Next Reality » Augmented & Mixed Reality News, Rumors & Dev Guides

News: The Future of Apple Augmented Reality Wearables Through the Lens of Steve Jobs & His Legacy

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.

News: Facebook Outage Takes Down the Metaverse, Oculus Quest & Ray-Ban Smartglasses Users Impacted

On Monday, the social media giant Facebook suffered a massive outage that, as of this writing, is still in effect.

Market Reality: NASA AR Launches, Smartglasses Showdown, Vuzix Secret Lab, Magic Leap Turns the Corner

The beginning of autumn has delivered a number of new augmented reality developments, and we're on top of it.

News: Microsoft HoloLens 2 & Unity Used to Highlight the Threat to Endangered Whales at the Smithsonian

Although the enterprise use cases for the Microsoft HoloLens 2 continue to impress, the arts community just can't stay away from the best augmented reality headset on the market.

News: What Is the Difference Between Facebook Ray-Ban Stories, Snap Spectacles, & Amazon Echo Frames Smartglasses?

The emergence of Facebook's collaboration with Ray-Ban to launch Stories smartglasses has finally put an exclamation point on a new category of smartglasses: the pre-augmented reality wearable segment.

News: NASA Launches First Woman to Moon via AR App, & Delivers Interactive Visit to New Space Telescope

The team at NASA is in full mission preparation mode as they prepare to send a new team to the moon for the first time in decades via the Artemis program in 2024.

News: BlueJeans Video Conferencing Giant to Launch Native Google Glass App for Remote Assistance

If you're a normal, non-corporate video conferencing user, you may not have heard of BlueJeans, but in the corporate world, the software has long been a major staple when it comes to remote meetings.

News: Vuzix Smartglasses Factory Reveal Gives Another Glimpse of Next-Gen AR Wearable

Away from the hype around Facebook's smartglasses, the high-end fascination with the Microsoft HoloLens, and the unending rumors about Apple's AR wearable is the small but powerful darling of the enterprise AR world—Vuzix.

News: NASA Integrates Microsoft HoloLens into Regular Maintenance Operations on International Space Station

As NASA nears the launch of another mission to the Moon in 2024, and a subsequent mission to Mars in the 2030s, augmented reality is increasingly being woven into the normal space operations to test various capabilities.

Market Reality: Instagram Smartglasses, Oculus AR Gaming, Google AR Search, & Facebook Exec Shuffle

As we move toward the end of the year, the wheels of the augmented reality space continue to shift in major ways.

News: Facebook's AR/VR Chief Andrew Bosworth Tapped as New CTO

If the importance of augmented reality and VR hardware to Facebook's future wasn't already clear enough, a shake-up in the executive ranks at the company has made it as clear as smartglasses lenses.

News: This Billie Eilish Oculus Quest 2 Video Inadvertently Offers a Peek at AR Gaming on the VR Headset

It's always fun to get an unexpected glimpse of the future, especially when that peek is so close you can actually feel the excitement of the new emerging dynamic.

News: Google Adds Famous Monuments & Iconic Buildings to Augmented Reality Search Feature

Even with unlimited resources and a serious case of wanderlust, it's unlikely that you or I will be able to see all of the most famous structures in the world in person.

News: Netflix Launches Oculus Quest Immersive Game for Animated Streaming Series 'Eden'

We usually focus on augmented reality here, but when something important in VR happens, we highlight it as part of the overall immersive computing story.

Opinion: Facebook's Big Smartglasses Mistake—Not Pairing Ray-Ban with Instagram Instead

One of the best recent outings in the Marvel universe is the animated series What If...?, which explores alternate universe takes on various superhero storylines that deliver fascinating scenarios if one single factor had been different in the story.

Market Reality: The Matrix vs. The Metaverse, Xiaomi AR Wearable, & Snap Art AR History

This was a busy week in the tech space. After everyone got over the major announcements of Apple's latest, we examined the metaverse through the lens of Hollywood, and then took a closer look at Facebook's first smartglasses.

News: Registration Open for 2021 Facebook Connect AR & VR Conference, Speakers Include Mark Zuckerberg & John Carmack

It's about that time again: Facebook has announced the dates for its annual Facebook Connect (formerly known as Oculus Connect until last year).

News: Snap Teams with Sotheby's to Launch Historic AR Lens Hailing the Art of Christo & the Arc De Triomphe in Paris

One of the most iconic architectural landmarks on the planet, the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France, will become a part of augmented reality history thanks to a new project from Snap.

News: Xiaomi Wearable Uses Waveguide Tech to Mount Challenge to US Smartglasses Market

As if answering Apple's major iPhone event on Tuesday, Chinese mobile giant Xiaomi held its own product launch event the following day.

News: How to Sample the New Apple iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro in Augmented Reality

The much-hyped Apple event is now history, and we finally know what the Cupertino tech giant had up its sleeve: new iPhones.

News: Facebook and Ray-Ban Stories Smartglasses Unboxing

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.

News: How 'The Matrix Resurrections' Can Help Us Answer Some of the Most Important Questions About the Emerging Real Metaverse

"Unfortunately, no one can be told what the matrix is, you have to see it for yourself." That's the line just before Morpheus gives Thomas Anderson (aka Neo) the red pill, finally opening his eyes to the tapestry of code that has veiled his eyes for his entire life.

Market Reality: Apple AR Event Surprise, Facebook Smartglasses Debut, Snapchat Interactive Update, & an Epic Games Win

When it comes to the ever-shifting sands of the augmented reality space, you never know which week will end up being truly historic. Well, this one was one for the history books.

News: How Epic Games Major App Store Win Against Apple Could Change the Mobile Augmented Reality Space Forever

The fight to wrest control of apps from Apple's revenue-focused grip just took a major turn in favor of Epic Games.

News: Facebook & Ray-Ban Stories Smartglasses, Details on the Specs, Colors, Prices, Software, and Availability

Just hours after an early leak via Twitter, Facebook and Ray-Ban have officially released their new wearable collaboration.

News: Facebook Ray-Ban Smartglasses Leak Reveals Fashionable Device with Cameras, Multiple Colors

Facebook promised that it would release a pair of smartglasses in partnership with Ray-Ban sometime this year and now it looks like we have our first look at the device.

News: Snapchat Launches Birthdays Mini Feature to Let You Celebrate Your Friends via AR Lenses

The art of creating Snapchat Lenses is really only the beginning of the augmented reality experience on the social media platform.

News: Apple Kicks Off September Event with Augmented Reality Welcome Mat

We always know roughly when Apple events are coming, but when their new product events pop up, they're always a pleasant tech refresher from the Cupertino tech giant.

Market Reality: Oculus Quest Fuels AR Apps, Why Spatial Audio Is the Killer App, & Xerox Becomes a Major AR Player

Amid a troubling resurgence in coronavirus cases, led by the new Delta variant, augmented reality is once again moving back into the spotlight as a solution, especially now that the move to return to offices has been stalled.

News: Xerox Augmented Reality Unit CareAR Raises $10 Million in Funding from ServiceNow

The enterprise-focused category of augmented reality doesn't often get the headlines due to its relatively sedate profile as a mostly factory floor and training-based tool.

News: Facebook's Oculus Quest Turned into Augmented Reality Guitar Hero Experience via This Developer App

The augmented reality passthrough abilities of Facebook's Oculus Quest were only fully opened to independent developers recently.

News: Spatial Audio Update in Clubhouse Is Another Piece of the AR Virtual Meetings Puzzle Coming Together, Here's How

In our review of Amazon's non-augmented reality Echo Frames smartglasses, we made the case for audio virtual assistants being the linchpin for AR wearables.

Market Reality: TikTok Enters AR Battle, Facebook Crypto Mystery, Candyman in AR, Avon Immersive, Snap Spectacles Evolve

The year leading into fall is turning out to be packed with a flurry of augmented reality activity. Most notably, TikTok is adding another major weapon to its AR arsenal. Also on deck are the powers of Hollywood horror in the form of an innovative approach to AR marketing that uses sounds.