Market Reality: AR Competition Heats Up as Microsoft, Google, & Samsung Make Money Moves
Some of the big guns developing augmented reality technology fired shots at their competitors with announcements and leaked plans this week.
Some of the big guns developing augmented reality technology fired shots at their competitors with announcements and leaked plans this week.
Users of Epson's smartglasses can now tell their devices to "talk to the hand" when it comes to passwords and authentication.
Microsoft's Monday keynote introduced the fourth generation of the company's Kinect sensor during Build 2018 in Seattle.
Following San Francisco-based Occipital's successful Structure Sensor Kickstarter campaign, the release of its Bridge AR/VR headset, as well as a string of technology and company acquisitions, the company has built a rather strong name for itself in the AR community. And now, with the first public release of its Bridge Engine on Thursday, the company continues to expand the features its platform has to offer, with hopes of bringing in more developers to utilize it.
Do you see a red door and wonder if it might be a good idea to paint it black? You could "ask Ask Sherwin-Williams," or, better yet, you could just ask the new augmented reality features in the retailer's mobile app.
For social media platforms like Facebook, augmented reality represents a whole new art form with which users can express themselves online. Now, Facebook is giving those users a new brush.
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.
Another AR cloud candidate has emerged in YOUAR, a startup that has developed a new system that enables persistent augmented reality experiences on iPhones and Android devices.
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.
Historically, Apple loves to drop hints about its major upcoming events through clues included on its invitations. Those invites usually require a good bit of deciphering to connect the dots, but in the case of Apple's upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2018 invite, the topic is immediately obvious: it's augmented reality.
Apple released the fifth build of the iOS 11.3 developer and public beta on Monday, March 12. The update comes exactly one week after the March 5 release of beta 4, which mostly introduced bug and stability patches. At this time, this new beta appears to do much of the same.
What many thought was inevitable, based on recent hints, has been revealed to be in the planning stages: Snapchat is working on smartglasses. The surprising information came out on March 2 in a report that also claims Snap Inc. is planning to release version two of its Spectacles product in the third quarter of 2018.
If the end of every year is focused on new iPhones, then February, which coincides with Mobile World Congress, is often when we get new Android news, and this month is no different.
Location services provider Mapbox is giving developers a means for building location-based AR apps and multi-user experiences with its new Mapbox AR toolkit.
San Francisco-based 6D.ai is preparing to launch a beta of its AR cloud platform that's capable of constructing a real-time dense mesh from crowdsourced data for use in 3D mapping and multi-user AR experiences.
Apple CEO Tim Cook's most recent tech prophecy is that "AR will change everything." And now, that includes Apple's own website.
While augmented reality headset makers are faced with tackling numerous challenges before the category is truly ready for prime time, a start-up comprised of former Microsoft engineers may have nailed fast and precise tracking of hand gestures and full-body locomotion.
A new smartglasses powerhouse is rising in Europe, led by two of the region's leading brands, optical systems company Zeiss (also known as Carl Zeiss) and telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom.
With the Super Bowl just days away, it seems appropriate to draw parallels between football and the professional sport of technology business, or, more specifically, the augmented reality segment.
Lost among the latest laptops, smart assistants, VR headsets, and Motorola-branded gadgets that it brought to CES 2018, Lenovo has also introduced a new pair of augmented reality smartglasses.
In its continued pursuit to elevate retail technology, Amazon has been awarded a patent from the US Patent and Trademark Office for a digital mirror that lets customers virtually try on clothes with different backgrounds.
The reveal of Magic Leap One: Creator Edition brought with it some insight into the path the device took from prototype to "final" design.
The knee-jerk reactions to Magic Leap's long-awaited augmented reality device, the Magic Leap One: Creator Edition, range from pent-up joy to side-eyed skepticism. That's what happens when you launch the hype train several years before even delivering even a tiny peek at the product.
On Monday morning, secretive augmented reality startup Magic Leap revealed a collaboration with Icelandic music group Sigur Rós. But the story detailing the app didn't reveal anything more than a still image of the interactive Tónandi app, leaving most of us to use to our imaginations in terms of visualizing how it worked.
Most of the animated characters and animals we've seen in augmented reality are still fairly basic in terms of visual fidelity. And because many are still impressed by simply seeing 3D figures properly scaled and tracked alongside real-world objects, this approach has worked ... so far.
The same approach to augmented reality that some companies use to improve workforce productivity could also make it easier for car owners to operate and maintain their vehicles.
To create a destination for coffee connoisseurs, Starbucks has ordered up a venti cup of augmented reality to make the visit more interactive.
Until self-driving cars become mainstream, augmented reality might be the next big technology to hit your dashboard.
Between Renault Truck's testing of the HoloLens in factories and BMW promoting its newest model through Snapchat, the auto industry is hot for augmented reality to improve internal operations and engage consumers.
Considered by many (perhaps unfairly) to be a very public failure, Google Glass can add another plot point to its comeback story, this time as a tool to teach social skills to children and adults with autism.
Up until now, experiencing augmented reality through Vuzix's next-generation Blade 3000 smartglasses would have required a trip to a tech conference where the company has an exhibition booth.
Now that it has buried the legal hatchet with Meta Company, augmented reality startup Dreamworld has announced plans to open up pre-orders for its Dream Glass AR headset.
Like gas on an open flame, rumors and whispers have flared up in recent months around hopes of augmented reality smartglasses from Apple. But among all the false leads and unsubstantiated chatter, we finally have a credible report that some sort of Apple AR smartglasses are actually in development.
Online glasses retailer Warby Parker built its reputation by selling fashionable yet affordable eyeglasses, so it perhaps a surprise that it's one of the first developers to take advantage of the technology in the least affordable iPhone yet.
In case you didn't already know, augmented reality is here. It's no longer just an idea in a cyberpunk novel. And while augmented reality has been around for a long time, the actual technology is finally catching up to the idea.
When a firm like Techstars believes that augmented reality is an attractive industry to invest in, there's a high probability that it's right.
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.
Avegant Corporation has begun shipping display development kits based on its light field technology that other companies can use in their augmented and mixed reality devices.
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.
If competition in the augmented reality space was a spectator sport, then ARKit, ARCore, and HoloLens dominate the prime-time broadcasts on ESPN.