Here are a couple of quick bits, and also a little bit of a teaser. If you know of my old YouTube channel and are a developer, you may be aware of the "Scale and Rotation System" tutorial series I did. I then started working for Next Reality and never finished it.
This week, two companies looking to capitalize on the growing augmented reality industry, raised funding from starkly different sources.
How would you feel if the stethoscope used by your doctor to listen to your heart and lungs was teeming with potentially unfriendly bacteria?
As more companies begin adopting augmented reality in the workplace, providers like Vuzix reap the benefits.
Augmented reality sells, but who's buying? Over the past week, two companies made executive hires to capitalize on the growth of augmented reality as a service to sell to other businesses. Meanwhile, two companies joined forces to offer augmented reality tools to headset makers and content providers.
Long before Nvidia figured out how to embed neural networks in its graphics processor units (GPUs) for driverless vehicles, it and other chipmakers were already making the same kinds of devices for 3D games and other apps.
After watching Samsung's exploding phone fiasco this past year, I took comfort knowing that the likelihood my iPhone would suddenly combust was slim. However, after hearing about a recent incident in Wisconsin, iPhone owners may have reason to worry.
Puzzle games are a great way to kill time and exercise your brain in one fell swoop. They challenge you to think strategically and plan ahead, whether that's to create killer chain combinations for maximum points, or to plain old keep from getting killed.
I have spent a good portion of this year traveling between cities and various emergent technology conferences and events. Most of these events have been really good, but in terms of augmented and mixed reality, the Augmented World Expo, in its eighth year running, definitely stood above the rest.
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.
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.
One inventor wants to bring augmented reality to internet radio and home audio speakers. Meanwhile, a leading consumer electronics company has opened up access its deep learning tools for building augmented reality apps. In addition, analysts examine how augmented reality will impact the design and construction and profile the top developers in augmented and virtual reality.
While restaurants and classrooms have enacted policies banning cell phones, one father has had enough of his kids' obsessive phone habits. Dr. Tim Farnum is now seeking to ban the sale of smartphones to children under 13.
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.
We know that healthcare-related facilities can be fertile ground for antibiotic-resistant bacteria, but recent research suggests your produce aisle might be too.
We were really rooting for you this time, BlackBerry! With the phone company having minimal success in the past with smartphones, the BlackBerry KEYone was extremely promising. That is until YouTube Reviewer JerryRigEverything discovered a fatal flaw, the phone's screen popped off with just a bit of pressure and then stopped working. So...there's that.
Getting support for your mental health is now as easy as opening up Facebook Messenger. By just opening up the Messenger app, you can connect to Woebot, a new chatbot developed at Stanford trained in administering cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).
Uber's struggles are expected help Lyft get ahead in driverless development as it confirms its third partnership with autonomous tech company nuTonomy today.
Toyota is testing blockchain and distributed ledger technology (BC/DL) for data sharing for driverless cars and other applications. This could eventually reassure buyers of its upcoming high-end cars by making sure their sensitive data is secure.
Three years ago, with VR enthusiasts prepared to throw their money at Oculus to get their hands on the yet-to-be-release Rift headset, Google surprised the audience for Google I/O with Google Cardboard, a seemingly late April Fool's joke that actually jump-started virtual reality.
Buying a smartphone used is an excellent way to save money, but those savings come with a risk that your seller isn't as forthcoming as they claim. You don't want to end up buying a stolen smartphone because it might not work correctly ... and, you know, it's wrong. Luckily, there's an easy way to check if the phone you're about to buy is legit.
This week's Brief Reality is led by a pair of stories with an eye to the future of the augmented reality industry, first in terms of standards for the industry, then with regards to its future applications in the automotive realm. Finally, one company looks to boost its future sales with an executive hire.
While at work, you notice your gloves changing color, and you know immediately that you've come in contact with dangerous chemicals. Bandages on a patient signal the presence of unseen, drug-resistant microbes. These are ideas that might have once seemed futuristic but are becoming a reality as researchers move forward with technology to use living bacteria in cloth to detect pathogens, pollutants, and particulates that endanger our lives.
According to Alex Kipman, HoloLens inventor and futurist at Microsoft, the smartphone is already obsolete. In an interview with Bloomberg, Kipman boldly stated that the HoloLens will eventually replace the smartphone and drive society right into a new augmented normal.
Disney Parks are hard at work bringing the technology from a long time ago in a land far away to life for the opening of Star Wars Land parks in Anaheim and Orlando in 2019.
UPDATED 5/4/17: SI has stated that they won't be augmenting its Swimsuit Edition. Although, this could be a sign that the company may do so in the future. If they already have all the tech set up for the latest feature, then they are already half way ready to augment other SI editions. So get ready SI fans and download the designated Life VR app, because you are going to need it to point it at these specially marked SI pages.
John Legere seems to operate under the philosophy of, "If you're going to be late to the party, throw a better one." On Tuesday, Legere announced T-Mobile's intention to build the nation's first true 5G network, following AT&T's rollout of its "5G Evolution" network. A network which many said was, to put it in polite words, nonsense.
It's no secret that Samsung had a lot of bad press this year. Despite this, we've reported how, even with the massive negativity in the media, Samsung has been expected to have an excellent Q1. Not only have those expectations been confirmed today, but Samsung has announced they are also working on a new flagship smartphone. One that some say could be the Note 8.
Globes used to be standard in households, usurped in many ways by modern mobile and desktop applications. But one company believes they can upgrade the globe for the 21st century.
Sony has upped the ante for the promotion of Smurfs: The Lost Village, which was released on April 7 in the US, with a mixed reality experience via Microsoft's HoloLens.
Pinterest, a worldwide catalog of ideas shared by over 175 million users every month, is dominated by Android users, who are now the app's fastest growing group. Pinterest has since taken notice, and has started to incorporate handy home screen shortcuts for users with Android 7.1 or higher.
The Samsung Galaxy S8+ isn't yet available for consumers to buy, but that isn't stopping tech reviewers from discovering what the phone is capable of. Turns out, the S8+ has a good battery—just not as good as the iPhone 7 Plus.
Google and eight top Android partners have just signed the Android Networked Cross-License, nicknamed PAX. On the surface, this looks to be a peace treaty of sorts that could end several patent wars.
Baidu's self-driving car unit has had a tough week. Today, the company's leading artificial intelligence (AI) expert, Andrew Ng, announced in an optimistic blog post that he would be leaving the Chinese search engine company to pursue AI research on his own.
There have been seven more people sickened from four states since the I.M. SoyNut Butter E. coli outbreak was announced earlier this month. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Washington Department of Health have confirmed the I.M. Healthy SoyNut Butter was the cause of the outbreak in an update today.
Before many games make it to the US-based iOS App Store, they get "soft launched" in a smaller country to get real-world testing for bugs. It's a pilot program, so to speak, as countries like Vietnam or the Philippines have far fewer iPhone users than the US, thus offer a more controlled environment for developers to get feedback and zero-in on issues that may occur in a game's early development phases.
As drug-resistant bacteria become more commonplace, researchers are looking for new antibacterial strategies to disrupt disease-causing microbes. Some scientists are working to create new drugs, while others are trying out drug combinations. Another group, however, are ditching pharmaceuticals altogether and experimenting with non-drug alternatives.
DigiLens, a company specializing in optical waveguide technology, recently announced that they had closed a $22 million round of strategic investment, also known as Series B funding. This round brought in Sony, Foxconn, Continental, and Panasonic, as well as more traditional venture investors such as Alsop Louie Partners, Bold Capital, Nautilus Venture Partners, and Dolby Family Ventures.
A few months ago, it was discovered that Verizon was installing an extremely shady app called "DT Ignite" on some of its smartphones—most notably, the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge. The app, created by Digital Turbine, monitors your smartphone usage, then uses the data it collects to silently install "recommended" apps without notifying you.
Last week, a new Kickstarter campaign arrived for a completely untethered, augmented reality headset for under $300 called Okularion. While at first glance, this unit looks very much like a Samsung Gear VR, one thing that sets it apart (aside from being untethered from a nearby computer) is that it does not require a smartphone. Well, that and it's an augmented reality headset as well.
