Now that everyone has an Android or iPhone in their pocket, there's no excuse for being late to an appointment or job interview. Thanks to that GPS receiver in your smartphone, navigating your way through city streets and highways is a cinch, in or outside of your vehicle. But once you get inside a building, that fancy GPS feature doesn't know what to do. Which direction is the elevator? How do you get to room 819? Where's the nearest fire exit? The bathroom?
Magic. Does it really exist? Can you really put a hex on somebody… or a love spell? Can you really cast supernatural spells? Believing is up to you, but anyone can be bewitching with the help of a little black — and white — magic.
With the Kodak Zi8, the power to capture razor-sharp, full 1080p HD video fits in the palm of your hand. Its easy, one-touch operation and incredible versatility make it the perfect camera for beginners, experts, and everyone in between.
Aside from home screen widgets, one of the most exciting updates to the iPhone with iOS 14 is Picture in Picture mode. With it, you can watch minimized versions of videos on top of other apps so you can multitask like a pro. However, not every service is on board with Apple's new features. YouTube is the primary culprit, but there is a workaround.
After three years and change, no one seems to be able to knock Pokémon GO off its augmented reality throne. Zombies, dinosaurs, and ghosts have all met defeat at the hands of the pocket monsters. Heck, not even the world's most popular wizard and Pokémon GO's developer can replicate the original's success.
Pokémon, Google, and augmented reality go together like wasabi, soy, and ginger, and the trio has come together again for the release of the latest game from the Pokémon universe.
In iOS 13, Apple finally took the built in Files app from an extremely rudimentary file browser to a full featured app that can serve the needs of most any user. Among the new features is the ability to compress a file or series of files into a standard ZIP archive right from your iPhone.
It takes confidence and guts to pull off attractive and yet adequately frightening Halloween makeup as an adult.
Next to map data overlays, one of the most often discussed concepts for apps that could propel augmented reality smartglasses into the mainstream is a real-time language translation app.
The perfect promotion for Pokémon: Detective Pikachu has finally come to fruition as Niantic has added some movie-related perks to Pokémon GO.
While a release date for Harry Potter: Wizards Unite has not yet materialized, co-developers Niantic and WB Games have finally released gameplay footage and an in-depth game description to whet the appetites of eager Harry Potter fans.
As I've mentioned in recent days, it was refreshing to discover that Microsoft's HoloLens 2 stage production was every bit as accurate as presented (check out my hands-on test of the device for more on that).
Every now and then, Hollywood has a moment where two (or more) movies arrive at around the same time, most recently with the release of dueling Fyre Festival documentaries.
The actual augmented reality portion of Pokémon GO is about to get even more fun for players. On Tuesday, the company revealed GO Snapshot, an extension of AR+ Mode facilitated by ARKit and ARCore that will enable players to pose Pokémon characters in augmented reality for photo capture.
In the waning days of October, at the Innovation Tokyo 2018 conference, attendees got their hands on some of the new augmented reality experiences that Niantic is working on through its Real World Platform.
On Tuesday, Blue Vision Labs, one of three Google-backed companies working on AR Cloud platforms, announced its acquisition by ride-sharing company Lyft.
Location-based AR game Ghostbusters World is creeping closer to launch, and developer FourThirtyThree has released some new gameplay footage and a trailer to capture the interest of the living.
Combined, the new iPhone XR, XS, and XS Max are the largest suite of iPhones that Apple has ever released at once time. While the XS remains the same size as last year's iPhone X, the XR and XS Max are even larger. But which size is right for you? We can help you decide which will fit your hand best with printable cutouts to compare the sizes of Apple's latest and greatest.
If you are an active player of Pokémon GO, you may soon be capturing more than just virtual pocket monsters.
The crime procedural show is the perhaps the most direct path to the average TV viewer's heart. Could the same hold true for augmented reality games?
The future of augmented reality isn't on your smartphone or face, it's in the everyday items all around us. At least that's the belief of Gordon Meyer, the vice president of marketing at New York-based startup Lampix.
With the Google Maps API giving entertainment brands the means to build their own location-based AR games, Niantic is raising the bar for the genre with new updates to Pokémon GO.
Thanks to Samsung Experience 9.0 on the Galaxy S8 (AKA TouchWiz Oreo), we know the upcoming Galaxy S9 is going to enjoy some of the new keyboard changes coming to Samsung's iteration of Android 8.0. Those who preorder the device on March 2 or pick it up on March 16 can expect these changes out of the box, as the S9 will be running Samsung Experience 9.0 on day one.
As part of its ARCore release announcement, Google also revealed a forthcoming app that's sure to excite those who celebrate '80s pop culture.
Moviegoers who arrive at the theater early are no longer a captive audience for the ads, trivia, and miscellaneous content that precede the movie trailers than run before the feature presentation, as the ubiquity of the smartphone has become the preferred distraction for early birds at the theater.
If you ever thought the Snorlax in Pokémon Go should be taller, and you have an iPhone compatible with ARKit, get ready to look up.
When it comes to augmented reality smartglasses, for now, it's still a mostly enterprise world, since the form and function of most are more acceptable on a job site versus your local cafe, and the still high price tags are far more palatable to major companies rather than individuals.
When explaining augmented reality to the uninitiated, Pokémon Go is often cited as an example. For all its popularity, though, many players would recommend disabling the AR capabilities in catching Pokémon.
In its never-ending quest to innovate its flagships, Apple's newer iPhone models with Face ID do away with the iconic Home button present since the first iPhone back in 2007. That means screenshots, force-restarting, switching apps, Apple Pay, and the home screen all work differently on the iPhone X, XR, XS, XS Max, 11, 11 Pro, and 11 Pro Max. One of the more important aspects, Siri, is also slightly different.
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Niantic must be blushing constantly, as numerous copies of Pokémon GO have spawned over the past year or so, seeking to capture the same success, often adding the lure of tangible prizes from brand partnerships.
With mobile developers near and far primed to implement augmented reality into their iOS apps with Apple's ARKit, uSens offers them a new tool for markerless location tracking.
The common thread between this week's Brief Reality stories is that augmented reality is beginning to prove its worth as a technology that improves workflows and processes. From customer service to healthcare to manufacturing, augmented reality is helping companies improve productivity.
If you relate in any way to having the need to carry your iPhone and your vaporizer in one hand, then keep on reading.
4DViews, the volumetric capture company that films actors and performers in augmented and virtual reality for things like movies, TV series, and applications, has just released the app 4DViews: Raise Virtual to Reality, to demonstrate its technology for smartphones.
Lyft is experimenting with commuter ride sharing by debuting a new "Shuttle" option, which offers pickups and drop-offs along select routes, much like a metro bus would do. The company is trying out the new option in San Francisco and Chicago, but if all goes well, we might all be ordering a pickup soon through Lyft's new Line ride share option.
DAQRI, a company mostly known for its odd but fun-looking industrial Smart Helmet, unveiled their new Smart Glasses product at CES 2017. Their smartglasses look like a strange attempt to answer the Microsoft HoloLens, and the price tag of $4,995 for the developer's edition reinforces that notion.
YouTube is a great place for all your mainstream audio and video needs. But you can't simply plug in your headphones, choose a playlist, and put your phone back in your pocket without subscribing to YouTube Red, which costs $9.99/month for ad-free and background playback. If you can't afford that for just background playback, there are other ways.
The Note7 fireworks bonanza was unprecedented in scope. A recent report suggests that Samsung could lose upwards of $20 billion in lost profit due to this fiasco.
Dutch police are using a system very similar to Pokémon GO on smartphones, but they aren't walking around trying to catch little pocket monsters. The purpose of this system is to give augmented reality help to first responders who may be less qualified to work a fresh crime scene. If successful, the idea of a contaminated crime scene could be a thing of the past.
We've highlighted the projects of Wavelength Studios a few times over recent months for their work in the augmented and mixed reality space. Since receiving their HoloLens headsets, they've been hard at work on both development community projects as well as efforts for clients. This brings us to their latest work—a way to control holograms on the HoloLens with our pocket-based modern miracles, also know as smartphones.
