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

News: Coors & KFC Court Consumers for Memorial Day Weekend via Snapchat AR

Many Americans will celebrate the start of the summer this Memorial Day weekend with backyard cookouts, and two brands hope to solidify their invites to those parties through augmented reality experiences in Snapchat.

News: Liverpool Soccer Fans Can Try on the Team's Uniform in Augmented Reality with New Balance Snapchat Lens

New Balance is helping Liverpool Football Club (FC) fans see how they look in the team's new kits with an augmented reality experience in Snapchat.

News: New DigiLens Waveguide Displays for Motorcycle Helmets Are Thinner, Lighter & Cheaper

Less than a week after securing a $25 million Series C funding round for automotive HUDs, DigiLens has introduced a new waveguide display for motorcycle helmets that's thinner, lighter, brighter, and manufactured at a lower cost.

News: Looney Tunes Antics Jump from Screen to Real World with Augmented Reality Experiment

Even in augmented reality, Wile E. Coyote still can't catch the Road Runner. The latest AR experiment from developer Abhishek Singh brings the classic Looney Tunes duo into the real world.

News: Apple Reveals New Animoji Karaoke Video Ahead of WWDC

Apple's lead marketing tool for the iPhone X, 3D Animoji that you control with your facial and head movements, are once again in the spotlight in a new commercial the company posted on its Korean YouTube account this week.

News: Disney Patent Previews More Star Wars AR Gaming

A newly-filed patent application from Disney Enterprises, Inc. teases more augmented reality lightsaber duels, either for at-home gaming or for the media behemoth's forthcoming Star Wars theme park.

Market Reality: Apple's Smartglasses Timeline Shifts, Continental Invests in Automotive HUDS, & Target Ships Web AR App

Consumers are chomping at the bit for augmented reality smartglasses from Cupertino's finest, but one market analyst is saying not so fast, Apple fans. Meanwhile, automotive AR is gaining speed, with the latest milestone coming courtesy of a major investment in waveguides by Continental. And although mobile AR apps have already arrived, retailer Target is taking a different approach. So why is Target tinkering with web-based AR? Answers below...

News: Mapbox Updates Maps SDK to Compete with Google Maps API for Location-Based Gaming

Location services company Mapbox has added new capabilities to its location-based gaming tool to fend off Google's challenge for the same mobile app category.

Market Reality: Qualcomm & DigiLens Prepare Components for AR Wearables & Retailers Get an AR Reality Check

It will likely take a few more years before smartglasses are ready for primetime as component makers achieve the innovations necessary for consumer-centric device designs. Nevertheless, two technology companies are making steps in that direction as Qualcomm is rumored to be working on a chip dedicated to AR & VR headsets, while DigiLens has reduced the size of its waveguide displays for motorcycle helmets.

News: Retailers Benefit from Augmented Reality in Operations & Online Sales Over In-Store Experiences, Research Says

Although retailers like Mac Cosmetics and Zara have been celebrated for deploying innovative in-store augmented reality experiences in their brick-and-mortar locations, a new report throws cold water on the practice.

News: Microsoft Japan Helps Godzilla Invade Real World Tokyo via HoloLens

The company behind Japan's beloved Gozilla, Japan's Toho Studios, has for years tried to give fans the sense of what a giant, nuclear-powered lizard invading Tokyo might feel like. Until now, those attempts have been limited to the movie theater, but now, with the help of the Microsoft HoloLens, Godzilla is finally getting its chance to invade the actual city, with terrified fans looking on from a safe distance.

News: Qualcomm Making Chips for Standalone AR & VR Headsets Linked to HTC, Vuzix, & Google, Reports Say

One of the leading chipmakers for smartphones is getting ready to announce a new processor made specifically for augmented and virtual reality headsets.

News: Google Partnering with Qualcomm & Quanta on AR Headset, Report Says

After the spectacular rise and fall (and rebirth) of Glass, Google is taking another run at augmented reality smartglasses.

News: Analyst Predicts Apple's AR Headset Won't Arrive Until 2021

Noted analyst Gene Munster is predicting that Apple's initial entry into the augmented reality wearables category will be a year later than previous reports have estimated.

News: Target Taps YouCam for Augmented Reality Cosmetics Web App

Department store chain Target is the latest retailer to offer an augmented reality cosmetics app for customers to virtually try on lipstick.

News: DigiLens Gets $25M Boost from Continental for Automotive Augmented Reality

Waveguide manufacturer DigiLens has closed a $25 million Series C round of funding from automotive technology company Continental, which uses the technology in its heads up displays.

News: Google Updates AR App to Help Muslims Observe Ramadan When Offline

Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting and prayer, is underway, and Google has rolled out several tools to help Muslims commemorate the event, including an augmented reality app.

News: Create & Explore Floating Orbs of Sound in AR with Fields App

When it comes to augmented reality apps, visually immersive experiences are plentiful, but audio experiences are somewhat underrepresented. A new app for iPhones and iPads seeks to shift the AR paradigm toward the latter.

ARKit 101: How to Place Grass on the Ground Using Plane Detection

Ever notice how some augmented reality apps can pin specific 3D objects on the ground? Many AR games and apps can accurately plant various 3D characters and objects on the ground in such a way that, when we look down upon them, the objects appear to be entirely pinned to the ground in the real world. If we move our smartphone around and come back to those spots, they're still there.

ARKit 101: How to Pilot Your 3D Plane to a Location Using 'hitTest' in ARKit

Hello, budding augmented reality developers! My name is Ambuj, and I'll be introducing all of you Next Reality readers to the world ARKit, as I'm developing an ARKit 101 series on using ARKit to create augmented reality apps for iPad and iPhone. My background is in software engineering, and I've been working on iOS apps for the past three years.

News: Amazon Sumerian Now Available to Anyone Who Wants to Create AR & VR Apps

Amazon Web Service's do-it-yourself tool for building augmented reality experiences and VR has graduated from beta and is now available to all interested users.

News: ANTVR Goes Modular to Shrink the Size & Expand the Field of View of Its AR Headset

China-based virtual reality headset maker ANTVR has decided to enter the augmented reality space, and to do so it's launching its headset on Kickstarter. The company claims that its new Mix AR device has a field of view that surpasses the Meta 2, the HoloLens, and others within a smaller form factor and at a fraction of the price. But there's a catch.

News: NBC's Today Show Uses Snapchat to Let You Dress for the Royal Wedding in Augmented Reality

Royal wedding fever has officially taken over the media, and that obsession with the UK's latest marriage event has now extended to Snapchat, thanks to a new Lens from the Today Show.

News: Samsung's Galaxy S9 & S9+ Finally Get ARCore Support

Google's Pixel smartphone had a decent head start as one of the first devices to offer ARCore, but that early exclusivity has been frustrating for some Android device owners. Some of that frustration was relieved when Google added more Android devices to the ARCore list in February.

News: Rick & Morty Fan Creates Snapchat Lens to Transport You into the Adult Swim Universe

It's not an official app, but for fans of Rick and Morty, it's a welcome piece of the series' universe until the recently renewed animated show returns to Adult Swim.

News: Tech Toothbrush from Samsung Incubator Graduate Uses AR to Help Kids Improve Brushing Habits

Kitten Planet, a spin-off company that grew up in Samsung's C-Lab incubator, has developed a connected toothbrush that teaches and motivates children to brush their teeth better via augmented reality while tracking their performance.

ARCore 101: How to Create a Mobile AR Application in Unity, Part 4 (Enabling Surface Detection)

One of the primary factors that separates an augmented reality device from a standard heads-up display such as Google Glass is dimensional depth perception. This can be created by either RGB cameras, infrared depth cameras, or both, depending on the level of accuracy you're aiming for.

News: Fantasmo Wants to Map the World & Its Buildings in 3D with Your Smartphone's Camera

Another AR cloud savior has emerged this week in Fantasmo, a startup that wants to turn anyone with a smartphone into a cartographer for spatial maps.

News: ABC News Seeks Audience with Royal Wedding Onlookers via AR App

If you have yet to receive your invitation to next weekend's royal wedding in the UK, then you can still experience part of the pomp and circumstance in augmented reality courtesy of ABC News.

Market Reality: AR Competition Heats Up as Microsoft, Google, & Samsung Make Money Moves

Some of the big guns developing augmented reality technology fired shots at their competitors with announcements and leaked plans this week.

News: Here's How Shared AR Experiences will work via Google's Cloud Anchors

In the arms race between ARKit and ARCore, Google scored a big win with the announcement of its Cloud Anchors shared AR experiences platform at Google I/O on Tuesday.

News: Niantic Planning to Chart AR Maps with Crowdsourcing Help from Gamers

If you are an active player of Pokémon GO, you may soon be capturing more than just virtual pocket monsters.

News: First Images Captured by Microsoft's Project Kinect for Azure Surface Online

Images captured by Microsoft's next generation Kinect depth-sensing camera that will facilitate augmented reality experiences in the next version of the HoloLens and give computer vision to untold multitudes of connected devices in enterprise facilities, have made their way into the wild.