News: Snapchat Tilts Its AR Lenses Toward Casual Gaming with Snappables
As if its users weren't already having enough fun with dancing hot dogs and face effects, Snapchat is upping the ante with a new kind of shared augmented reality content.
As if its users weren't already having enough fun with dancing hot dogs and face effects, Snapchat is upping the ante with a new kind of shared augmented reality content.
In an effort to help its advertising partners close sales with its sponsored augmented reality camera effects, Snapchat has launched a set of e-commerce tools designed to encourage users to buy products directly in the app.
Before Google Chrome entered the scene and subsequently dominated the market, Firefox trailed only Internet Explorer as the most popular web browser. Now, Mozilla has its sights set on a new opportunity to revive its browser for immersive experiences.
While Instagram users can attach links to images, they can only do so in stories, and only if they meet the special requirements that most users cannot obtain. Snapchat, on the other hand, lets anyone add a link, and it can be done in regular snaps and in your story. This feature has only been around since July 2017, so you may have missed it and not even realized it was a possibility.
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).
The cosmetics industry faced a rude awakening on Friday as beauty behemoth L'Oréal gobbled up ModiFace, one of the leading providers of augmented reality technology to the cosmetics industry (price details for the acquisition were not disclosed).
The augmented reality cloud and multi-user experiences are shaping up to be one of the hotter areas of augmented reality, and now Google is the latest entity to back these emerging branches of AR.
Augmented reality startup 6D.ai is now accepting applicants for the closed beta of its 6D SDK. While operating in the background on a smartphone, the computer vision platform captures a dense 3D mesh in real time using just the device's camera (such a feat typically requires a depth sensor).
A very low-key update to the ARCore developer's site has expanded the universe of officially-supported devices for Google's augmented reality toolkit to include the Samsung Galaxy S7, S8+, and Note 8 handsets.
We regret to inform you the former king of third-party keyboards, Swype, has officially retired on both Android and iOS. A few weeks ago, we noticed Swype's mysterious disappearance from the iOS App Store but had hoped it was just pulled temporarily, not gone forever. Unfortunately, Swype is no more, but there's something that's ready to take its place for you on your phone.
Snapchat just rolled out a feature that lets you create custom Filters and Lenses. While the average Geofilter won't run you more than a few bucks, it's not that hard to exponentially jack up the price. Amazingly enough, Snapchat's latest attempt to monetize their platform can ultimately cost you as much as $999.99. Ignore the penny, let's call that a cool grand.
Earlier this week, Snapchat announced a partnership with NBCUniversal regarding the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in South Korea. Starting on February 10, Snapchat will be streaming a feed of NBC's live broadcast of the Olympics in Pyeongchang.
Thanks to Apple's beta preview of iOS 11.3 released last week, app developers are already experimenting with the ARKit capabilities that will be available to regular users this spring.
Instagram updated its iOS and Android apps recently with an "Activity Status" indicator. This status allows your friends to see when you are currently active and when you were last active on Instagram. The problem is, Instagram was pretty quiet about this update, so many of you have it enabled without realizing it. Fortunately, it's simple to turn off.
Scary movies seem to be a natural fit for augmented reality experiences, with the latest example coming from the Insidious film franchise.
Using the CES tech conference in Las Vegas as the launch pad, Dell has announced that it's partnering with Meta Company to offer its augmented reality headsets to business customers.
While self-driving cars appear to be as inevitable as augmented reality headsets, the auto industry and its technology partners likely have years of testing to complete and regulatory loopholes to jump through before self-driving cars hit most highways.
It seems fitting that Time magazine's first augmented reality cover is an issue guest edited by Bill Gates, since the company he founded is currently leading the AR charge via the HoloLens.
Harry Potter fans can set down their wands for a spell, as the highly-anticipated augmented reality game from Niantic based on the franchise won't arrive until after July at the earliest.
The augmented reality industry made great strides in 2017, but its apex is not even in sight. In terms of software, augmented reality is approaching meaningful mainstream awareness, thanks mostly to Apple and ARKit. Meanwhile, on the hardware side, AR is very much in its infancy, with headsets mostly limited to enterprise customers or developer kits and the majority of smartphones lacking the sensors necessary to achieve much more than parlor tricks.
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.
To commemorate the rollout of the AR+ update for Pokémon Go, Apple CEO Tim Cook took to Twitter to promote and celebrate the moment his company's ARKit platform made possible.
Augmented reality has given companies worldwide great powers for innovating business practices and engaging customers, but on Monday, Honda demonstrated that with great power, also comes great social responsibility.
Lately, any subject in the realm of politics is a figurative powderkeg primed to explode on the nearest social media channel. Now, one app wants to use your iPhone and AR to strike a match.
Do you know when you're going to die? Your iPhone or iPad does. That's the premise behind Death Mask, an experimental app developed by Or Fleisher and Anastasis Germanidis.
Two characters from the popular sci-fi animated comedy Rick and Morty have already made their way into augmented reality courtesy of ARKit experiments. Now, it's possible to become one of them on the iPhone X.
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.
There are a lot of holiday tech deals starting to trickle out as Black Friday approaches. We've already rounded up some of the best deals for Android, iPhones, and headphones, but Google just dropped a big announcement for users of their Project Fi MVNO service. Now through December 17, you can earn yourself a free Moto X4 or Chromecast by referring your friends and family to Project Fi.
Samsung just began rolling out the Oreo Beta 2 to registered users of the Galaxy S8 and S8+. The update's changelog promises the inclusion of the October 2017 security patch. Unfortunately, after downloading the update, we've noticed this is not the case. Omission of the more recent security patch is notable in that it leaves devices vulnerable to several known exploits, such as KRACK.
A few months ago, we gave you a small peek at a new entrant in the race to deliver augmented reality smartglasses to the masses, and now the device is finally ready for the public. ThirdEye Gen is now accepting preorders for its X1 Smart Glasses, which will also provide users with an AR-centric app store.
A Russian augmented reality startup wants the next frontier in real estate to be augmented reality estate.
We may not know what Magic Leap's product looks like. And we haven't received even a "save the date" for its launch. But we know that it will display mixed reality comics from Madefire when whatever it is arrives.
According to Digi-Capital, investors poured $1.8 billion into augmented and virtual reality companies over the last 12 months, including $300 million in the third quarter. These investments are not made without a means to monetize products and services.
At their event in San Francisco today, Microsoft announced that they have begun accepting pre-orders for Windows Mixed Reality headsets from Acer, Dell, Lenovo, and HP, with the devices arriving on Oct. 17 along with the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update.
With the official release of iOS 11, the availability of an app that uses the much-hyped ARKit platform to place virtual furniture in one's home was expected.
Chipmaker Qualcomm introduced the second generation of its Qualcomm Spectra image signal processor (ISP), which has gained capabilities that will enable smartphones to facilitate augmented reality apps.
The developers at Immersion VR are clearly fans of both Apple's ARKit and Rick & Morty, as the company has shared its second demo in as many weeks of the augmented reality platform that is influenced by the animated sci-fi series.
This demo made with Apple's ARKit is 13/10 and features a very good boy. Since the ARKit was announced, there have been rumors going around about what it could mean for pet lovers who want to see augmented reality dogs. The popular Twitter We Rate Dogs has created a Good Dogs Game app that lets you have a your own virtual dog, but now Ridgeline Labs have also entered the arena with an ARKit dog game of their own, and it's the best thing I've ever seen.
A patent application for waveguide-based smart glasses submitted by way of their subsidiary Oculus sheds light on Facebook's plans to escalate their augmented reality efforts.
Going to music festivals is one of the best parts of the summer — Which is probably why thousands of people attend them. With numbers like that, trying to find and meet up with your friends can be difficult and intimidating. Thanks to Apple's ARKit, however, you'll soon be able to locate your friends in a crowd using an app.