Market Reality: Magic Leap Seeks Series E Funding, Apple Delays AR Headset, & Snap Starts Selling Spectacles 3
The week in AR business news started out with a bang with two bombshell reports that cast a shadow on the AR industry as a whole.
The week in AR business news started out with a bang with two bombshell reports that cast a shadow on the AR industry as a whole.
Apple might not be ready to unveil its rumored-yet-unconfirmed smartglasses. But the iPhone's current depth-sensing hardware is proving to be useful for both smartglasses makers and mobile AR apps.
Snapchat is mostly credited as the first AR social network, and, like most social media companies, its revenue model is nested largely within advertising. As such, the company now has a new avenue for branded content.
Mixed reality display manufacturer Realfiction has developed a 64-inch display capable of delivering 3D holograms without a headset.
We're still basking in the afterglow of the HUGE Snap Partner Summit last week, where Snap made Snapchat a much stronger augmented reality platform while also unveiling the AR smartglasses version of Spectacles. This week, we got a peek at how Spectacles AR started and got our hands on Lenses from Lego and Disney featured during the keynote.
The Lens Studio creators have published more than 1.5 million AR effects to Snapchat. One of them is Audrey Spencer, who shared her story with us and provided her insights into Lens Studio as a storytelling device. Meanwhile, Snap has added new capabilities to the platform to stoke more creativity from its creators.
Augmented reality's status as a new storytelling medium has already led to the reinvention of filmmaking and journalism.
After facing reports of financial troubles over the past month, Magic Leap came out swinging this week with a big push for the enterprise segment of AR, including a repackaged Magic Leap 1, a suite of enterprise apps, and updates to Lumin OS and its supporting development ecosystem. Oh, and its AR headset managed to win a starring role in the marketing juggernaut for the forthcoming Star Wars movie.
After winning the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup, the USA Women's National Soccer Team is ready to defend its title in the 2019 tournament.
Apple's in-house music identification app Shazam has been quiet on the augmented reality front since officially joining Cupertino's finest last year, but a new promotion gives AR enthusiasts an occasion to raise a toast.
Not content to let NFL's official pizza sponsor corner the market for feeding football fans, 7-Eleven has taken a page out of Pizza Hut's playbook with a promotional augmented reality game.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but augmented reality is giving the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum the ability to add a few more poignant real words to its exhibits.
When Magic Leap One owners unbox their new devices over the next few months (or, if they are lucky, days), they will have some familiar augmented reality news content to consume.
Augmented reality headset maker Meta Company unveiled Meta Viewer, its first software application, during its keynote at the Augmented World Expo in Santa Clara on Wednesday.
Last month, we told you about U2's new augmented reality-powered music tour. But if you don't have the means to travel to the show, the group recently revealed an inside look at what it will be like and what inspired the band to dive into immersive technology.
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?
Fast-casual burger restaurant Bareburger expects to soon replace all of its paper menus with 3D models of its burgers and other items rendered in augmented reality, but for now, the company is preparing some rather interesting limited AR interactions.
One of the earliest players in the social virtual reality space, vTime, has just landed $7.6 million in new funding, which the company says is partially earmarked for developing and releasing an augmented reality version of its platform later this year.
Soon, Pokémon GO allies attacking a raid boss at a gym will be able to do so together in augmented reality.
The Star Wars saga may have occurred a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, but Nissan is using a futuristic technology to bring stormtroopers and droids into its dealerships.
Live theater doesn't typically benefit from the kind of computer-generated special effects that big-budget Hollywood blockbusters deploy, but that could change soon thanks to Microsoft's HoloLens.
This is a very exciting time for mixed reality developers and fans alike. In 2017, we have seen a constant stream of new hardware and software releases hitting the virtual shelves. And while most of them have been in the form of developer kits, they bring with them hope and the potential promise of amazing things in the future.
At Build 2017, the annual developer's conference, Microsoft featured a Windows Mixed Reality Academy. This class was designed to get a developer started creating Mixed Reality experiences quickly. For those of us already developing for the Microsoft HoloLens, while the class — which is now available on the Microsoft website — did offer our first real chance to work with the new Acer HMD, there was not much depth.
Hutch Interiors, Inc., makers of an eponymous augmented reality home design app for iOS and Android, has closed a series A round of funding, led by online real estate company Zillow Group, totaling $10 million.
At the 2017 Augmented World Expo (AWE) in Santa Clara today, smartglasses maker Epson introduced two new augmented reality headsets from its Moverio line of products.
Welcome to the maiden voyage of our new Market Reality column. Each Friday, NextReality will give you a roundup of news briefs from the financial end of the augmented and mixed reality industry. We'll cover funding news, market analysis, and more.
Microsoft's augmented reality headset, the HoloLens, is getting a taste of the classroom with Lifeliqe's new mixed reality apps for kids.
Apple is combining internal and external talent in an effort to give them in edge in the augmented reality market, though we still don't know what form their foray into alternative realities will actually take.
This morning, in an early morning session at GDC 2017, Brandon Bray, a senior program manager lead at Microsoft, revealed a mixed reality headset made in collaboration with Acer—a different headset than the one we saw from Acer at CES 2017 earlier this year. Also at the event, the name for Microsoft's holographic system seems to have changed from Windows Holographic to Windows Mixed Reality.
AR.js is a new JavaScript solution that offers highly efficient augmented reality features to mobile developers. With HoloJS released back in December, there is a potential that the free AR.js, developed by Jerome Etienne, one of Next Reality's 50 people to watch in augmented and mixed reality, could work with the Microsoft HoloLens as well.
There are already a few ways to use your home computer on the go, but none of them feel very natural when you're out and about, and are clunky options at best. Samsung wants to change that with Monitorless, their upcoming augmented reality smartglasses, which offer remote desktop viewing capabilities as well as the ability to switch between augmented and virtual reality modes using electrochromic glass.
A pair of properties from the soon-to-merge Warner Media and Discovery companies chose different platforms for their augmented reality marketing, with Warner film Space Jam: A New Legacy opting to go with Facebook and Discovery Channel publishing an AR experience through Snapchat.
Walsh, a new community under construction on 7,200 acres of former ranch land near Fort Worth, Texas, will one day contain 15,000 homes.
As a native of Alabama, Apple CEO Tim Cook has a special place in his heart for the state. He also empathizes with the struggles that African-Americans have historically faced in the state, particularly during the 1950s and '60s civil rights era.
In the late nineteenth century, the advent of the motion picture wowed audiences with a new storytelling medium. Nearly a century and a half later, augmented reality is establishing a new frontier in film.
A century-old opera is getting a revamp in the UK after swapping dusty wigs and curtains for augmented reality overlays and Snapchat filters.
Fast-food chain Jack in the Box has decided to put an augmented reality twist on the traditional sweepstakes promotion by employing the immersive powers of Snapchat.
Because of its ability to place digital content into the real world, augmented reality lends itself well to artists and creatives.
After applying augmented reality as a solution for the sale and marketing of sneakers, Nike is taking the next step in its adoption of AR to improve the customer experience.
Describing how and why the HoloLens 2 is so much better than the original is helpful, but seeing it is even better.