This week, while Apple was the subject of thinly sourced reports that it had canceled development of its oft-rumored smartglasses, the Cupertino was actually laying the foundation for its AR hardware future with a new initiative focused on mentoring Chinese developers in mobile AR development.
Two years ago, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg kicked off the F8 Developers Conference keynote with augmented reality and the introduction of Facebook's AR camera platform, now known as Spark AR.
During Huawei's P30 smartphone launch event on Tuesday, the China-based company unveiled a surprise addition to its line-up: smartglasses.
Ten days after Magic Leap declared that it had selected the winners of its Independent Creators Program, the company has officially released an almost full list of grant recipients.
Smartglasses maker Vuzix has emerged with the first hardware powered by the Snapdragon XR1 chip, roughly nine months after Qualcomm introduced the chipset designed to drive augmented reality wearables at the Augmented World Expo in Santa Clara.
Although all signs points to Microsoft releasing a new HoloLens in the coming days, the company is nevertheless looking to distribute its augmented reality apps to other operating systems.
The hype around augmented reality has risen to a fever pitch over the past two years, and if this week's selection of business news stories are any indication, the din is about to get down right deafening.
The HoloLens has made enough of an impact on the healthcare industry for Microsoft technology partner Medivis to convince investors to pledge $2.3 million in funding for its surgical platform.
With the first pop-up showroom for North's Focals smartglasses opening its doors next week, customers are now able to purchase the smartglasses at a drastically lower price tag.
Reading the augmented reality news lately has felt a bit like reading a John Grisham novel, as the business side of things has dripped with legal drama.
With CES in full swing, it seemed like Magic Leap would have little to announce at the major tech event, but it turns out that one of its partners has weighed in with a rather substantial update regarding the company.
The augmented reality industry has a bright future built on innovation and growth, but that doesn't mean we can't look back at the close of the year to see what the industry has accomplished from a business perspective.
Augmented reality optics maker WaveOptics has just infused its operations with a fresh round of funding to facilitate its objective of bringing consumer-grade smartglasses at a $600 price point to market in 2019.
Last week, Twilio showed off how avatar-based chat communications will work on the Magic Leap One, and now a new startup has unveiled yet another way that augmented reality telepresence and remote collaboration can take place on the device.
People say that money makes the world go 'round. And it's no different in the world of augmented reality.
Apple often cites its tight integration of hardware and software for its success. Startup Illumix is looking to do the same thing for AR gaming by building an AR platform for its apps.
If you subscribe to notifications for Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz's Twitter feed, you'd think everyone in the world already has a Magic Leap One. Alas, that is not the case, but those not within the geographic areas of Magic Leap's LiftOff service now have a loophole through which they, too, can join the "Magicverse."
Look, we all like getting things for free. That's why we can stomach things like advertisements and optional purchases in freemium apps and games — we're willing to pay for our mobile experiences in every way but currency. Although freemium seems to be the model for the future of iPhone entertainment, it looks like a different scheme might win out in the end.
The long and slow road toward the actual release of the Magic Leap One appears to be accelerating, with a couple of new demonstrations of how the system works revealed in this week's creator's portal updates along with the company's developer documentation.
While many of you were off surfing and lounging on some sandy beach or trying to figure out how to balance work with sky-high summer temperatures, I've been talking to all the companies that make augmented reality what it is today.
Thanks to recent reports, we now know third-party apps have a lot more access to our Gmail than we may have initially thought. In fact, these third-party apps have the ability to read our emails, not because these companies are necessarily shady, but because we agreed to it. Luckily, there's a way to view which apps have this access, as well as a way to boot those apps from your Gmail entirely.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
While ARKit and ARCore are poised to bring AR experiences to millions of mobile devices, one company is poised to anchor those experiences anywhere in the world with just a set of geographic coordinates.
With the announcement of Google Glass Enterprise Edition last week, a literal behemoth entered the arena of companies serving augmented reality solutions to business customers. While Google Glass, with the backing of Alphabet, has the potential to be a disruptor, the field already has a number of players who have been in the game.
It seems like there's a cyber security scare every day. Consumers are growing increasingly concerned about the safety of their accounts, and they have reason to be. Hackers will maliciously attack you anywhere — and we mean anywhere — they can to get your private information.
Meta Company filed suit today against a former employee and his startup DreamWorld USA, Inc. for the misappropriation of trade secrets and confidential information.
Uber's year is going from bad to worse, and they may be subject to a potential criminal probe in the ongoing Waymo legal battle.
This week's Brief Reality is led by a pair of stories with an eye to the future of the augmented reality industry, first in terms of standards for the industry, then with regards to its future applications in the automotive realm. Finally, one company looks to boost its future sales with an executive hire.
The world of investment and finance can be labyrinthine in its very nature — and even more complicated in regards to augmented and mixed reality. While these new emergent technologies are teeming with explosive levels of unrealized potential, there's still a big layer of uncertainty in terms of return — but these investors aren't afraid to take the leap.
