As if riding roller coasters and meeting your favorite childhood cartoon characters weren't amusing enough, Snapchat is amping up the fun with augmented reality at the world's leading amusements parks in the this summer.
Riding the coattails of one of the biggest movies this year, the first edition of the new Moviebill augmented reality magazine will be available at Regal Cinema theaters nationwide this weekend alongside the release Avengers: Infinity War.
Soon, Pokémon GO allies attacking a raid boss at a gym will be able to do so together in augmented reality.
Last week, I tried out StackAR, a puzzle app updated to support ARKit where the AR features felt mostly unnecessary.
James Ashley, Atlanta-based Microsoft MVP and author of Beginning Kinect Programming with Microsoft Kinect, has been running monthly challenges since around the release of the HoloLens Developers Kits. Each month, those of us who follow what happens in the community can look forward to seeing what creative ideas come out of these challenges. It has been a treat, to say the least, and who knows ... maybe one of us here at Next Reality even won one of these before his time here.
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 augmented reality is mostly in the minds of consumers in the form of Pokémon GO, AR has been popular behind the scenes, with AR companies marketing it as a tool to help business operations become more efficient. This business-to-business market is the target of the new app DOTTYAR, which "provides 3D visualization tools for augmented reality viewers."
Every day the young world of mixed reality is creating new ways for people to work with with computers. We are looking for, and finding, new ways for these head-worn computers to understand what we tell them. Sometimes it is with our hands, sometimes it is where we turn our head, sometimes it is what we say. In the case highlighted below, it's where we walk.
For those of us that were blown away by the spatial mapping and user experience in Fragments and Young Conker, the version of spatial mapping that came stock in the HoloToolkit was lackluster at best. It became apparent really quick that to get an amazing presentation would require some heavy shader knowledge and some badass mesh culling skills, at the very least.
We've highlighted the projects of Wavelength Studios a few times over recent months for their work in the augmented and mixed reality space. Since receiving their HoloLens headsets, they've been hard at work on both development community projects as well as efforts for clients. This brings us to their latest work—a way to control holograms on the HoloLens with our pocket-based modern miracles, also know as smartphones.
It's no surprise that the Microsoft Kinect can provide far better motion tracking than the HoloLens currently can on its own, but at least one developer didn't want to wait for the company's own eventual implementation. Kyle G, founder and CEO of Wavelength Studios, projected his movements using a Kinect into a holographic zombie.
Six Flags is teaming up with Samsung to make riding a roller coaster a little more thrilling, and quite possibly a little more nauseating as well.
Flappy Bird is the extremely difficult, overly frustrating, strangely similar, yet highly addictive smartphone game from .GEARS STUDIOS that has catapulted its way to the top of the charts on both Google Play and the iOS App Store—seemingly out of nowhere.
There have been hundreds of reports of users hearing a grinding noise when they place a disc into their brand new Xbox One video game consoles. To prove it, here is an awesomely sad compilation of Xbox One owners having the issue.
I read, walk, and do lunges all at once. Time is money, and I'm all for multitasking whenever I can. Thankfully, my Samsung Galaxy S3 is extremely good at it, but extremely good could still be extremely better.
Thanks to HTML5 and dedicated video apps, watching your favorite shows, movies, or video clips on your Samsung Galaxy S4 couldn't be easier. However, there are still times when you'll run into a website that requires Flash to play a video or interact with its content. Although its mobile life has been dead on Android for 2 years, Adobe Flash Player still lives on in the desktop world, fueling millions of websites such as YouTube, Vimeo, ESPN, CNN, and more.
If you've tried watching a video that requires Adobe Flash Player installed on your Samsung Galaxy Note 2, then you're probably well acquainted with the "Flash Player is not installed" message. If you try tapping the deceiving Install Flash Player button it takes you directly to the Adobe website, where you're greeted with a message saying:
Despite the cancellation of Mobile World Congress and several high-profile companies pulling out of the upcoming Game Developers Conference, Magic Leap is pushing forward with hosting its own developer conference.
It's the holiday season, and the tech industry is giving consumers several AR products and apps as gift-giving options.
As the demand for realistic volumetric video for AR experiences begins to grow (along with the available facilities and services for capturing it), researchers at Google have figured out how to improve upon the format.
While Magic Leap World gets its share of fun apps for playing with Porgs, watching TV, and exploring the ocean's depths, developers are making a strong business case for the Magic Leap One as well.
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.
In recent years, the US military has been utilizing augmented reality as a training tool, giving officers and soldiers an opportunity to train and hone their decision-making, tactical efforts, and weapons accuracy via virtual scenarios.
With Microsoft taking direct aim at enterprises for its HoloLens 2 with a $3,500 price tag, one startup is betting that business will be willing to pony up for glasses-free 3D displays as well.
While some widely praised immersive computing initiatives at Google are shutting down, over at Epic Games things are just ramping up, and it involves quite a bit of cash available to indie augmented reality developers and startups alike.
Occasionally, a not-so-great movie also does something so right that you have to forgive some of its sins and give it a little love. Such is the case with the latest film from Keanu Reeves, Replicas, which takes a HoloLens-style device and gives us a look at how future research labs might use that kind of augmented reality device, sort of.
Augmented reality developers who have exhausted their treasure trove of video tutorials and panels from the recent Magic Leap developer conference can now shift their continuing education attention to Unity.
Amid the opulent and historic confines of Paris, Microsoft is now hosting an exhibit at a local museum that brings a historic map of a Normandy tourist destination to life in augmented reality.
One of the funniest scenes from the teaser trailer for the Wreck-It Ralph sequel is the basis for the new pre-show augmented reality experience via the Noovie ARCade app.
If you're not impressed with the current crop of AR content, and you're worried this may put a damper on the industry's growth, these stories should give you cause for some optimism.
Augmented reality is really picking up steam as a tool for marketing departments to pitch their products.
According to Indiana Jones, certain things belong in museums, but, thanks to augmented reality, you can now see some of the ancient treasures of the world in your own home via the Civilisations AR app from the BBC.
Some phones have a feature that turns your screen white for a second when you're taking a selfie in dim lighting. This does a great job of illuminating your face in a pinch, but there are two problems with it: First, not all phones have the feature, and second, it doesn't work in third-party camera apps like Snapchat and Instagram.
It recently came to light that a number of Android phones are unable to stream HD video through services like Netflix, Google Play Movies, and Amazon Prime Video. If you're worried that your phone may be affected, there's a simple tool you can use to find out for sure if you can actually stream video in 720p or higher.
Back to the Future Part II missed wildly on many technological advances for the year 2015, such as flying cars and rehydration ovens. However, it connected on several predictions, such as video calling and biometric security, and it was in the ballpark (pun intended) on others, such as the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series.
This morning Google announced ARCore, an SDK for Android devices that will allow augmented reality developers to add new functionality to Android 7.0 and up, all without any special hardware other than the camera of a phone.
When it comes to differentiating from the competition, brands are continuing to leverage augmented reality to give consumers to the point that there are few "firsts" left to achieve in the marketplace. While L'Oreal jumps on the augmented reality bandwagon for cosmetics, Acura finds a new way to make augmented reality a spectacle in the automotive industry.
Many game developers have finally realized that in order for their games to be successful, they have to support Android. To really win Android users over, they should also accommodate us hardcore gamers who have OTG cables with the ability to hook up controllers to our devices.
Cinema is a matter of what's in the frame and what's out, according to director Martin Scorsese, who asserted that when describing his life's work. Getting the perfect shot can turn an otherwise ordinary scene into something great, both on and off screen.
The holiday season is creeping up fast, and if you're shopping for a Steampunk, it could be almost impossible to find anything for them unless you know exactly where to look. Luckily for you, some of us have done all of the work you'll need. Whether you're Steampunk shopping for Christmas, Hanukkah, Chrismukkah (yes, that's real), Kwanzaa, or Festivus, you're sure to find something for that special lady or gentleman in your life by taking a stroll down this list!
