There are times when leadership is tested. This is one of those times. As government and business leaders around the world are grappling with the unfolding coronavirus pandemic, the real-time responses to the crisis from many leaders have been great and, at times, less-than-optimal.
Next to Apple, Snap is currently one of the most important companies on the planet in terms of delivering products that are moving augmented reality into the mainstream. That's why it's no surprise that Facebook, which is also focused on AR and tried to acquire the company for $3 billion several years ago, duplicates many of the smaller company's features.
While Microsoft dominated the augmented reality news at this year's Mobile World Congress, a small AR startup we've covered in the past arrived in Barcelona, Spain, to unveil the next phase of its mission.
Update 10/23: The hits just keep on coming. We're now seeing reports of a "smearing" effect when scrolling through apps on the Pixel XL 2. We'll expand on that at the bottom of this article, but it's still worth reading the background information on issues with LG's new POLED displays.
Google just bought a huge chunk of HTC for $1.1 billion. They're bringing in around 2,000 employees, mostly from the hardware division, and these folks will presumably work under hardware chief Rick Osterloh. There's a massive patent portfolio involved, too, so stop me if you've heard this before — Motorola, anyone?
Apple has some great features aimed at making the lives of globetrotters and mall aficionados significantly easier, such as having detailed floor plans for airports and shopping centers in its native Maps app. With this feature available in Apple Maps, you no longer need to rely on publicly posted maps and directions that are often hard to understand.
When building anything of a social nature, be it a local roller derby or softball team, a club dance night for chiptune, or building new technology markets, the community around those ideas are an important factor in helping these things not only come into existence but to grow into something that enlightens everyone involved. The community around an idea can actually make or break these new ventures — and this applies to augmented and mixed reality as well.
While its direct-selling model echoes brands like Avon and Tupperware, Indonesia's MindStores gives the approach a modern twist—with augmented reality.
Bitcoin continues to make chaotic waves in the finance industry, with one bitcoin currently worth about $1,250 as of this writing. What's great about bitcoin is that you don't need to shell out rent money to get in the game, because bitcoins can be bought in increments—basically, whatever you can afford.
Near Field Communication, or NFC for short, is a feature that allows our smartphones to wirelessly communicate with other devices over a short distance while using almost no power at all. Think of it like a slimmed-down version of Wi-Fi or Bluetooth that can send a small burst of data two inches away without having any measurable impact on your battery life.
When using Linux, we often need to install new software, a script, or numerous large files. To make things easier on us, these files are usually compressed and combined together into a single file with a .tar extension, which makes them easier to download, since it's one smaller file.
Brands are increasingly adopting augmented reality to promote their products and services, and they have multiple paths for bringing AR experience to their audiences.
The close of the second quarter of 2021 brought about a flurry of merger and acquisition and financing activity in the augmented reality industry, headlined by the acquisition of Ubiquity6 and JigSpace's new multimillion-dollar funding round.
Sure, Microsoft has mostly marketed its HoloLens headsets towards enterprises and developers, but we learned this week that, like every other tech giant, the company is working on a consumer-grade AR wearable. Speaking of consumer smartglasses, Apple made another strategic investment this week that has implications for Apple's AR future.
Apple pushed out 31 new emoji with iOS 16.4 and iPadOS 16.4, but it somehow forgot to add ten of those — all skin-tone variations for the new leftward and rightward pushing hand characters — to the iOS keyboard. Here's how to unlock and use them.
The beauty industry has increasingly relied on the powers of augmented reality to drive sales in recent years, and now that virtual "everything" is on trend due to the pandemic, yet another big player is entering the fray.
The herd of augmented reality cloud startups that emerged in 2018 have been hunted to near extinction, with Google-backed Ubiquity6 the latest to move from an independent entity to a wholly-owned asset.
Over the past decade, China tech giant Tencent has invested in several companies with varying roles in the augmented reality industry.
Apple released the newest update for iPhone, iOS 14.5.1, today, Monday, May 3. The update (build number 18E212) is the first since iOS 14.5, which Apple made available one week earlier on Monday, April 26.
The rise and fall of Meta, the Silicon Valley-based augmented reality startup that looked to challenge the likes of Microsoft's HoloLens, and others, took just six years.
2017 was a down year for HTC. First, the U11 and U Ultra were widely criticized. Later, Google purchased a large chunk of HTC's manufacturing division, leaving the Taiwanese company running with a skeleton crew after losing 2,000 key employees. But that's not stopping HTC — their flagship U12+ was just announced, and it's quite impressive.
Cruise Automation, the driverless car startup General Motors (GM) bought for $1 billion in 2016, is readying a formidable fleet of robo-taxis for rollout in cities throughout the US. But when it comes to details about how the company plans to realize these lofty goals, it's been fairly tight-lipped.
Quanergy CEO and founder Louay Eldada is, by any standard of measure, a pioneer in the development of LiDARs for driverless vehicles.
If you haven't read the last article, feel free to stop by and give it a read, but abstaining from reading it will not, for the most part, be detrimental to your understanding.
My years in the restaurant business have taught me many things. Some of those things are best left unsaid and other things require a PhD in vulgarity, but the one thing I learned that I keep coming back to night after night is that you do not have to spend a lot of money to drink excellent wine. This is especially true of champagne...I'm sorry, sparkling wines.
Apple's stock keyboard for iPhone has gone through many changes over the years. Some have been significant, and others more subtle. Overall, most of these updates have been fairly obvious, so you're probably already using them — but there are more than a few interesting features that were slipped in under the radar that you may not know about.
It's safe to say that we can call the annual ranking of AR investments a holiday tradition at Next Reality.
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?
Smartphone technology has become as ubiquitous as automobiles. In Austin, Texas, a city that is widely known as the "Live Music Capital of the World," smartphones have been embraced by the music community not just as a way to document and promote, but to create music.
People say that money makes the world go 'round. And it's no different in the world of augmented reality.
Right on the heels of the iOS 11.4.1 beta 3 release, Apple pushed out iOS 12 beta 2 to registered developers on Tuesday, June 19. Public beta testers received the same version, labeled as iOS 12 public beta 1, six days later on Monday, June 25. Last year, the iOS 11 public beta opened up just five days after the release of iOS 11 developer beta 2, so iOS 12 is pretty much right on track in that regard.
A new technological movement without the technology itself is just an idea sitting and waiting. Once the technology is present in the equation, movement forward can begin. This is how many of us see the head-mounted displays (HMDs) and smartglasses that have recently entered the augmented and mixed reality market — or are coming out in the next few months. This is a movement that will sweep over the world, changing everything in its path, and these are some of the people behind it.
Apple Pay has been available to use in stores, as well as in select apps and websites, ever since its first appearance in iOS 8.1. Now, with iOS 12, there are currently 13 different iPhone models that support Apple Pay functionality without the use of an Apple Watch, and the list of partnered stores that accept Apple Pay has only grown. Here's our always-up-to-date list to keep you in the know.
Cryptography is the science of keeping secrets, or more specifically, the science of disguising them. As a point of fact, cryptography has progressed quite a bit farther and now encompasses file and message integrity, sender authentication, and pseudo-random number generators.
I don't know how many of you had this experience in your youth, but when I was a kid, I used to actively think about what would happen if I suddenly woke up in a fantasy land, or were to pass through a portal into another space and time. I knew it wouldn't really happen, but when you're a kid, these can be important issues to you. So I slept with my glasses on every night, just in case. Photo from George Pal's The Time Machine.
There are a few significant improvements for your iPhone with the iOS 17.5 software update, released May 13, but my favorite is Apple's enhancements to the Apple News app, which is making its Puzzles section even more fun with Game Center integration and even a new type of word puzzle.
In the iOS 17.5 software update, released May 13, there are new features for EU countries and mobile device managers only, but there are also more widespread user-facing changes to Books, Podcasts, and other apps. News is one of those other apps, and it gives us more preferences for automatic downloads.
Some record labels release albums across the entire music spectrum, dipping their toes into every genre, sub-genre, and language imaginable, while others attack only the categories they're good at. So if you're hunting for new music, and the Listen Now, Browse, and Radio tabs in Apple Music are getting stale, iOS 14.5 lets you browse like-minded artists, albums, and playlists by specific record labels.
The Chicago Bulls may not be very relevant in the current NBA standings, but they do lead the league in one other area.
There's already some fierce competition between Snap and Facebook in the AR space, but it's about to heat up even more, with Snap snatching up a 3D mapping startup that could add some new AR capabilities to its arsenal.
