Google and Snap held their annual conferences this week, and both companies managed to upstage their new AR software features with fantastic new AR hardware.
No, Jack Dorsey's Cash app isn't about to launch an augmented reality device (er, I don't think...), but its latest outing is about as close as we've come to full confirmation that the wearable AR age is upon us.
Outside of plastic surgery disasters or costumes, augmented reality is the closest we can get to morphing our likenesses into those of animals.
Investment in augmented reality remained robust in 2019. For the third consecutive year, we looked back on the biggest funding deals in the AR industry this week, and a familiar name came out on top.
This week, Next Reality published its annual feature on the leaders in the augmented reality industry, the Next Reality 30. So it's no coincidence that the companies represented in the top four spots of the NR30 also made business headlines in AR this week.
While Snap may eventually compete with Apple and Samsung in selling smartglasses to consumers, today it is helping them achieve their business objectives via augmented reality.
He might be an O.G. rapper, but Snoop Dogg has officially entered the cutting-edge of technology via a hidden feature included with his newest music release.
It used to be that the best kind of swag was T-shirts and hats from your favorite music artists, but now the symbol of casual insider cool falls to the tech companies, and Snapchat has just joined the ranks of branded apparel purveyors.
Snapchat accidentally—and then intentionally—announced their digital eyeglasses, known as Spectacles, over the weekend. While we'd hoped their augmented reality-heavy platform would result in related hardware, Spectacles unfortunately seek to "reinvent" little more than a video camera.
It's already been a banner year for mergers and acquisitions in the augmented reality industry, with WaveOptics and Ubiquity6 among the notable companies acquired. Two of the more active M&A players, Snap and Epic Games, continued their respective buying sprees this week with major deals supporting their AR strategies.
The race for the future of AR wearables gained steam this week with several pivotal developments. First, Apple, the subject of numerous reports and rumors regarding its purported AR headset, is reportedly eyeing an in-person unveiling of the device for later this year, rather than introduce it at its upcoming virtual Worldwide Developers Conference, which would usually be as good a time as any to make a big AR hardware announcement.
They say home is where the heart is. So, the opportunity to view the inner sanctum of Magic Leap is like gaining access to what makes the company tick, just as the fruits of its labor make it into select AT&T stores.
With smartphone cameras and software getting better and better every year, more and more users are getting passionate about photography. So when you're shopping for a gift to get someone, if they have a smartphone, chances are they'll more than appreciate some tools and accessories for taking better photos with their pocket friend — and we've got some gear ideas they'll love.
If you were to summarize the path Snap has taken towards augmented reality smartglasses with a meme template, how it started would be the first-generation Spectacles camera glasses and how it's going would be the next-generation Spectacles with AR capabilities.
The last few weeks were fairly busy in the realm of augmented reality and remote meetings developments. Most of that activity was generated by some mammoth announcements from Snap and its Spectacles AR smartglasses, and Google, with its Project Starline experimental holographic video conferencing system.
The words of three of tech's most important executives in the last 48 hours are providing some valuable insight into the near term future of augmented reality and the cloud infrastructures that support it.
If we were to assign a theme for the 2019 edition of the Next Reality 30 (NR30), it might be something along the lines of, "What have you done for me lately?"
Facebook had a pretty big week in terms of augmented reality, with much of its news coming from the Oculus 6 keynote presentation. But Mark Zuckerberg's social media company found other areas of impact outside of Oculus 6 as well.
What if, back in 2013, Google Glass had launched not as a Star Trek Borg-like eyepiece, but as a pair of seemingly normal shades, with the augmented reality lens and camera hidden within the frame?
The mysterious technology product teased via an eccentric TED Talk nearly five years ago has finally been revealed, and it's called the Magic Leap One: Creator Edition. After all of the non-disclosure agreements, furtive comments from CEOs and insiders given early access to the device, and a seemingly never-ending string of hints dropped by the company's CEO, Rony Abovitz, on Twitter, we finally have a real look at the product.
Part of the mainstreaming of augmented reality is learning to adopt new habits around the hardware delivering these groundbreaking next-gen interface experiences.
Magic Leap has had a rough couple of years, highlighted by high-profile executive departures, lawsuits, troublesome patent shuffles, and massive layoffs.
Microsoft believes its Mesh platform can help developers build immersive AR apps more easily. We spoke with a member of the Microsoft team to learn more about the platform.
Many years ago, when I first traveled to Tokyo, Japan, I was amazed by the contactless IC card turnstiles embedded in the county's subway system.
The competition to secure the top slot in the smartglasses space is now in full swing, with Facebook challenging Snap's Spectacles and Amazon's Echo Frames with its own collaboration with Ray-Ban called Stories.
Snapchat parent company Snap has opened up its war chest to acquire yet another company that will play a role in its augmented reality ecosystem.
Just when everything seemed settled over at Magic Leap, it turns out that the internal tumult is still in play.
During this week's unveiling of the new Samsung A Series of smartphones, much of the focus was on the high-end features at a more affordable price as the South Korean tech giant looks to regain its status as the world's top smartphone maker versus Apple's iPhone.
With big-name tech companies like Apple and Facebook gearing up to push out their own smartglasses in the coming years, engineering conglomerate Bosch has been working on the optical components that could help the competition catch up.
If the name Leroy Jenkins elicits a reaction from you, then you are old enough to remember the iconic title World of Warcraft from its heydey (whether or not you actually played the massively multiplayer online role-playing game).
We last saw China-based augmented and virtual reality headset maker Shadow Technologies at last year's Augmented World Expo, where they had the Action One, one of the wildest augmented reality headsets we've seen, on display.
Fashion brand Christian Dior is using augmented reality as a carrot to drive up their follower counts on Instagram.
When wearables startup North officially unveiled its Focals smartglasses in October, the stylish frames strongly resembled, in form and function, Intel's canceled Vaunt smartglasses.
While Snap's third quarter financial reports disappointed Wall Street, China's Tencent took the opportunity to expand its investment in the social media company.
Despicable Me 3 is coming to theaters this summer, and it seems that Minions are everywhere. Literally. You can't even escape them on social media because they've taken over Snapchat with the release of three augmented reality lenses. That's right, this new AR feature means that there could be Minions in your flower crown.
Just hours after an early leak via Twitter, Facebook and Ray-Ban have officially released their new wearable collaboration.
Ever since Facebook announced its partnership with Luxxotica brand Ray-Ban to produce smartglasses, the augmented reality space has been on high alert awaiting more details.
The year 2020 was a pivotal span of time during which the word "virtual" took on a brand new meaning. Instead of referring to VR or augmented reality, the term was hijacked to describe meeting across long distances through a variety of software tools, most often through video.
Today is the 10-year anniversary of the death of Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs. To commemorate the occasion, Apple has posted a message and a mini-documentary on its website.
Shark Week, which debuted in 1988 as a week of programming on the Discovery Channel dedicated to the titular predatory fish, has grown into a cultural beast of its own.
