sphere, and copper wire and tubing. When t...
With fears over the COVID-19 pandemic subsiding, live concerts are returning. And Doritos wants to send music fans to a few of them via an augmented reality promotion.
The Apple rumor mill never stops churning and when it comes to augmented reality smartglasses, the chatter has been particularly hot in recent months.
There might not be a better brand partnership for the speedy Sonic the Hedgehog character than a fast-food restaurant. For that matter, augmented reality is also the ideal technology for promoting a movie that features an animated talking rodent living life in the real world.
The international profile of augmented reality startup Nreal continues to quietly rise thanks to gradual updates and various strategic branding opportunities.
In recent years, Google's Arts & Culture project has been leading the way in terms of innovating the practice of using technology to preserve landmarks and great works of art via digital 3D copies. Increasingly, these efforts are also giving history buffs the chance to experience classic works and spaces with unparalleled intimacy through the wonders of augmented reality.
Brace yourselves: Nreal Light clones are coming. Since the China-based startup wowed the crowd at CES 2019 with its consumer-centric smartglasses, a number of followers from Asia have emerged, and all with very similar aesthetics to Nreal Light.
Sure, it's the giving season, but sometimes you've just got to treat yourself to some cosmetics. If you're shopping at Walmart, L'Oreal just made that a shade easier when shopping for Garnier hair color products with an assist from Google Lens and the Modiface AR platform.
