News: The 25 Biggest AR Investments in 2019
It's safe to say that we can call the annual ranking of AR investments a holiday tradition at Next Reality.
It's safe to say that we can call the annual ranking of AR investments a holiday tradition at Next Reality.
While the tech industry is hot in pursuit of mainstream smartglasses for consumers, another early maker of enterprise-focused AR hardware has apparently met its end.
Roughly six months after emerging from stealth, AR cloud company 6D.ai is now ready for public consumption, and it has a big name partner to help it kick off its platform.
The annual Augmented World Expo (AWE) typically packs the front page of Next Reality with new products and services from companies in the augmented reality industry.
Almost half a year after we broke the story about the demise of Meta Company, there's good news for fans of the augmented reality startup — a rebirth is at hand.
Many of us know that you can make a few bucks from Amazon by helping the company sell its wide array of products, but now there's a very different way to make a buck with the company, and it involves 3D technology.
The partnership between Magic Leap and leading South Korean wireless carrier SK Telecom took on an added importance earlier this week as the company unveiled the world's first nationwide 5G network.
The long guarded veil of mystery surrounding Magic Leap for years was finally lifted last year when the company revealed its Magic Leap One device.
As Microsoft continues to bask in the glow of its HoloLens 2 unveiling and begins ramping up the hype to launch, Nreal and Vuzix are carving out their own niches in the AR hardware landscape.
Augmented reality and computer vision company Blippar has a new lease on life, as previous investor Candy Ventures has completed a successful bid to acquire the assets of the beleaguered company.
In the business world, it's sometimes said that "where there's smoke, there's fire." At Snapchat parent company Snap, Inc., it appears the equivalent of smoke is executive turnover.
After entering the UK's version of bankruptcy last month, Blippar's assets are up for sale, and bidding ended today.
Despite the hype and potential of immersive computing, the augmented reality industry is showing that it is not invincible, as another AR hardware maker, this time Osterhout Design Group (ODG), is reportedly going out of business.
In the aftermath of the launch of the Magic Leap One, Magic Leap has ejected two more executives from their leadership roles.
In a move sure to stir up even more speculation about the future of Snap Inc., the company's vice president of content, Nick Bell, is leaving the company after five years.
Smartglasses and AR headset makers like Microsoft, Magic Leap, and Google (and aspiring AR wearables makers like Apple and Snapchat) need display components for their products, and LetinAR is among the companies ready to supply those components.
After a little more than a year at motion tracking technology maker Leap Motion, Keiichi Matsuda has resigned his position as vice president of design and global creative director, the company announced on Wednesday.
In an SEC filing published on Monday, Snap, the company behind Snapchat, disclosed that Imran Khan, its chief strategy officer and a member of the NR30, is leaving the company to "pursue other opportunities."
Magic Leap has been promising to launch a developer conference for years, and now the company is finally making good on that promise. On Wednesday, Magic Leap sent out the official announcement for its first L.E.A.P. conference, which will be held in Los Angeles in October.
Last week's Augmented World Expo felt like a distant memory by this Monday, as Apple unveiled ARKit 2.0 at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference. Certainly, this news would overshadow anything augmented reality this week as it nearly eclipsed AWE when early reports leaked of the toolkit's new superpowers.
We watched the first piece of public-facing content Magic Leap has released so you don't have to, and, well, you didn't miss much.
If it had come out just a week earlier, around April 1, no one would have believed it. But it's true, Leap Motion has developed its own prototype augmented reality headset, and it looks pretty wild.
Flying under the radar during Magic Leap's big week at the Game Developers Conference, the company settled a potentially ugly lawsuit with a former employee.
Accused of violating whistleblower and age discrimination laws by its security director, Magic Leap has taken an internal situation to the US District Court to clear its name of the allegations.
In another move that pushes Meta 2 toward becoming a legitimate workplace tool, Meta Company has partnered with Dassault Systèmes to bring augmented reality support to the latter's Solidworks 3D CAD software.
This week, saw two companies leaning on AR to prop up their financial futures. On one hand, Apple made quite a bit of AR-related news ahead of its quarterly earnings report next week. On the other hand, Vuzix launched a pre-order program for its Blade smartglasses and closed the largest financing deal in the company's history to fuel its ongoing headset production.
After Vuzix's scorching hot week at CES, the future of AR is so bright, we have to wear (smart) shades. Luckily, Vuzix is making it easier for consumers to grab a pair.
Shanghai-based Realmax is introducing the crowds at CES to the Realmax Qian, an augmented reality headset capable of a field of view (FoV) that topples anything available on the market today.
Earlier this year at WWDC, Apple made a big show of featuring augmented reality as a central part of iOS moving forward. But since then, other than comments from the company's CEO, Tim Cook, we haven't seen much direct promotion of augmented reality from the company. Until now.
Meta Company has filed its response to allegations that the user interface for their augmented reality headsets infringe on six patents owned by a mostly-unknown company.
The ride-sharing firm Lyft and Faraday Future, a troubled electric carmaker and potential Tesla competitor, have quietly appointed new top executives, but like the rest of the industry, they struggle to find talent for their driverless programs.
5G is showing up more and more in the news, as an increasing number of companies jump on the bandwagon. AT&T made a splash earlier this year with their embarrassing "5G Evolution" debacle, and the other three major wireless carriers soon followed suit, detailing their own vague plans for 5G. Today we find another company has joined the fray, just not a cellular one — Apple has officially been approved to test 5G networks.
With augmented reality making its way into the mainstream, consumers have been expecting a company bloodbath for a while now, one that will have a ton of casualties. Blippar has been expected to be one of those casualties due to the reported loss of millions of dollars earlier this year. Now, their situation might be made worse as the creators of the Layar app, Raimo van der Klein and Martin Lens-Fitzgerald, are rumored to be asking for their company back.
A new cross-licensing patent deal signed by Nokia and Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi will bring increased collaboration between the two companies. One area of focus in which both Nokia and Xiaomi have already agreed to work together is augmented reality.
Four augmented reality companies made deals this week to grow their businesses. Two companies, TechSee and Car360, completed funding rounds, while DAQRI signed with a production partner and Decalomania landed a prime spot with a top retailer.
While two augmented reality companies were recently recognized for their innovative technologies, other companies have turned to augmented reality to innovate in their respective fields. Over the past week, use cases have ranged from selling snacks and video games to raising awareness for public health issues.
While many analysts predict that the market for augmented and virtual reality will continue to grow over the next five years, now is the time for investors to get in on the ground floor.
Baidu signed a cooperation agreement on June 7, the first day of the CES Asia conference, with multiple companies in the autonomous vehicles industry. The companies listed in the press release include Desay SV, United Automotive Electronics, and Hangsheng Electronics, as well as possibly additional auto manufacturers. Baidu plans to "jointly develop" upcoming intelligent driving production plans.
Anticipation is building for the release of the Essential Phone. Andy Rubin's newest creation is expected to be loaded with features like a rear fingerprint reader, attachable 360-degree camera, and an edge-to-edge display. However, a news release from Sprint has just revealed that it may take more than $700 to get your hands on the Essential Phone. The release revealed that the Essential Phone will be exclusively carried by Sprint, so it might be time to switch your wireless carrier.
After Ford's CEO Mark Fields' three-year tenure failed to keep up with the driverless industry and resulted in a 40% drop in shares since Field's took over in 2014, Ford is going in a new direction. Jim Hackett, who was previously chairman of Ford's self-driving division, has succeeded Fields as the company's new CEO.