While 2017 saw the rise of "bezel-less" smartphones, none truly lived up to the name. Samsung shrank its bezels significantly, while Apple went with the infamous "notch." However, Samsung seems on the verge of kicking bezels out the door with a new patent application that embeds the front camera into the display.
While self-driving cars appear to be as inevitable as augmented reality headsets, the auto industry and its technology partners likely have years of testing to complete and regulatory loopholes to jump through before self-driving cars hit most highways.
Everything that has a beginning has an end. This week marked the end of the long wait for the reveal of Magic Leap's first product and the beginning of the wait for more substantive details. Likewise, Google Tango will meet its end in March 2018, when ARCore will officially begin its public rollout.
They say if you don't believe, you don't receive. Therefore, I'll choose to believe that this holiday season, Santa's elves have learned how to code in Unity and leverage ARKit to deliver these jolly AR apps for helping children of all ages virtually decorate their homes.
Transparent display maker Lumus has reached a deal to license its augmented reality optical engine models to Quanta Computers for mass production of displays for consumer smartglasses.
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.
Any sufficiently cool new technology will be immediately repurposed to do something even cooler. Such is the case with Apple's iPhone X and its Animoji feature, which has led to something completely unanticipated: Animoji karaoke.
Since the iPhone X has no Home button, the Side button has some heavy lifting to do. So not only is the Side button responsible for all of its usual duties, like sleeping and waking the device, it has to do everything the Home button did too. That's a lot of work for one button, but we've got everything figured out for you.
Hak5's products get a lot of attention. Popping up in popular shows like Mr. Robot, their hacking tools are bold proof of concepts with space built into the design for the community to add their own tweaks and modifications. On Friday, Oct. 27, Null Byte attended the Hak5 release event in San Francisco to check out their latest devices, including the new Packet Squirrel.
Karen Gillan must have had an absolute blast chewing the scenery as Nebula in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, seeing as how Nebula is a ball of pure, seething fury pretty much 24/7. Combine that larger-than-life personality with her iconic blue and silver cyborg look, and you have a guaranteed hit for cosplay or Halloween.
Augmented reality headsets with larger eye boxes than any device currently available could make their way to market by the end of next year if current timelines hold true.
Meta Company has filed its response to allegations that the user interface for their augmented reality headsets infringe on six patents owned by a mostly-unknown company.
For a company who hasn't released a product and has a reputation for being secretive, Magic Leap sure has a tendency to make waves. Over the past few weeks, they've refreshed their website design, released an abstract YouTube video, and announced a partnership with Madefire to offer mixed reality comics on its device whenever it launches. Next, they are gearing up for another round of funding.
Mobile apps themselves are not always the end product or service for generating revenue. More often, they are deployed as tactics within a larger marketing or public relations strategy.
According to Digi-Capital, investors poured $1.8 billion into augmented and virtual reality companies over the last 12 months, including $300 million in the third quarter. These investments are not made without a means to monetize products and services.
Clearly, the next big battlefield for tech gamesmanship between Apple and Google will be augmented reality.
To revise a line from the Blues Brothers, when it comes to ARKit apps, we've got both kinds — home utilities and games. As such, two more candidates for each category have made their way to the app store.
The highly anticipated iPhone X is finally up for preorder, and it's been almost as exciting as we expected. With the dual cameras, bezel-less display, and high-tech facial recognition, there's almost nothing on the iPhone X that won't be liked. But around the same time as the iPhone X's announcement, another phone was revealed, and almost everyone seems to have forgotten about it. We didn't.
While Apple's tech used for Face ID on the iPhone is impressive, it's debatable whether it's more convenient than Touch ID. There are also concerns that your face could be used to track shopping patterns or be seen during mass surveillance by intelligence agencies. More importantly, it could be easier for law enforcement, and even thieves, to force you to unlock your iPhone.
Outside of early military applications, augmented reality is a relatively new technology. It stands to reason that the next company to make a splash in AR would be a startup, and Techstars wants to help.
Developers in the augmented reality space are sitting on the bleeding edge of a hot technology. With the intense interest, especially in the tech circles, there are a large number of people working on potential solutions and uses for the technology. There is also a lot of time, money and effort being put in the tools and infrastructure for the technology. For better of for worse this also means constant changes.
Ride-sharing firm Lyft says it will continue to rely on drivers in the near and long term even as it replaces them with driverless cars, Taggart Matthiesen, Lyft's director of product, said during a Podcast with Recode.
Elon Musk's SpaceX is launching the world's most powerful rocket. The Tesla founder and CEO says the company is about to go through "manufacturing hell" to make delivery schedules for its new Tesla 3. Somehow, Musk says Tesla will offer Level 5 driving (so you can take a nap while your car drives you to and from work) within two years.
The augmented reality productivity app market for is a crowded space, so differentiation can be an advantage. Atheer is doing just that this week with their AiR Enterprise application.
If you are an NYC commuter like me, then I'm sure you know how bad the city's transportation has gotten.
With the announcement of Google Glass Enterprise Edition last week, a literal behemoth entered the arena of companies serving augmented reality solutions to business customers. While Google Glass, with the backing of Alphabet, has the potential to be a disruptor, the field already has a number of players who have been in the game.
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.
If it's not official by now, it really should be: if you're going to sell cosmetics, you need an augmented reality app. Of course, that's not all augmented reality is good for. It can be used to animate medical models and engage sports fans. Read on below…
Perhaps in tribute to the season premiere of Game of Thrones, Google Glass is demonstrating that what is dead may never die, as Alphabet's X (formerly Googlex) has revealed that the Enterprise Edition of the smart glasses are now available to businesses.
So it's 2017 and there are no flying cars and teleportation devices around, but there might be holographic smartphones sometime soon. As cool as that sounds, should we trust a holographic smartphone from a company that has never made smartphones before?
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.
Volvo Cars' claims it will offer Level 4 models by 2021 means the premium carmaker will likely have to finalize the driverless design to meet the aggressive timeline by next year at the latest.
This Fourth of July, stock up on hot dogs, ice cream, and smartphones. Yep, this Independence Day is a surprisingly good time to get your hands on the iPhone SE. If you're interested, head to your nearest Best Buy to check out this major deal. (Or wait for the iPhone 8 to come out ...whenever that will be.)
The latest video game developer to hit the scene is a hotel chain, and they're offering big prizes for high-scorers.
What would it be like to have clothing that killed microbes? Or paper that repelled pathogens? A research team from Rutgers University has developed a prototype out of metalized paper to zap the bad guys without being super expensive. Sound good? Read on.
Researchers have created a possible replacement for traditional camera lenses, using an "optical phased array" to function as both a lens and sensor of a camera.
If you've ever missed an important phone call because you're hands were too dirty to touch the screen, you won't have to worry much longer about it happening again. Apple is remedying this age-old problem on the iPhone with a hidden feature in iOS 11 that ensures you'll never miss another call again.
At the eMerge Americas investors conference in Miami, Florida, Magic Leap founder and CEO Rony Abovitz previewed details of the launch of their highly-anticipated device.
Nissan began to offer Level 2 driving capacities in a mainstream model when it debuted its ProPilot self-drive option for its Serena minivan in Japan last year.
Much work needs to be done before laws and regulations no longer block driverless' rollout in the US, Rob Csongor, vice president and general manager of Nvidia's automotive division, said today during a US Senate committee hearing.
