Brief Reality: Blippar Transforms into Shazam for Cars
Augmented reality is quickly becoming a popular tool for marketing use cases, as demonstrated by new projects serving the automotive, entertainment, and tourism industries this past week.
Augmented reality is quickly becoming a popular tool for marketing use cases, as demonstrated by new projects serving the automotive, entertainment, and tourism industries this past week.
Those of us who are actively developing for the HoloLens, and for the other augmented and mixed reality devices and platforms that currently exist, are constantly looking for the next bit of news or press conference about the space. Our one hope is to find any information about the road ahead, to know that the hours we spend slaving away above our keyboards, with the weight of a head-mounted display on our neck, will lead to something as amazing as we picture it.
One thing that I got more and more excited about as we got closer and closer to the Microsoft Build 2017 developers conference was finally learning about the new Acer Windows Mixed Reality head-mounted displays (HMD). Brandon Bray, Principal Group Program Manager at Microsoft, had teased us a few weeks earlier at the Vision Summit event in Los Angeles, California, and said there would be a lot more information at Build. Fortunately for us, he was right.
Three years ago, with VR enthusiasts prepared to throw their money at Oculus to get their hands on the yet-to-be-release Rift headset, Google surprised the audience for Google I/O with Google Cardboard, a seemingly late April Fool's joke that actually jump-started virtual reality.
Marketing and healthcare, two of the leading industries in the adoption of augmented reality, continue to demonstrate applications for the technology in their businesses. Meanwhile, improvements to augmented reality devices are just around the corner with new developments from two display makers.
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.
According to Alex Kipman, HoloLens inventor and futurist at Microsoft, the smartphone is already obsolete. In an interview with Bloomberg, Kipman boldly stated that the HoloLens will eventually replace the smartphone and drive society right into a new augmented normal.
Augmented reality software developer Edgybees has launched Drone Prix. The new mobile app immerses DJI drones and their pilots in more than 30 augmented reality obstacle courses.
I was a slap-happy T-Mobile customer before, but now, after hearing that the company sent out a box of rolling papers to certain media sites with memes bad mouthing #VerHIGHzon ... I love you even more, John Legere!
It's always nice getting paid to do something you love. That's why Nintendo is offering all Nintendo Switch owners a chance to find vulnerabilities before another hacker beats them to it first. Depending on the vulnerability you find, Nintendo is willing to shell out rewards starting at $100, all the way to $20,000, to the first bug reporter who uncovers it.
The first public beta of Android O, (most likely to be called "Android 8.0 Oreo") was released on May 17, bringing tons of new features and goodies for Android enthusiasts with supported devices. However, not all of Android O's features were available to try out right off the bat. Possibly the single biggest feature announced during the developer preview of Android O, Picture-in-Picture mode, is nowhere to be seen.
Oh, Mario. The guy that's been a part of our lives since as long as we can all remember. Well, Adam Ringwood and his friends did something pretty cool with one of Mario's most exciting games at the HackIllinois event in February 2016—they hacked a Chevrolet Volt's steering wheel into one big Nintendo 64 controller for Mario Kart.
In Bhopal, India, a place nestled in between the royally pink city of Jaipur and the dry (i.e., alcohol forbidden) state of Gujarat, is a team of developers determined to make a fully driverless car suitable to the complexities of Indian traffic. An algorithm elaborate enough has yet to be made by any other company, but is the fundamental key to handling the intuitive habits of Indian drivers, the often intense and gridlocked traffic, and the country's vast expanse of jarring roads.
It's 2017 and finally ordering "fries with that" at McDonald's is an even easier prospect for all you lovers out there ball and chained to the fast food game. The great big golden arches are moving one step closer to making your order as golden as it ought to be through a mobile ordering app using geofencing technology to track your location.
Apple just pushed out the iOS 10.3 update to everyone on March 27, so if you haven't installed it yet, make sure to do so by going to Settings -> General -> Software Update. Trust us, you'll want to.
Google's monthly Android security updates are generally welcome—at the very least, they provide a feeling of security that our device is now somewhat safer than it was 30 days ago. Vulnerability patches, slight enhancements to performance, and overall bug fixes are generally included in the monthly OTAs, but as it turns out, they're not always for the better.
Early this morning, Unity held their keynote at GDC 2017 in the InterContinental San Francisco hotel. During the event, they talked about their upcoming roadmap and many changes that are coming down the pipe. This list included the lighting explorer, progressive lightmapper, the new 4K video player, native support for Vulkan graphics, TextMesh Pro integration, and the one that really excites me as a HoloLens developer—dynamically/runtime created navigation meshes.
A couple weeks ago, GM's Cruise Automation released a remarkable self-driving video from the streets of San Fransisco that Driverless analyzed in detail. And now they've just released a new one giving more insight into their growing mastery of the complex roads in San Francisco, specifically, the Potrero Hill and Mission Dolores neighborhoods.
What's in a sneeze? Quite a lot—dirt, mucus, and infectious germs—it seems. And sneezing the right way can reduce the germs you share with neighbors.
The Huawei Nexus 6P was released a little over a year ago, but despite doing moderately well in sales, the device has had more than its fair share of issues. When first released, there were numerous reception and memory management difficulties that left users extremely frustrated, though, those problems were solved with updates pushed by Google.
Designing for mixed reality, especially for the HoloLens, can present unique challenges. Dong Yoon Park, a Principal UX Designer at Microsoft with a passion for typography, recently gave a talk to the Windows Holographic Users Group Redmond (WinHUGR) about the pitfalls he ran into trying to convert what started out as a 2D iOS app 5 years ago to the newer 3D Holographic frontier with Unity.
Before the iPhone 7 models were released, there were many rumors pointing to the inclusion of wireless charging, which obviously didn't happen. Now the rumor mill is back at it again for Apple's next smartphone, most likely being called the iPhone 8, and the possibility of wireless charging is more certain this time.
Robots are always really cool, if you ask me. Sometimes they're made out of Legos, and that's even cooler.
A new hack has reopened an 8-year-old iPhone security loophole that Apple thought it had fixed back with iPhone OS 2.2. This is not one of those times when a theoretical attack gets identified and blocked quickly by Apple. On the contrary, it's a hack that actually exists right now, and it can have some serious real-world repercussions, so this is something all iPhone users need to be aware of.
What does our future hold when augmented and mixed reality finally enter the mainstream? As developers, we are always looking for the ultimate solutions to the problems our users see. Welcome the innovative minds of DataMesh Consulting and their impressive HoloLens interior design solution called HoloDesign (previously "Decoration").
Google is on a mission to bring a better messaging experience to Android users. We've seen them try and fail over the years with various messenger apps, but this time, they're taking a different approach by working with industry leaders to create a new messaging standard. The result is RCS Universal Profile, or simply Chat, and it's finally catching on.
Yes, I know it's autumn and the trees are losing their leaves, but the seasons do not decide when I can or cannot enjoy ice cream. No matter how warm or cold is is outside right now, I will remain completely fascinated by rolled ice cream. Yes, rolled.
The reviews for the Google Pixel phone have hit the web. There's a lot of praise, but not all are so positive. We've collected some of the best takes on the new devices from the top tech sites around.
For photographers, the "plus" in the iPhone Plus models used to mean optical image stabilization, but now that the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus both have OIS on board, that "plus" has moved onto something else—the dual-lens camera. Actually, the new dual-lens setup on the iPhone 7 Plus is a much bigger deal than OIS ever was. While OIS stabilizes the image before it's converted to digital information from the sensor, creating a much cleaner photo, two lenses working together in unison unleashes...
Wi-Fi signals have limited range, so if you live in a two-story house or work in a larger office, you may have set up multiple routers or repeaters to ensure full wireless coverage. Sadly, Android handles the transition between networks pretty poorly.
Augmented and mixed reality experiences attempt to break us out of windowed computing experiences and allow us to place software anywhere in the room. But that software doesn't have to take a rectangular form—theoretically, the web doesn't have to restrict itself to a page in a browser any longer. Does this mark the end of the web browser entirely? Probably not. A lot of information works well on the page, and the Microsoft HoloLens still uses a pretty standard version of their own Edge brows...
Summer is a sensational time for barbecues of all sorts, and sausages always seem to be in the limelight. From backyards to ball parks and picnic tables, crafting the best barbecued sausage is an art well worth mastering.
Back in iOS 8.4, Apple introduce a new "heart" icon in their Music app, which works in direct correlation with their Apple Music service that was released at the same time. By hearting a song, you're telling Apple that you love that song, and they can make better suggestions for you (in the "For You'" tab) based on it.
For many of you, the carving fork only comes out at Thanksgiving as an essential turkey-slicing aid. Perhaps you pull it out of the knife block to slice up the occasional roast. But the carving fork (also known as kitchen fork) can be used for many more tasks around the kitchen, and some of the more unusual involve your favorite shellfish.
Vacuum sealers keep food fresher longer by first removing the air from plastic food preservation bags and heat sealing the bag to keep air out. They have rapidly become a popular way to keep your frozen food fresh.
We've been on a constant hunt for the best way to make almond milk at home, and we think this trick might just be the most genius yet.
We're so used to seeing things in particular ways that anything different just doesn't make sense to our brains. Culturally, we like to read things from left to right, and from top to bottom. Change that and our brains struggle to adjust.
If you've ever prematurely dismissed all of your push notifications before you got a chance to read each one, you know how annoying it can be to dig through all of your apps to try and find the one with the missed notification.
Welcome to my very first tutorial ever. Today I will be teaching you how you can use Arachni to scan vulnerabilities of web applications. I welcome all criticism good or bad as a teaching method for myself.
Hello, in this episode of In the Kitchen with Matt, we will continue with the Star Wars theme, last episode we made Star Wars Death Star Peanut Butter Cups, this episode we are making Star Wars Death Star Popsicles. So we are really getting great value out of our Death Star molds, because of the versatility they provide. These popsicles are super easy to make, if I can make them, you can make them! If you have any comments put them down below, and I will get back to you.