Market Reality: Samsung & Microsoft Dip into the Mobile AR Galaxy, with (Respectively) New Hardware & AR Apps
The augmented reality industry had enough twists this week to surprise even M. Night Shyamalan.
The augmented reality industry had enough twists this week to surprise even M. Night Shyamalan.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has said that augmented reality (or, AR for short) will "change everything." But what, exactly, is augmented reality?
We're still weeks away from a probably HoloLens 2 release, but Microsoft's immersive computing team is still hard at work on other aspects of its "mixed reality" ecosystem.
Samsung isn't set to reveal its latest and greatest — the Galaxy S10 line — until February 20, but that hasn't stopped leaks from giving us an early taste. While we already know what the rumored devices will probably look like, we now have access to their wallpapers as well. Apple fans don't need to be left out of the fun — someone has already cropped these images to fit your iPhone's display.
With the best selling phone on Amazon in 2018, Lenovo had big shoes to fill when making the successor of the Moto G6. Fortunately, Lenovo was up to the task. The Moto G7 continues to provide a high performance-to-price ratio, offering a worthwhile upgrade for G6 users while remaining budget friendly.
If there's one company that is a fan of the TrueDepth camera on Apple's iPhone X devices, it's the popular eyeglasses retailer Warby Parker.
While the betting lines on iPhones with depth-sensing, rear-facing cameras in 2019 have already been established, a new report adds some certainty to the notion that the iPhone will get new AR superpowers later this year.
Public software testers can now run the fourth iOS 12.1.3 beta. Apple seeded this update to testers on Thursday, Jan. 10. Just like with beta 3, public beta 4 includes two resolved issues — a VoiceOver fix for ECG and Irregular Heart Rate notifications, as well as audio improvements for iPad Pros.
Portrait mode works with any dual-lens iPhone, as well as the single-lens iPhone XR, and lets you take impressive portraits with blurry, bokeh-filled backgrounds. Portrait selfies, on the other hand, are only available devices with Face ID. But that's only for Apple's Camera app itself — third-party apps like Messenger have "portrait" selfies for any iPhone — as well as any Android phone model.
The New York Times has made a habit of publishing augmented reality stories throughout 2018, and now the media giant's magazine is getting into the act, too.
There is not a single museum that houses all of the 36 paintings of Johannes Vermeer, so Google decided to come up with a solution to give art aficionados a venue to see the artist's work all in one place — your home.
This week, inside sources divulged details of how Apple nearly acquired Leap Motion, twice. Otherwise, companies offering or working on augmented reality technology had more successes than failures to talk about.
Burning Man 2018 is underway, but Intel and the Smithsonian American Art Museum are giving those not in attendance the ability to view the art from the event through Snapchat.
As Android device partners ship new products, Google has been diligent in its efforts to ensure that users can enjoy ARCore apps once they boot up their new toys.
If you find yourself on the run from the Empire, you no longer need a droid to send a holographic distress message, you just need an iPhone X and the HoloBack app.
Among a treasure trove of new developer information on the Lumin OS that Magic Leap recently published on its Creator Portal appears to be the official confirmation of the Magic Leap Mobile Companion App.
One of the more compelling human interest stories of the summer has been the plight of the Thai Wild Boars soccer team, who were trapped in a cave for weeks.
While 3D motion capture via iPhone X is coming soon from Unity, software maker Reallusion offers similar functionality to 3D model animation producers today.
Looking to inject a little more processing juice into your HoloLens? Unity can fix you up with the Standalone Universal Windows Platform Holographic Emulation.
If you have more than two home screen pages on your iPhone, jumping back to the main page can seem like a lot of unnecessary swiping. For example, an eight-page home screen would take seven right-swipes to get back from the last page to the main page — but it doesn't have to take that much work.
A few long-awaited iOS 11 features that Apple had promised way back in June 2017 have finally made their way to iPhones with the iOS 11.4 update. Aside from finally delivering on those, there's not a whole lot new in iOS 11.4 as a whole, though, there are a few things you'll definitely want to know about.
Like Marvel's Avengers, Facebook's Camera AR platform now has a number of new AR superpowers at its disposal, so it is fitting that Earth's Mightiest Heroes have the distinction of displaying them.
There are more ways to finding your missing iPhone than using Apple's own "Find My iPhone" tool in iCloud. If you just need help tracking down your iPhone in your home or at a friend's house, Find My iPhone isn't necessarily the most convenient thing to do when you've got these other options to try out first.
Marvel and Walmart are looking to capitalize on the uber-successful Black Panther film with a mobile augmented reality app designed to push the franchise's merchandise.
In a huge surprise, Verizon is the first US carrier to push out the Samsung Galaxy S8/S8+ Android Oreo update. The update has been available in international markets for some time now, but this is the first report of a rollout in the United States. We've already ran down all the new features available in Android Oreo, so check out our full coverage if you're interested in those.
Two weeks ago, Samsung took the wraps off their much-anticipated Galaxy S9 flagship. Preorders opened on March 2 with official retail availability scheduled for March 16. As usual, several of the US carriers have begun shipping the devices ahead of schedule. Last week, Sprint began shipping out devices to a few lucky customers. Today, T-Mobile appears to be joining the party.
BlackBerry has formally unveiled its latest flagship, the KEY2, during an exclusive event in New York. The Android-powered KEY2 retains its distinctive BlackBerry aesthetics with a physical QWERTY keyboard. Here's all the juicy details regarding Blackberry's followup to the venerable KEYone.
Location services provider Mapbox is giving developers a means for building location-based AR apps and multi-user experiences with its new Mapbox AR toolkit.
With Mobile World Congress fast approaching, all eyes in the industry are set on Samsung's Galaxy S9 announcement on February 25. While leaks and rumors about the S9 and S9+ have been flooding in for quite some time, we're getting a much clearer picture of these handsets as the announcement draws near.
While augmented reality headset makers are faced with tackling numerous challenges before the category is truly ready for prime time, a start-up comprised of former Microsoft engineers may have nailed fast and precise tracking of hand gestures and full-body locomotion.
Facebook may have shamelessly copied Snapchat and its camera effects for faces (as well as its World Lenses), but it might beat its social media competitor to virtual body augmentation.
Lost among the latest laptops, smart assistants, VR headsets, and Motorola-branded gadgets that it brought to CES 2018, Lenovo has also introduced a new pair of augmented reality smartglasses.
In 2017, major breakthroughs in smartphone-based simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) opened up new doorways for developers and users of both Apple and Android phones. Unfortunately for Android users, the solution that Google is previewing, ARCore, currently only works on three Android smartphones. But Silicon Valley start-up uSens is stepping in to fix that with its new engine called uSensAR.
Samsung's 2016 line of smartphones has a new update, at least for the devices on AT&T. The update brings the Galaxy S7 to version G930AUCS4BQL1 and the Galaxy S7 Edge to version G935AUCS4BQL1. Here's what's on the table.
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.
If you own the Galaxy S8, S8+, or Note 5, be on the lookout for a new security update. These Samsung devices are the latest to receive the December security update to patch issues from both Samsung and Android.
Back in November, Essential opened the Android Oreo Beta Program for all users of their PH-1 flagship. We even wrote up a full guide on how to install the beta, if you're interested. They followed the Oreo beta with a Reddit AMA, where they mentioned the second beta software would arrive very soon. That update has just gone live, so you can grab it right now in a few easy steps.
Just weeks after previewing its smartglasses in a pair of videos, augmented reality hardware maker Vuzix announced on Friday that pre-orders are open for Vuzix Blade developer kits.
If you own a Porsche, there's a good chance you're interested in two things: speed and quality. Porsche Cars North America wants to extend that experience from the driver's seat to the service center.
Apple seeded the fourth beta for iOS 11.2, just one day after releasing iOS 11.1.2 to the public. The new iOS 11.2 beta 4 has also already hit public beta testers and includes mostly bug fixes and security patches to improve the overall experience for iPhone owners.