Longtime Next Reality readers may remember my Wish List for Microsoft early last year. It was a post in which I put my head together with a number of other community developers to create a list of features that would make Windows Mixed Reality and HoloLens better for developers. It would seem that one of the most sought-after features is finally here ... well, sort of.
Microsoft's latest move to further secure its hold on the emerging mixed reality space comes in the form of two new Mixed Reality Capture Studios in San Francisco (the flagship studio) and London.
As augmented reality gains popularity, the demand for delivering related services and generating content increases. This is demonstrated by a pair of investments from the past week, one in the expansion of a technology lab and another in the form of seed funding for a content studio.
The way we tell stories is about to change. Imagine you're hearing a story when suddenly characters and images from the tale start to appear in your world. This immersive way of storytelling is in the not-so-distant future thanks to the Microsoft HoloLens and Rémy Martin.
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.
The company that pioneered music scanning for mobile devices is moving into the augmented reality advertising arena. Included in an update of their iOS and Android apps last week, Shazam can now scan special codes to immerse users in 3D animations, 360-degree videos, mini-games, and other AR content.
If you've seen, heard, or even tried the latest virtual reality headsets, you've probably heard about something called "room scale." It's why the HTC Vive suddenly usurped the reign of the Oculus Rift while no one was looking, and it's exactly where Oculus hopes to catch up. Here's what it is and why it matters.
You can easily take audio for granted in virtual reality, but realistic sound in VR isn't an afterthought. It not only involves creating surround sound within a pair of headphones, but figuring out where the sound ought to exist based on your position and line of sight.
Although professional sports has been no stranger to emerging technology, it still seems hard to think about how a football player might benefit from strapping on a VR headset. While it won't do much in an actual game, many athletes can improve by using virtual reality as a training tool.
The Xposed Framework was just recently made available for Android Marshmallow, but everything isn't quite back to status quo just yet. Sure, some Xposed modules function properly, but others are a bit buggy, and several don't even work at all. This is mostly a result of changes to the Android system that Lollipop modules relied upon, and such modules will need to be updated for Marshmallow compatibility.
The increased sophistication of smartphones and apps have allowed us the luxury to never leave our homes. Everything from coffee to food to dry cleaning can be delivered straight to your door without ever leaving your couch, which can can be a godsend during the winter months when you'd rather not risk leaving your warm bed. But during the summer, you gotta ditch the comforter and go enjoy outdoors.
Now that the Xposed Framework has finally been updated for Android Lollipop, we're starting to notice that some modules function properly, while others are a bit buggy or even worse—don't work at all. Most of this is a result of changes to elements of the Android system that KitKat modules relied upon, and such modules will need to be updated for 5.0 compatibility.
You don't need to be a hardcore audiophile to know that Dolby is pretty much synonymous with rich and immersive sound. While we often associate them with home theater systems, Dolby has brought their surround sound processing to the mobile phone arena with Dolby Digital Plus being offered on several Android devices.
The era of virtual meetings has been evolving every few months, with augmented reality filters leading the charge in changing the way we interact when chatting via video streams.
We may or may not see Apple's long-awaited take on AR smartglasses this year, but the company is more than getting its practice swings in with its current wearables business, which hit record revenue in 2019 according to financial results released this week.
Considering Rovio Entertainment quite literally owes its existence to Apple and the App Store, it may ruffle a few feathers that the company has opted to aim the augmented reality debut of its blockbuster Angry Birds franchise at Magic Leap instead.
Welcome to the first annual Next Reality 30, our list of people who've made the biggest impact on the augmented reality space in the last 12 months — and what a 12-month roller-coaster ride it's been. Apple introduced ARKit-powered apps last fall, Google launched ARCore for Android soon after, Snapchat began monetizing AR, and the Magic Leap One headset finally came out. These are historic times.
During its presentation at Unite Berlin, Magic Leap gave attendees a crash course in developing experiences for Magic Leap One (ML1), we found out quite a bit more about how the device works and what we can expect to experience with the device.
With the announcement of ARKit 2.0 at WWDC 2018, Apple is bringing some powerful new capabilities to mobile augmented reality apps this fall.
Several technologies seek to change the way we perceive our reality, whether that involves entering a virtual world, augmenting an existing one in a realistic and interactive way, or somewhere in-between.
If you've made a game using Unity3D and want to present it in the best way possible, you're going to have to use the engine's GUI tools to make some snazzy 3D menus. This video series will show you how to do so.
The side-scrolling space shooter (Think R-Type) is one of the oldest and most basic of video game genres, which makes it a great place to start for novice game designers. This video will show you how to make such a game, called "Schnoopter", in Unity3D, an excellent free online game design engine. If you've never used Unity before, you should watch this series for a guide to the absolute basics.
Watch this video series to learn how to program a game with C++. This series covers the entire game design process and builds skills that can be used in any game design.
There's a million web games spread throughout the internet now, and if you like to play them, you probably want to play them all the time. And if you play one flash game, you probably play another, maybe 10 or 20. But what if you don't have an internet connection one day? What if you can't play those web games anymore? Well, you can, and all you have to do is download them to your computer. Watch to see how to download and play web-based flash games on your computer without web access.
After dipping its toes into the AR cloud arena last year, Ubiquity6 is now jumping in with both feet this year.
If we were to assign a theme for the 2019 edition of the Next Reality 30 (NR30), it might be something along the lines of, "What have you done for me lately?"
Developers and enterprise customers chomping at the bit to get their hands on HoloLens 2 may not have to wait much longer, as Microsoft passed one of the remaining hurdles needed to release their new tech into the wild.
If you've blocked out your calendar to watch the NHL All-Star Game this weekend, then you might be excited to know that USA Today has given its readers the opportunity to meet Washington Capital's John Carlson in augmented reality.
The company behind augmented reality's first real gaming hit, Pokémon GO, is quietly making moves toward supporting the rapidly growing smartglasses space that may one day move its content away from smartphones and tablets and onto AR lenses positioned on your face.
Because timing is everything, the latest entry in the location-based augmented reality gaming sweepstakes, Ghostbusters World, has arrived just in time for Halloween.
Last month was a whirlwind for the augmented reality industry, with the Augmented World Expo, Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, and an exciting Magic Leap Twitch livestream all wrapping up before the ides of June. Now that we've had a chance to fully digest it all, we have a real sense of where the augmented reality industry is heading.
Location-based gaming pioneer Niantic has offered a preview of its augmented reality cloud platform that could change the immersive content game yet again.
Following the surprise release of Magic Leap's SDK on Monday, March 19, Unity, Unreal Engine, and Mozilla followed up by announcing official partnerships with the company.
During the unveiling of its content partnership with the NBA, Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz, with an assist from former player/current pitchman Shaquille O'Neal, described at least one of the ways fans would be able to experience sports using the augmented reality device.
Thanks to Metaverse, it has never been this easy to create your own AR game.
Beginning in November, National Football League (NFL) fans visiting New York's Times Square can come as close as any civilian can to stepping onto a professional football field. All for less than the price of a pair of cleats.
Sony has upped the ante for the promotion of Smurfs: The Lost Village, which was released on April 7 in the US, with a mixed reality experience via Microsoft's HoloLens.
Thanks to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, video games are constantly evolving to higher degrees of sophistication, with complex graphics, lifelike resemblances and storylines that create exciting experiences that relieve the tediousness of our everyday lives.
If you've already watched our videos on basics of Unity3D, the awesome free 3D game design engine, and want something more meaty to dig into, watch this video series for a guide to making C4KE, a charming little 4-player action / strategy romp designed by the creator of this video for a game design contest.
If you've ever wanted to make your own video games and not known where to start, try Unity3D. It's a game development engine for the PC that has a free basic version and allows you to create pretty good 3D games easily. This video series will teach you the basics of Unity, including object creation and scripting.
