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

News: Video Demo from 6D.Ai Shows Why Occlusion Is the Next Big Thing for Mobile AR Experiences

If you aren't convinced that mobile augmented reality apps need occlusion (or you don't know what the word even means), you really need to watch the latest video from AR cloud startup 6D.ai.

News: 10 Amazon Prime Deals for Augmented Reality Lovers Who Missed Amazon Prime Day

It wasn't Christmas, but for Amazon Prime members, it was darn close: Amazon Prime Day, one of the biggest shopping days of the year, came and went earlier this week. Unfortunately, there weren't many Prime Day-specific deals to be had for augmented reality fans, but that doesn't mean AR-loving Amazon Prime members were completely left out.

News: Leap Motion Concept Videos Imagine a World Where Augmented Reality & VR Merge

The shifting sands of immersive computing, currently fluctuating between augmented reality and virtual reality, can be hard to navigate if you're only versed in one of the platforms. But a new series of videos from Leap Motion paints a picture of a near future world in which AR and VR will seamlessly merge together, forcing us to change the way we see both.

Market Reality: AT&T Invests in Magic Leap, Facebook & Snapchat Continue AR Duel

As it prepares to ship its first product by the end of the summer, Magic Leap has managed to impress yet another high-profile investor in telecommunications giant AT&T.

News: Magic Leap One Passes Through FCC Certification, Setting the Stage for Imminent Release

The rite of passage for every tech product, formally known as Federal Communications Commission (FCC) certification, has come for the Magic Leap One: Creator Edition.

News: Shopify Rings Up AR Shopping for the Web via AR Quick Look on ARKit 2.0

Online shopping giant Shopify literally cannot wait for ARKit 2.0 to arrive via iOS 12 this fall to implement its latest augmented reality feature.

News: Magic Leap CEO's Tweetstorm Tries to Reframe Reactions to Latest Demo After Signs of Disappointment

Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz doesn't engage in tweetstorms often, but when he does, those tweets are bold, exceedingly confident, and there's usually a strong takeaway regarding what the company is or isn't doing. But on Thursday, Abovitz's latest tweetstorm sent an unusually flustered message: We promise, the magic we're telling you about it better than anything you've seen on video.

News: Here's Why Magic Leap's Exclusive AT&T Deal Could Be the Key to Its Success, or the Start of a Rocky Rollout

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.

Market Reality: Magic Leap Builds Content Arsenal, Unreal Engine Updates for Mobile AR, & AR Cloud Expands

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.

News: Magic Leap Recruits Square Slice Studios to Create Content for Magic Leap One

In keeping with its focus on loading the Magic Leap One with content at launch, Magic Leap has inked a creative partnership agreement with augmented reality production studio Square Slice Studios.

News: Microsoft HoloLens Art Project Turns New York into an Undersea Dystopia

The HoloLens team is finally beginning to realize that to truly engage the mainstream, augmented reality needs to make its way out of the lab or factory floor and onto the streets.

News: Unreal Engine Update Brings Support for Latest Augmented Reality Toolkits from Magic Leap, Apple, & Google

On Thursday, Epic Games released Unreal Engine 4.20, which finally includes support for the latest iterations of ARKit and ARCore, as well as Magic Leap One early access.

News: Magic Leap Shows Off New Software Demo, Teases Release This Summer

After weeks of teasing what many hoped might be a live, on-device demo of Magic Leap software to go along with the hardware glimpse we got last month, it turns out that all we got was a bit of new demonstration video footage.

News: AT&T Joins Forces with Magic Leap as Exclusive Launch Partner

Another massive piece of the mysterious augmented reality puzzle known as Magic Leap fell into place on Wednesday as AT&T announced that it will be the exclusive launch carrier for the device.

News: Unity 2018.2 Release Continues Optimization of 3D Content Performance for Mobile Devices & Desktops

On Tuesday, Unity released the latest version of its 3D engine, which brings improvements to the Scriptable Render Pipeline that the company introduced earlier this year.

News: Facebook Brings Augmented Reality Ads to Its News Feed

Facebook is preparing to make augmented reality experiences for brands more visible in its mobile app with Tuesday's introduction of augmented reality ads in its News Feed.

News: Snapchat's Lens Explorer Guides You Through a Land of Augmented Reality Creations

Augmented reality experiences created in Lens Studio now have a permanent home in the Snapchat app. On Tuesday, Lens Explorer will begin giving users access to a scrollable screen full of a variety of new Lens Studio creations.

Apple AR: Room Racer Revs Its Augmented Reality Engines on iPhones

The old school staple of many US homes with children, the remote control race track, has been given new life in augmented reality thanks to the Room Racer app for iPhones and iPads.

News: Snapchat Preparing to Upgrade Camera with Visual Search for Amazon, Report Says

A peek inside the code of the Snapchat app has revealed that the company is expanding the search capabilities of its augmented reality camera to include visual search that may link to items within Amazon's massive online store.

Market Reality: Snapchat Gets Recreational & the Tech Industry Reveals How It Plans to Mainstream AR

Last month was a whirlwind for the augmented reality industry, with the Augmented World Expo, Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, and an exciting Magic Leap Twitch livestream all wrapping up before the ides of June. Now that we've had a chance to fully digest it all, we have a real sense of where the augmented reality industry is heading.

News: Reality Trending — Peering into the Present & Future of Augmented Reality in 2018

While many of you were off surfing and lounging on some sandy beach or trying to figure out how to balance work with sky-high summer temperatures, I've been talking to all the companies that make augmented reality what it is today.

News: Rémy Martin Distills Art Through Augmented Reality App to Promote Its Cognac

Another branding team has stepped up to the bar to order a tall glass of augmented reality for its marketing campaign, this time through a mobile app for Rémy Martin VSOP Limited Edition cognac.

Hands-on: Meta's New Meta Viewer App Is the AR Collaboration Tool All Those Sci-Fi Films Imagined

When you drive along the deceptively sedate streets of Silicon Valley, there are few hints that all those nondescript office parks and low-rise buildings contain the very future of the planet, but they really do. On a recent trip to tech's epicenter, I found that out firsthand when I got to visit the offices of Meta, the startup that produced the Meta 2 augmented reality headset.

News: Snapchat Takes a Trip to the Amusement Park with AR for Disney, Universal, & Six Flags

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.

News: Niantic Partners with City Governments to Turn Pokémon GO into a Tool for Community Engagement

A new study published by American University demonstrates how Pokémon GO and other augmented reality games can help city governments bring communities closer together.

News: Challenge Serena Williams in Augmented Reality Tennis via Snapchat's Interactive 3D Bitmoji

With the opening round of Wimbledon, one of professional tennis's four major tournaments, beginning on Monday, Snapchat is serving up an augmented reality tennis mini-game.

News: This App Lets You Control Your Smarthome Lights via Augmented Reality

Voice-activated digital assistants from Amazon, Apple, and Google currently have the upper hand for home automation integrations, but a new augmented reality mobile app promises to give homeowners and renters visual control over their connected appliances.

Market Reality: Google Pushes ARCore, Niantic Previews Its New AR Platform, & 'Walking Dead' AR Game Nears Release

Apparently, it's Google Week for the augmented reality business. Now that ARCore has a firm foothold in the app ecosystem, Google is making a case with educators and marketers that the apps should have a place in schools and campaigns, and the company is also encouraging developers to learn how to build apps using ARCore.

News: Drake Drops Shoppable AR Lens on Snapchat to Push Fans to New Album on Apple Music

Hip-hop artist Drake once rapped that "goin' online...ain't part of (his) day," but that's not stopping him from promoting his new double album, Scorpion, via augmented reality on Snapchat.

News: Lionsgate & Pepsi Launch Snapchat Augmented Reality Experiences to Promote NBA Star-Packed 'Uncle Drew'

Snapchat is enjoying a high field goal percentage when it comes to securing movie studio business with its sponsored augmented reality experiences, the latest coming through the basketball movie Uncle Drew.

News: Google Expands ARCore to More Android Devices, Adds iOS Support

The roster of handsets supporting Google's augmented reality toolkit now includes 46 Android models as well as support for ARKit-compatible iPhones and iPads.

News: Niantic Reveals Augmented Reality Platform for Multiplayer Gaming & Interaction with Real World Objects

Location-based gaming pioneer Niantic has offered a preview of its augmented reality cloud platform that could change the immersive content game yet again.

News: China's Vivo Unveils Time-of-Flight 3D Sensor That Rivals iPhone X's TrueDepth Camera

The spirit of Google's Tango augmented reality platform lives on at Vivo, a China-based company that has developed its own 3D sensor for mobile devices.

ARKit 101: How to Measure Distance Between Two Points on a Horizontal Plane in Augmented Reality

In our last ARKit tutorial, we learned how to measure the sizes of horizontal planes. It was a helpful entryway into the arena of determining spatial relationships with real world spaces versus virtual objects and experiences.

News: Tale of the Tape — How Does Apple's Measure App Measure Up Against Google's Version?

Earlier this month, when Apple announced at WWDC that iOS 12 would include an augmented reality tape measure called Measure, iPhone watchers seemed impressed by the new addition to the company's AR arsenal. Well, just a couple of weeks later, on June 19, it appears that Google remembered it had its own Measure app as well.