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

News: Warner Bros. & Niantic Release Trailer for Harry Potter Wizards Unite, but Delay Launch Until 2019

It looks like the Harry Potter version of Pokémon GO won't appear in 2018 after all, as the company has decided pushed the game's release to 2019.

News: Snap's Vice President of Content Is Ghost, as App Continues to Shed Users

In a move sure to stir up even more speculation about the future of Snap Inc., the company's vice president of content, Nick Bell, is leaving the company after five years.

News: Toyota Begins Testing HoloLens for Production Process Improvements

With HoloLens and its enterprise-focused software offerings, Microsoft continues to make an impression on companies looking to adopt augmented reality, with Toyota Motor Corporation among the latest.

Market Reality: Samsung Intros AR Cloud, Niantic Real World Platform Makes Debut, Election Broadcasts Go AR

This week, at its developer's conference, Samsung took the wraps off a new tool from Wacom that bestows the S-Pen with AR powers, as well as its own entry to the AR cloud market called Project Whare.

News: Magic Leap Publishes More L.E.A.P. Developer Videos Featuring Insomniac Games, Weta Workshop & More

After publishing two batches of videos from its L.E.A.P. developer conference, Magic Leap has made the session on Seedling from Insomniac Games available to the public.

News: Samsung Unveils Its Project Whare AR Cloud Service & Wacom Partnership for AR Creations

With barely a whisper of augmented reality during the first day of its developer's conference, Samsung came out swinging on day two with the introduction of its version of the AR cloud and a partnership with Wacom that turns Samsung's S-Pen into an augmented reality magic wand.

News: Unreal Engine 4.21 Adds Support for Magic Leap's Lumin OS & Windows Mixed Reality Apps

Epic Games released Unreal Engine 4.21, bringing a number of new features, bug fixes, and improvements for augmented reality development, including deeper support for Magic Leap One and the addition of support for the Windows Mixed Reality platform and headsets.

News: Domino's Australia Serves Up Virtual Previews of Your Pizza Order in Augmented Reality

If you're hungry for pizza and ordering from Domino's in Australia, you can now see what your pie will look like in augmented reality before placing your order.

News: Lenovo Star Wars Jedi Challenges Update Lets You Turn to the Dark Side via Kylo Ren Lightsaber

Any real Star Wars fan knows that fear is a path to the dark side, as it leads to anger, and then suffering. For players of Star Wars Jedi Challenges, though, access to the antagonistic side of the Force is now available through their mobile apps.

News: Hands-On with North's New Focals Smartglasses & Flagship Store in New York City

On Tuesday, the smartglasses startup known as North finally took the wraps off its Focals product, but in a very unique way: The team simply opened a couple of stores and invited the public in.

ARKit 101: How to Place a Virtual Television & Play a Video on It in Augmented Reality

In a previous tutorial, we were able to place the Mona Lisa on vertical surfaces such as walls, books, and monitors using ARKit 1.5. By combining the power of Scene Kit and Sprite Kit (Apple's 2D graphics engine), we can play a video on a flat surface in ARKit.

News: AT&T Reveals Winners of First Magic Leap Hackathon

Now that its first developer conference is in the rearview mirror, Magic Leap continues to nurture its content development community, this time with an assist from strategic investor and retail partner AT&T.

News: Microsoft to Host Women in AI & Mixed Reality Hackathon in San Francisco

Over the last few years, the virtual reality space has earned a welcome reputation for fostering better representational balance with regard to gender compared to the general tech industry, with women like Nonny de la Peña and many others leading the charge.

News: Apple's Updated Clips App Lets You Put Yourself Inside the World of The Incredibles 2

One of Apple's most touted (but seldom seen on social media) apps, Clips, got an update on Wednesday.

News: Children's Book Classic Peter Rabbit & Other Tales Come to AR via iOS App

The landscape for mobile augmented reality apps is still mostly filled with utility and gaming apps, but a new entrant into the space is looking to pull children into the mix.

News: ABC News Elects to Add AR to Midterm Election Coverage

Election Day is like the Super Bowl for network and cable TV news, so ABC News is breaking out the big guns with a new augmented reality experience to win over eyeballs of viewers.

News: Niantic's Ingress Roots Get a Reboot with the Real World Platform

Ingress, the godfather of location based-AR games developed by Pokémon GO creator Niantic Labs, is getting a new lease on life via Ingress Prime, a reboot of the game built on the Niantic Real World Platform.

Market Reality: Apple's Acquisition of Leap Motion Fails, While Snapchat & Magic Leap Make AR Fashionable

This week, inside sources divulged details of how Apple nearly acquired Leap Motion, twice. Otherwise, companies offering or working on augmented reality technology had more successes than failures to talk about.

News: Niantic Demos Real World Platform & Spatial Audio Features for Pokémon GO & Ingress at Tokyo Conference

In the waning days of October, at the Innovation Tokyo 2018 conference, attendees got their hands on some of the new augmented reality experiences that Niantic is working on through its Real World Platform.

News: Walmart Turns Its iPhone App's Barcode Scanner into an Augmented Reality Price Comparison Tool

While many retailers have introduced try-before-you-buy features in their apps, Walmart has gone in another direction by bringing shoppers an augmented reality tool to help them compare products they want to buy.

News: Magic Leap Conference Videos Dive Deeper into Medical, Audio, & AR Cloud Uses for Magic Leap One

It turns out that attending the L.E.A.P. conference last month may have mostly been best for demoing the Magic Leap One in person, as the company has now uploaded the majority of the insider panels held at the event in Los Angeles.

News: Noovie ARCade App Brings Wreck-It Ralph Movie Experience to Augmented Reality for Fans

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.

News: Investors Back Another AR Display Maker as LetinAR Closes $3.6 Million in Funding

Smartglasses and AR headset makers like Microsoft, Magic Leap, and Google (and aspiring AR wearables makers like Apple and Snapchat) need display components for their products, and LetinAR is among the companies ready to supply those components.

News: Leap Motion Nearly Jumped on Board Apple's AR Train Twice, Report Says

In recent years, Apple has assembled its augmented reality team and supply chain through a series of acquisitions, high-profile hires, and strategic investments, but at least one potentially major deal was recently ditched.

News: Magic Leap Releases Series of Video Sessions from Inside the L.E.A.P. Conference

Magic Leap's recent L.E.A.P. conference was free to all who registered in time, but if you weren't able to make the trip to Hollywood, the company just released video of some of the sessions that took place over the course of two days.

News: Levi's Now Selling Exclusive Disney Denim Through Shoppable AR Lens on Snapchat

Snapchat continues to deepen its roster of clients adopting its Shoppable AR Lens, with clothing giant Levi's and Disney becoming the latest brands to try on the e-commerce platform for size.

News: Travelocity Transports Roaming Gnome into Augmented Reality with Its Mobile App

In the latest example of non-tech companies taking on augmented reality marketing, online travel site Travelocity has added an AR version of its Roaming Gnome mascot to its mobile app.

News: New York Times Halloween Edition Uses Augmented Reality Bugs to Scare & Educate

Our national month-long celebration of all things creepy and crawly comes to a climax on Wednesday with Halloween and will end with Día de Muertos on Friday, so now is the ideal time for the The New York Times to publish a mildly chilling augmented reality story for children.

News: Snapchat AR Lenses Jump from Mobile to Desktop with Snap Camera App

For the entirety of its existence, Snapchat has lived on mobile, but in its quest to lead the augmented reality industry, the company is now bringing those mobile AR experiences to desktops.

Market Reality: Lyft Acquires Blue Vision, Google & Samsung Invest in AR, & Epic Games Scores Massive Funding Round

With would-be unicorns Magic Leap and Niantic among its investments, Google is an active investor in augmented reality technology. This week, the search giant experienced both ends of the investment cycle, with an exit via Lyft's acquisition of Blue Vision Labs, and a funding round for Resolution Games.