Market Reality: Olympics AR Content on Instagram & Google, Facebook's Metaverse, & Snapchat's Magic Karaoke
Over the past week, practically every major tech company working on augmented reality has held their quarterly earnings calls with investors, and each addressed or at least mentioned the role of AR during their prepared remarks. However, Facebook's earnings call had some of the spicier commentary on the technology.
News: New York Times Revives Its AR Storytelling on Instagram with Tokyo Olympics Experiences
Old school media stalwart The New York Times launched its augmented reality news content in 2018 with a feature on the athletes of the Winter Olympics.
AR Snapshots: Snapchat's Latest Augmented Reality Lens Turns Celebrities into Lip-Syncing Pop Stars
The Lens Studio community, now made up of more than 200,000 creators, has generated some impressive augmented reality effects in the last few years. Amazingly, the groundbreaking Lenses for Snapchat continue to come, often from the internal AR team at Snap.
News: Google Adds More Olympic Athletes to Its Roster of Augmented Reality Search Content
After facing delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Olympic Games are underway in Tokyo, but a surge in cases worldwide has taken the spectator out of these spectator sports.
Market Reality: Snap & Epic Games Acquisitions, Nreal v. Epic Games, AR on Oculus Quest, & HoloLens at the Olympics
It's already been a banner year for mergers and acquisitions in the augmented reality industry, with WaveOptics and Ubiquity6 among the notable companies acquired. Two of the more active M&A players, Snap and Epic Games, continued their respective buying sprees this week with major deals supporting their AR strategies.
News: This Is How Japanese Wireless Giant Docomo Is Using the HoloLens 2 to Add AR to the Olympics
On Friday, the Tokyo Olympics finally kicked off after massive delays and complications due to the pandemic.
News: BMW Releases Art Car Series of Famed Artists, Including Jeff Koons and Andy Warhol, in Augmented Reality
One app is continuing to make a name for itself as the go-to platform for celebrity art that transcends canvas and paint and moves in augmented reality.
News: Snap Adds Upper Garment Segmentation, Multiple Object Detection, & More with Lens Studio 4.1
After adding full-body tracking and 3D body mesh in its past two Lens Studio updates, Snap continues to supply creators, particularly apparel retailers, with tools for creating clothing-centric AR experiences.
News: Facebook's Smartglasses Are the New AR Hype, but It's Becoming Clearer That a Metaverse Platform War Is Coming
Facebook's earnings calls are generally focused on numbers—revenue and user growth. But this week the company's founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, carved out a significant portion of the call to elaborate on Facebook's plans for immersive computing.
News: Facebook Finally Opens Oculus Quest Passthrough Feature to Developers, Making the VR Device an AR Playground
Facebook Reality Labs chief Andrew "Boz" Bosworth does a lot of hinting and teasing of what's coming next at Oculus, often with only a vague timeline on the horizon.
News: Epic Games Builds on Metaverse Foundation with Sketchfab Acquisition
Already among the leaders in AR development tools via its Unreal Engine, Epic Games has added another tanky weapon to its arsenal.
News: Nreal Fires Back Legal Countersuit at Epic Games Over Naming Dispute
The legal battle between Epic Games and augmented reality startup Nreal isn't cooling off anytime soon.
News: Snap Continues AR Buying Spree with Vertebrae Acquisition
Snapchat parent company Snap has opened up its war chest to acquire yet another company that will play a role in its augmented reality ecosystem.
News: Snap Spectacles Used to Turn Spoken Word Poetry into an Augmented Reality Experience
From the front lines of mainstreaming augmented reality smartglasses comes the latest update from Snap and its Spectacles wearable.
News: USA Today Showcases New Summer Olympics Sports with Augmented Reality
After a postponement of the Summer Olympics for a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Tokyo is set to host the games this summer, despite a surge in cases in the city.
Market Reality: Facebook AR & Space Jam, Virgin Galactic AR App, Asics NFTs, & Shark Week on Snapchat
A pair of properties from the soon-to-merge Warner Media and Discovery companies chose different platforms for their augmented reality marketing, with Warner film Space Jam: A New Legacy opting to go with Facebook and Discovery Channel publishing an AR experience through Snapchat.
News: Google Extends Support for Google Meet to Google Glass Enterprise Edition 2
Due to the apparent lackluster adoption of its Explorer Edition, it can be easy to forget that Google Glass still exists as an enterprise product.
News: This Is How You Can Join LeBron James & Warner Bros. Space Jam Cartoon Characters in Augmented Reality
The remake of the Warner Bros. classic animation meets live-action movie Space Jam, this time starring LeBron James instead of Michael Jordan, hits theaters today.
AR Snapshots: Dive into Shark Week with These Snapchat AR Lenses
Shark Week, which debuted in 1988 as a week of programming on the Discovery Channel dedicated to the titular predatory fish, has grown into a cultural beast of its own.
News: DigiLens Looks to Plastic Waveguides as Alternative to Glass for AR Smartglasses Displays
When it comes to the future of AR smartglasses, DigiLens has one word for you. Just one word. Are you listening? Plastics.
News: Asics Brings Its Sneaker Magic to the 3D World via NFT Auction
Some tried to call it a brief cryptocurrency-fueled fad, but it looks like NFTs are here to stay. Now, one of the biggest sneaker companies on the planet, Japan's Asics, is getting into the game with its own set of NFTs, and there's a virtual object component included.
News: Create Your Own Holograms at Home with the Volu iPhone App
With the release of Object Capture this fall, Apple is giving everyone with a Mac and a camera the means to create their own 3D objects.
News: Rokid's New Smartglasses Mirror Content from Smartphones, Desktops, & Consoles to Virtual Screens
After receiving $100 million in funding in 2018, smartglasses maker Rokid is going the crowdfunding route to finance its latest product.
News: Camera IQ Gives Cosmetics Brands the Power to Push Virtual Try-on Effects to Snapchat, Facebook, & Instagram
Cosmetics brands have a long love affair with augmented reality, embracing virtual try-on effects as a means to help sell eyeliner, hair color, lipstick, and the like.
News: Virgin Galactic App Uses Augmented Reality to Let You Sample Space Tourism with Richard Branson
Billionaire Richard Branson did his part to advance space tourism this weekend by beating Elon Musk (SpaceX) and Jeff Bezos (Blue Origin) to become the first among them to travel into space.
Market Reality: Facebook & Harry Potter AR, MLB AR App, Doritos AR Ads, NFT Holographic Future, & Google Meet AR Filters
Brands are increasingly adopting augmented reality to promote their products and services, and they have multiple paths for bringing AR experience to their audiences.
News: How to Watch Japan's Viral 3D Cat Live, and How It All Started in China & South Korea
The most viral internet cat of the moment is a virtual kitty trapped in a billboard in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo, Japan.
News: MLB Now Lets Fans Experience Home Run Derby in Augmented Reality via New App
The 2021 season of Major League Baseball (MLB) is in full swing, and now that vaccines are widespread in the US, major baseball stadiums are allowing fans back in at full capacity.
News: Google Launches Augmented Reality Filters on Meet App for Mobile
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Google has packed new functionality into Google Meet to compete with Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and other video conferencing platforms.
News: Beeple's NFT Startup Wenew Could Pave Way for Holographic Displays as Archival Asset
Digital artist Beeple's $69 million NFT art auction at Christie's has a second act called Wenew, and includes attempting to open the digital art floodgates to mainstream collectors and artists alike by using physical goods.
News: Facebook Puts a Spell on Portal Devices & Mobile Apps with Harry Potter AR Experience
Augmented reality technology is often likened to magic powers, so it is fitting that a new AR experience featuring the Harry Potter franchise uses the newest AR tricks from Facebook and its Spark AR platform.
How To: View Art from Your Chromecast in Augmented Reality
The Chromecast TV streaming lineup from Google is one of the more popular products in the category, primarily due to its low price tag and broad app support.
Market Reality: Ubiquity6 Acquired, JigSpace Funded, Snapchat in the Viber App, & US Army HoloLens Testing
The close of the second quarter of 2021 brought about a flurry of merger and acquisition and financing activity in the augmented reality industry, headlined by the acquisition of Ubiquity6 and JigSpace's new multimillion-dollar funding round.
News: PepsiCo's Doritos Used to Push for Return to Live Concerts with Augmented Reality Experience
With fears over the COVID-19 pandemic subsiding, live concerts are returning. And Doritos wants to send music fans to a few of them via an augmented reality promotion.
News: New US Army Military-Grade HoloLens 2 Imagery Gives Us Star Wars Stormtrooper Vibes
It's all fun and games until the technology is actually put into use and you realize augmented reality is now part of Death Star.
AR Snapshots: Fire Off These Snapchat AR Lenses Instead of Fireworks for the Fourth of July
The Fourth of July, the celebration of US independence, as well as the second paid holiday of the summer, has arrived.
News: JigSpace Puts Together $4.7 Million in Funding to Expand AR Tutorial Technology
The startup JigSpace, which was among the first apps to support ARKit and LiDAR for iPhone augmented reality apps, has capitalized on its early mover status by innovating within the space.
News: Snapchat Extends Its AR Lenses to Viber Messaging App
Yo dawg, Snap heard you using Snapchat augmented reality Lenses in your messages, so it's putting its AR Lenses in other messaging apps.
Opinion: Cash App & Megan Thee Stallion — Making Smartglasses Cool Again Starts Here, with the Culture
No, Jack Dorsey's Cash app isn't about to launch an augmented reality device (er, I don't think...), but its latest outing is about as close as we've come to full confirmation that the wearable AR age is upon us.
News: AR Cloud Startup Ubiquity6 Gobbled Up by Discord
The herd of augmented reality cloud startups that emerged in 2018 have been hunted to near extinction, with Google-backed Ubiquity6 the latest to move from an independent entity to a wholly-owned asset.
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