The recent announcement that Facebook will begin inserting advertisements into its VR experience on its Oculus Quest headset has set the VR and augmented reality industry into a frenzy.
Sure, Microsoft has mostly marketed its HoloLens headsets towards enterprises and developers, but we learned this week that, like every other tech giant, the company is working on a consumer-grade AR wearable. Speaking of consumer smartglasses, Apple made another strategic investment this week that has implications for Apple's AR future.
We've reached the point in the trajectory of augmented reality's growth where AR advertising experiences are becoming commonplace tactics rather than rare experiments.
Snapchat may trail Facebook and Instagram in terms of daily active users, but a new partnership with Samsung may get those innovative AR Lenses onto the mobile devices of a lot more users.
The company augmented reality that Rony Abovitz was trying to build at Magic Leap apparently wasn't working out the way he hoped it would. That company, built on dreams, music, and future-looking entertainment, rather than truly new technology, came with a $2,300 price tag for a device using dynamics most mainstream consumers have never even tried.
Over the past two product cycles, Apple has been rumored to be preparing to reveal its Apple AirTags tracking devices that can help iPhone owners find their possessions with augmented reality.
Ready to take the next step in your career and become an Amazon Web Services certified cloud practitioner in 2021? The complete AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner All In One Bundle is the easiest option to help you kill the exam — and right now, the entire bundle of courses is on sale with 91% off, for just $24.99 (regular price $300).
If you've tossed around the idea of turning your interest in white hat hacking into a career in cybersecurity or IT, now's as good as time as ever to invest some time and energy into improving your skill set.
The entire wireless industry is working overtime to convince the world that 5G, and the higher prices associated with the faster speeds it affords, will not only be worth it but will deliver never-before-seen wonders. But few companies have produced such a stunningly well-done sales job as Three, one of the leading wireless giants in the UK.
Though Microsoft has had trouble keeping up with the demand for HoloLens 2, the company has been able to supply modified headsets to the US Army.
The top five apps of the 2010s were all social media apps of some kind, and the fact that's not surprising to you says a lot. We may use them for other reasons here and there, but our phones are social media machines at their cores. The thing is, some make better machines than others.
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.
People fundamentally distrust magicians. And they should. The illusions they proffer are just that, illusions meant to astound rather than tangible interactions and results that have weight and meaning in our real world. Our lizard brains know this, and, no matter what the outstanding feat of "magic" presented, we nevertheless hold fast to our survival-based grip on the truth: we just saw simply "can't be real."
Back when I worked in the music industry, I never imagined there would be a day that I'd be able to sit in a room surrounded by virtual album covers while listening to beats, but that day is really here.
Magic Leap took years to launch, but when it did, the company managed to quickly become the leading rival to Microsoft's HoloLens (at least when it comes to experimental immersive experiences).
With Google's new Pixel 4, we now have another device in the pool of phones designed for normal-sized hands. The other major player in this segment is as big as it gets — metaphorically. Apple's iPhone 11 Pro is the small phone to beat, but can Google be the one to dethrone it?
Following in the steps of Snapchat, Instagram, and YouCam, another popular photo app has gotten into the virtual try-on augmented reality game.
Scanning pictures and uploading them to Google Photos is a great way to digitize your collection. With unlimited high-quality storage and text recognition capabilities, it's hard to pass up. And for your older family pictures, Google Photos will soon even colorize black and white images.
Mobile gaming has exploded in recent years, with experts predicting 2.4 billion global mobile players by the end of 2019. It already accounts for 47% of the worldwide gaming market, besting console and PC. No wonder we've seen the rise of gaming smartphones, a class of phones that specialize in mobile gaming.
Augmented reality as a storytelling medium can do some extraordinary things words and images alone can't convey -- such as transporting readers 400 years into the past.
Ever since Skynet took over the world in the Terminator film franchise, a large segment of the world's population has feared artificial intelligence.
After teasing what smartglasses powered by Snapchat might look like with two product cycles of camera glasses, Snap has now added augmented reality capabilities to its third take on Spectacles.
With such a vast selection of music genres available, it's easy to build up a massive list of stations in Pandora that can make your go-to playlists harder to find. Fortunately, the app lets you easily remove unwanted stations to streamline your experience and listen to your favorite tunes in the fewest taps possible.
As the tech world patiently waits for the advent of mainstream consumer smartglasses, Google is content to stick to the business world (for now).
If cameras are a priority, one of the first specs to check on a new phone is the image stabilization. You've probably been told optical image stabilization (OIS) reigns supreme, but this isn't the case if you're taking a lot of videos. Instead, we would argue, electronic image stabilization (EIS) actually works better for video.
With $100 million in grant funding already available to developers via its MegaGrants program, Epic Games is sweetening the pot with some gear for Magic Leap developers.
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.
The Galaxy S10 is one of the best phones in years from world's largest smartphone OEM. With its astonishing display, new UI, and top-tier cameras, there isn't much to complain about. The one major gripe we've had is the in-display fingerprint scanner and just how slow it is. Thanks to a recent update, it just got a whole lot faster.
If you thought Google was sitting on the sidelines of the growing race toward mainstreaming augmented reality, think again.
Already a dominant force at the box office, Marvel Studios appears intent on establishing itself as the ruler of augmented reality media as well.
In the latest update to the ongoing Meta Company patent infringement case, the court has responded to a request from the defendants, and the answer isn't good news.
The legal drama framing the closure of Meta Company continues even after the company's assets have been sold to a new owner.
A week after reducing the base price of its Focals smartglasses by nearly 50 percent, wearables maker North is now reducing its workforce.
Mobile app publishers are using augmented reality to solve everyday measurement problems from measuring the length or height of items to previewing furniture in the home.
Augmented reality startup Nreal was a hit at this month's CES event, with some even calling the device a worthy challenger to the Magic Leap One.
Whether it's an ex you can't stand, that annoyingly political friend of a friend, or good old fashioned trolls, the block feature on Facebook can be a great way to de-stress your feed. It will keep people from contacting you, and it will also prevent them from viewing your profile altogether. It's not just a tool for the full desktop website — in fact, the blocked list is easy to manage right from your phone.
Last year at CES, RealMax blew away the AR headset competition with a prototype AR headset surpassing 100 degrees field of view.
According to App Annie, the average person's phone contains 60–90 apps. Such a large amount can easily crowd an app drawer, especially since the same source states that only about 30 are used in a month. Having a way to organize apps in the app drawer can help you avoid wasting time searching.
Last year, Razer kicked off a new trend by building a smartphone from the ground up with mobile gamers in mind. At the time, many thought the Razer Phone solved a problem that no one really had — but a year later, we're starting to see that gaming phones are perfect for more than just Fortnite players.
Streaming movies and TV shows on phones is more popular today than ever, but what about when you're on a plane, have a limited data plan, or will be in a no-service area? You'll want to download your movies and TV shows instead. While Netflix is excellent, you can't rent or download most of the latest movies and TV series. What you need is an app that lets you do just that.
