On Monday, Apple unveiled its Apple Card, the company's boldest move yet toward becoming a truly mainstream mobile payments company. And the product has vast implications for our augmented reality future, some of which may not be immediately obvious to many.
While Microsoft dominated the augmented reality news at this year's Mobile World Congress, a small AR startup we've covered in the past arrived in Barcelona, Spain, to unveil the next phase of its mission.
In 2018, augmented reality went from the vague promise of interesting things in the near future to tangible developments in software and hardware, proving that immersive computing is indeed the future.
Continuing our NR30 series this week, we focused on the leaders of the software development industry that make augmented reality experiences possible. In other news, two of the current leaders in making AR headsets, Microsoft and Magic Leap, are pursuing multiple verticals with their products, as both now appear to be interested in making AR headsets for the military.
The herd of augmented reality cloud startups that emerged in 2018 have been hunted to near extinction, with Google-backed Ubiquity6 the latest to move from an independent entity to a wholly-owned asset.
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.
The fifth annual Amazon Prime Day is upon us. Starting July 15, Amazon will offer thousands of deals on products across its site, kicking off at 3 a.m. EDT. This year, it will only run for 48 hours, so you have even less time to act. To save you some of that time, we made a list of the best deals for smartphone accessories.
Cinemark may not be as big as AMC Theatres, but it also has a subscription if you want cheaper access to movie tickets. There aren't as many theaters, but if there's no AMC around you, there will likely be a Cinemark to save the day. But is the price of its Movie Club plan worth it?
Movember is here, and if you haven't already started growing your moustache, then you still have time. Movember takes place during the entire month of November, and if you haven't figured it out quite yet, it is a portmanteau of the words moustache and November.
The enterprise-focused category of augmented reality doesn't often get the headlines due to its relatively sedate profile as a mostly factory floor and training-based tool.
The emergence of Microsoft's HoloLens 2 as a cutting-edge US Army tool has focused a spotlight on the marriage between augmented reality and the military.
The Metaverse, or AR cloud, has been a sci-fi dream for decades, but only recently have companies begun to actually develop the technology to build it. With its latest funding round, Epic Games is suddenly a front-runner in this pursuit.
When filtered through the prism of the top stories of the year, the business of augmented reality 2019 was defined as much by epic failures of AR startups as it was by the promising developments that propelled the industry forward into 2020.
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?"
In just a few weeks, on May 29, the annual AWE (Augmented World Expo) conference will take place once again in Silicon Valley (Santa Clara, California, to be exact).
So, you rooted your Pixel 2 or 2 XL and everything seems to be working quite well. However, a month passes, and you get a notification to install the monthly security update. Like clockwork, Google has been pushing out OTA security patches every single month for a while, but there is a new problem for you at this point — as a rooted user, you are unable to apply the update correctly.
If you've ever been on the receiving end of a threatening phone call, you'll immediately know the value in being able to record phone conversations on your iPhone. Beyond that extreme example, however, recording calls is still an extremely useful feature to have for important conversations like business meetings and verbal agreements, and it's totally doable with a third-party app.
There are a lot of Android phones out there, and chances are that someone in your life is looking for one this holiday season. Well, there also happens to be a lot of Black Friday deals on Android phones this year. So we've rounded up the best deals taking place on Black Friday weekend to help you save big.
Apple gave the Messages app a massive makeover with iOS 10, with a slew of options that made iMessages on the iPhone a lot more fun. While not quite as comprehensive, iOS 11 builds upon that success and makes the app more user-friendly and all-inclusive.
Bitcoin continues to make chaotic waves in the finance industry, with one bitcoin currently worth about $1,250 as of this writing. What's great about bitcoin is that you don't need to shell out rent money to get in the game, because bitcoins can be bought in increments—basically, whatever you can afford.
Apple announced the long-rumored iPhone SE with 5G capabilities on Tuesday, March 8, and the preorder and release dates are just around the corner.
With the global COVID-19 pandemic preventing Pokémon GO players from venturing into the real world, developer Niantic has adapted the game for trainers to play in a socially-distanced manner.
For the average consumer, augmented reality is a fun way of dressing up photos and videos for social media. However, AR is also gaining momentum as a medium for storytelling, particularly in sharing powerful messages.
We're all feeling the impact of the economic recession underway due to the coronavirus. With millions of Americans filing for unemployment benefits, now more than ever should we focus on the best deal rather than the best model. And in no industry is that more evident than smartphones.
Apple just released the first developer beta for iOS 13.4.5 on Tuesday, March 31. The update follows the previous week's stable release of iOS 13.4.
After closing its office last year, enterprise AR company Daqri has moved on to the final stage of its lifecycle with the liquidation of its assets.
It's time to make some more room at the augmented reality cosmetics counter. This week, social media giant Pinterest unveiled "Try On," a virtual make-up visualization tool running on its Lens visual search tool.
Some of the leading big tech companies are still working in the lab on actual products, but at least some of their leadership did have some thoughts to share on the future direction of the technology this week.
In his famous 1996 "Content is King" essay, Bill Gates predicted that content is where tech companies will make money on the Internet. The adage clearly holds true in the current phase of augmented reality experience.
While Apple, Facebook, and Snapchat are still working on their first-generation AR wearables, startup North is already preparing to bring its second-generation smartglasses to the world in 2020.
It's the holiday season, and the tech industry is giving consumers several AR products and apps as gift-giving options.
Smartglasses from Apple have become the holy grail of augmented reality, and 2020 has been the rumored time horizon for the product's arrival for the past two years. The latest analyst report sheds more light on its potential debut next year.
While Magic Leap World gets its share of fun apps for playing with Porgs, watching TV, and exploring the ocean's depths, developers are making a strong business case for the Magic Leap One as well.
Facebook had a pretty big week in terms of augmented reality, with much of its news coming from the Oculus 6 keynote presentation. But Mark Zuckerberg's social media company found other areas of impact outside of Oculus 6 as well.
Former soccer star and current celebrity David Beckham has the augmented reality abilities of Facebook and Instagram as allies in the effort to eradicate malaria from the world.
In Tidal, you could always share a link to your favorite playlist, song, artist, album, or video via a text message, email, or social media post. But if you wanted to share to Instagram Stories or Facebook Stories, you were out of luck. That all changes with Tidal's new sharing features on Android and iOS.
It was a long time coming, but we finally have a meaningful conclusion to the legal case against augmented reality startup Meta Company.
Samsung's not one to make drastic changes to what already works. They've continued on with the IP68 rating under IEC 60529 first given to the Galaxy S8 all the way to the the Galaxy Note 10. If you're a little confused as to what this rating means, don't worry, it's actually pretty simple once you get to the meat and bones of it.
The longer it takes Apple, Snapchat, Facebook, and other tech giants to build their own version of augmented reality headsets and smartglasses, the longer runway of practical experience Microsoft gains with the HoloLens and its sequel. The latest example: AR cloning.
In the last few years, the HoloLens has become a popular tool for use in medical procedures and training. But recently, the Magic Leap One has gained momentum in the space as well when it comes to medical use cases.
