For the augmented reality hardware industry to progress towards the consumer segment, display technology needs to get better. Investors recognize that, and they are showing AR display makers the money.
The arrival of Magic Leap One is tantalizingly close and, although the company has been saving the last details for launch day, a few of the more important details were found this week hiding deep in the code on Magic Leap's website.
If you're not impressed with the current crop of AR content, and you're worried this may put a damper on the industry's growth, these stories should give you cause for some optimism.
As it prepares to ship its first product by the end of the summer, Magic Leap has managed to impress yet another high-profile investor in telecommunications giant AT&T.
Mozilla has created yet another browser for Android. Similar to Firefox Focus, Firefox Rocket was designed to address specific problems: limited internal storage and low data caps. However, in the process of solving these problems, they created one of the fastest browsers on the market.
On Tuesday, Unity released the latest version of its 3D engine, which brings improvements to the Scriptable Render Pipeline that the company introduced earlier this year.
At present, consumer-facing augmented reality is a mobile world, and Snapchat is making money on it through advertising partnerships.
The Augmented World Expo is winding down in Santa Clara, where Qualcomm, Vuzix, and Meta Company were among the companies making big announcements.
Less than a week after securing a $25 million Series C funding round for automotive HUDs, DigiLens has introduced a new waveguide display for motorcycle helmets that's thinner, lighter, brighter, and manufactured at a lower cost.
You may have noticed improved photo quality in the Android Snapchat app in recent months. Believe it or not, this is because Snapchat only just recently started using a decade-old camera API that predates every Android phone in existence.
Noted poet T.S. Elliot once wrote that "April is the cruelest month." But Magic Leap might argue that March is the most miserable, as the Ides of March brought more legal woes to augmented reality startup. Elsewhere, its closely-held branding secrets have been spilled by way of the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
Augmented reality business followers, we've got good news and bad news. First, the good news: Upskill closed another round of funding, this time led by strategic investors Cisco and Accenture. (Well, this is probably bad news if you're competing with them on the enterprise AR front.)
In any business, there are a number of questions companies must answer in order to get customers to buy a product or service. The same holds true for companies selling augmented reality headsets.
While the mainstream consumer market waits for cool augmented glasses to arrive from Magic Leap, or maybe even Snap Inc. (Spectacles 2.0??), AR headset maker DAQRI and its business customers are finding new, money-saving and time-saving use cases for the technology today.
Digital imaging company OmniVision Technologies and the Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute Company Limited (ASTRI) entered the CES fray this week with a new reference design for an augmented reality headset capable of 60 degrees field of view (FoV).
As the calendar year (and, for many companies, the fiscal year) comes to a close, it appears 2017 may stand as the new high-water mark for investment in augmented and virtual reality technology.
Augmented reality is beginning to leak out into the mainstream world. This is thanks, in part, to ARKit and ARCore. These releases turned the current smartphones owned by millions of Apple and Android users into AR-capable machines. And while there are definitely some awesome use cases for mobile AR, the real future in AR is headworn.
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.
With an eye toward future iPhone X-focused augmented reality functions, Apple's new investment in one of its components vendors will increase production capacity for the technology behind its TrueDepth camera, but could also apply to its future AR ambitions.
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.
During its third-quarter earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that "AR is going to change everything."
Between Renault Truck's testing of the HoloLens in factories and BMW promoting its newest model through Snapchat, the auto industry is hot for augmented reality to improve internal operations and engage consumers.
We may have to wait a few years before they arrive, but reports of Apple's headset taking shape in Cupertino gives the tech world hope that its white knight for consumer AR is on its way.
When the Super Bowl airs, every other TV network puts on reruns because no one wants to face that juggernaut for ratings. The launch of a new iPhone is the Super Bowl of the tech world, with the launch of the iPhone X being the biggest one yet.
When a firm like Techstars believes that augmented reality is an attractive industry to invest in, there's a high probability that it's right.
If competition in the augmented reality space was a spectator sport, then ARKit, ARCore, and HoloLens dominate the prime-time broadcasts on ESPN.
The launch of the latest line of iPhones came and went without major revelations for advanced AR hardware other than the next iteration of processors and cameras.
Every year, football fans get excited about the next crop of blue chip prospects joining their teams, from five-star high school recruits graduating to college to first-round rookies drafted into the NFL.
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.
This week, two companies looking to capitalize on the growing augmented reality industry, raised funding from starkly different sources.
As more companies begin adopting augmented reality in the workplace, providers like Vuzix reap the benefits.
As augmented reality becomes more and more integrated into the mainstream, people have been wondering the future of AR is going to look like. Jay Samit has a pretty clear idea.
Over the past week, companies took a variety of approaches to investing in augmented reality. Lampix is backing its own effort to build an ecosystem for augmented reality platforms. Nokia and Xiaomi are teaming up on numerous fronts, potentially including augmented reality.
A pair of organizations recognized companies working in augmented reality for their innovative technologies over the past week. Meanwhile, another company used augmented reality for a sector that is overdue for a technology makeover, while another company has developed new camera modules that could usher in the next evolution of mobile AR.
German groups ZF Friedrichshafen AG and HELLA are collaborating to add to their autonomous portfolios with camera and radar development.
A report by PwC highlights that immersive experiences in augmented and virtual reality represent the fastest growing segment of the entertainment and media industry over the next six years. News from two companies working in the industry, Fox and NetDragon, underscore the growth forecast.
Over the past week, we are seeing more companies capitalizing on services leveraging augmented reality. One company secured funding to expand their service, while two other companies grow its own services through acquisition.
Facebook is hiring video game teams and other eSports organizations to create live and on-demand videos for its newsfeed. The company aims to take on others such as Twitch and YouTube, where most of the eSports' content is typically housed.
The US driverless market has become a competitive – and crowded – arena, with big names like Google, Apple, Uber, and even Intel intent on leading the pack. Not to be outdone, the EU is also getting in on the automated car action with self-driving fleets launching in both the UK and the Netherlands within the next two years.
At the moment, it would be safe to say that demand for devices running Tango, Google's augmented reality smartphone platform, is relatively low among consumers. Kaon Interactive, a B2B software company who has built more than 5,000 interactive applications for use at trade shows, remote sales demonstrations, and other customer engagements, is betting that there is a market for the devices in sales and marketing.
