Remember trying to express yourself over the 160-character limit on SMS texts? We've come a long way since then, and messaging services have nearly taken over with emoji, chat effects, custom interface colors, and other personalizations. Necessities for messages these days include GIFs and stickers, and Telegram makes it easy to find those perfect reactions for any moment.
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.
If Google hasn't already demonstrated that it is serious about augmented reality, then it made it abundantly clear at the Google I/O keynote on Tuesday.
The year in augmented reality 2019 started with the kind of doom and gloom that usually signals the end of something. Driven in large part by the story we broke in January about the fall of Meta, along with similar flameouts by ODG and Blippar, the virtual shrapnel of AR ventures that took a wrong turn has already marred the landscape of 2019.
We've seen a variety of AR experiences related to athletic footwear over the years, but Puma is betting sneakerheads will buy into a version of interactive design where sneakers are the augmented reality experience
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.
While the long awaited HoloLens sequel is scheduled to arrive later this year, Apple may force Microsoft to share the AR wearables spotlight, if reports of the company's first entry into smartglasses territory end up coming to fruition.
On Sunday, Microsoft did what everyone expected the company to do by unveiling the long awaited HoloLens 2.
The iPhone's notification system has drastically improved over the years, but it could still use some work. The notifications, while useful, are all monochrome, making it hard to distinguish which app posted each alert, and that's not even mentioning the drab overall look. This is where jailbreak tweaks can come in handy.
Last year's augmented reality investments roundup was impressive. And in 2018, the dollars flowing toward AR haven't decreased, as venture capitalists and strategic investors continue to aggressively fund AR startups at a rapid pace.
By default, there aren't many customization options for the notification badges on iPhones — you can either leave the numbered red bubbles there, or turn them off. But thanks to a new jailbreak tweak, you can now give your badges a unique look with new functionality.
Though not as flashy as Face ID and other features, Low Power Mode has become one of the unsung heroes of iOS. When you're away from a charger, enabling this feature will dial back performance and networking to help you eke out up to three extra hours of battery life. If your device is jailbroken, you can even automate Low Power Mode to ensure your battery never dips to critical levels while out and about.
In 2018, augmented reality went from the vague promise of interesting things in the near future to tangible developments in software and hardware, proving that immersive computing is indeed the future.
WaveOptics, makers of diffractive waveguides, has inched closer toward getting products featuring its technology to market through a production partnership with a consumer electronics company whose clients include Google, Microsoft, and Sony.
On Tuesday, the smartglasses startup known as North finally took the wraps off its Focals product, but in a very unique way: The team simply opened a couple of stores and invited the public in.
With all the controversy around the Pixel 3 XL, the regular-sized Pixel 3 might be the phone of choice for most users. Thanks to the huge boost in screen size, the little brother is now an easier pickup for those who like a bigger screen. And once more, the internals are the same, giving you the same experience as the 3 XL without the display notch.
The "controversial" Pixel. No phone in the history of Google's Pixel lineup deserves this title more than the Pixel 3 XL. For some (including myself), the design is a welcome change that embodies the modern design of 2018 flagship phones. For others, it has an ugly huge display notch that destroys symmetry.
One could argue that, at least for the moment, software development is more important to the augmented reality experience than hardware. Since a viable augmented reality headset has yet to emerge for the broader, mainstream consumer market, currently, the same devices that make texting and selfies possible are leading the charge to enable easy-to-use AR experiences.
Automotive augmented reality company WayRay has set its destination for a $1 billion valuation with an estimated time of arrival of 2019, and it has just passed a major milestone towards that goal.
While most kids his age are busy playing Fortnite, 11-year-old Yumo Soerianto is developing augmented reality games. Kids like Soerianto are the future of the augmented reality field — they'll likely be coming into their own as professional developers right as AR technologies become lightweight and powerful enough to be contained in a pair of sunglasses.
Any little bit of new light shed on Apple's rumored augmented reality plans is irresistible, and the latest comes from a fairly powerful source — a former Apple engineer who worked on the iPhone.
Low Power Mode can go a long way in preserving your iPhone's battery life in a pinch. It can be set manually or appear as an option once your battery levels dip to 20 and 10 percent. If you have a jailbroken device, you can take Low Power Mode a step further by having it automatically turn on whenever using Do Not Disturb.
Microsoft is adding another important piece to its growing immersive computing arsenal by putting its newest Mixed Reality Capture Studio in the center of the movie business: Hollywood.
We've seen all the Magic Leap One glamour shots, and we've even shown you a bit of what it looks like to view augmented reality on the device. But there's something else us super geeks appreciate more than anyone else: the grand unboxing!
We've spent years waiting to see what all the secretive fuss was about, and now that the device is in our hands, we can finally begin showing you images of what the Magic Leap One experience looks like.
You can view battery information in the Today View, you already know what carrier services you, and you can quickly figure out with normal use whether your display orientation is locked, so what do you need the status bar at the top of your iPhone? If you don't find much use for it and would like to see more of your wallpaper, there's a way you can get rid of it for good.
On Wednesday, the tech world woke up to fairly shocking news with the announcement that AT&T would be the exclusive wireless carrier for the forthcoming Magic Leap One, as well as an investor in Magic Leap.
Augmented reality is really picking up steam as a tool for marketing departments to pitch their products.
On Wednesday, June 6, the people at Magic Leap finally (FINALLY) decided to give the public a dedicated, slow, feature-by-feature walkthrough of the Magic Leap One: Creator Edition. How was it? About as good as it gets without actually getting to see what images look like through the device when wearing it.
In this week of Snapchat lenses, there was a significant increase in ones that involve Marvel superheroes (the Infinity War effect), as well as ones with YouTubers. Classic sitcoms will also always do well, as evidenced by some of my previous roundups. Overall, lenses are doing well and only continuing to grow.
One of the better additions in the stock Android launcher is the Google Now page. Residing to the left of the home screen, this page presents a host of information based on the user's interests, which Google bases on analyzed data. Recently, the Google Now page design received a makeover which Nova Launcher users can now enjoy.
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.
Update February 25: The Nokia 9 PureView was announced at Mobile World Congress! Read all of the official specs and details at our full rundown of Nokia's latest flagship.
Not content to just be a provider of rugged smartglasses for enterprise users, DAQRI has made the jump into the AR software side of the industry with its new Worksense productivity suite.
In any business, there are a number of questions companies must answer in order to get customers to buy a product or service. The same holds true for companies selling augmented reality headsets.
Every industry has its own jargon, acronyms, initializations, and terminology that serve as shorthand to make communication more efficient among veteran members of that particular space. But while handy for insiders, those same terms can often create a learning curve for novices entering a particular field. The same holds true for the augmented reality (also known as "AR") business.
The latest cosmetics brand to launch its own augmented reality try-on tool is Cover Girl, which introduced its browser-based experience this week.
Investors aren't keen to throw money at a new technology sector without at least some hope of a significant return on their investment in the future. That's why a recent run of activity within the augmented reality business space has stoked some new optimism among the financial community.
Prior to Apple's earnings report on Thursday, the storm clouds were gathering as Wall Street prepared for bad news in the wake of reports of slower iPhone sales. But it turns out that those fears were mostly unwarranted. Apple managed to increase iPhone revenue during the December quarter, despite selling slightly fewer phones.
While it may seem to some like investors are just throwing their money at augmented reality companies simply because the tech is heavily hyped, these money managers do actually want to see a return on their investments.
