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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: Oculus Is Collecting a Scary Amount of Data for Facebook

The highly anticipated VR headset hasn't been on the market long, but there's an issue that has some consumers, and even government officials, concerned about the Oculus Rift. You probably guessed the issue surrounds privacy and the extensive, not-so-secret way that it's collecting your personal data. The privacy concerns came about as various customers and media outlets took notice of the rather lengthy Terms and Services that pop up once you strap yourself into the Rift headset.

News: Now You Can Even Try on Nail Polish in AR Before You Buy via This App for iOS & Android

Augmented Reality beauty tools have become quite popular lately, and while CoverGirl's didn't exactly turn heads, the new Wanna Nails app by Wannaby looks like a great tool for anyone who uses nail polish.

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.

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: 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.

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: 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.

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: The Future of the AR Cloud — a Thousand Walled Gardens Bloom

By far the most significant development for AR in the coming months and years — the development that will drive AR adoption — will be our reliance upon the AR cloud.

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: We May Finally Know How Many HoloLens Devices Microsoft Sold, & It's a Revealing Peek at the Future of AR

Last week, we told you about Microsoft's Alex Kipman and his nomination for the annual European Inventor Award, presented by the European Patent Office (EPO). And while that's big news in and of itself, it turns out we overlooked a very important detail buried in the EPO's video presentation. What was it? Only one of the most sought-after data points related to the HoloLens since its launch: how many have been sold.

News: The 10 Biggest AR Investments of 2020

The economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have been felt in practically every business sector. Now, as we look back at the top augmented reality investments of 2020, the AR industry has been no exception.

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: 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: 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: 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: Facebook Messenger Blasts Out Trio of Star Wars AR Effects for 'Rise of Skywalker'

While "Baby Yoda" from The Mandalorian threatens to overshadow it, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker arrives in theaters next week, which means it's time for Disney and Lucasfilm to ramp up its promotional strategy.

NR30: Next Reality's 30 People to Watch in Augmented Reality for 2020

The year 2020 was a pivotal span of time during which the word "virtual" took on a brand new meaning. Instead of referring to VR or augmented reality, the term was hijacked to describe meeting across long distances through a variety of software tools, most often through video.

HoloLens Dev 101 : How to Build a Basic HoloLens App in Minutes

Now that we've got all of our software installed, we're going to proceed with the next step in our HoloLens Dev 101 series—starting a fresh project and building it into a Holographic application. Then we will output the application to the HoloLens Emulator so we can see it in action.

News: Computer Vision Startup Dent Reality Offers SDK to Create AR Navigation Apps for Malls & Airports

London-based developer Andrew Hart has been working on AR navigation since Apple's original ARKit tool was still in beta preview. Now, he's ready to unleash his technology on the world.

News: How to Get a Pair of Snap's New Spectacles AR Smartglasses

The tech world was taken by surprise this week with the unexpected unveiling of Snap's augmented reality Spectacles smartglasses.

ARKit 101: How to Place 2D Images, Like a Painting or Photo, on a Wall in Augmented Reality

In a previous tutorial, we were able to measure vertical surfaces such as walls, books, and monitors using ARKit 1.5. With the advent of vertical plane anchors, we can now also attach objects onto these vertical walls.

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.

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.

How To: Fake Your GPS Location & Movement to Cheat at Pokémon GO on Android

A strange thing is happening: there are people, groups of people even, walking the streets day and night staring wide-eyed at their mobile phones and laughing like manic children. What are these people doing? Are they taking pictures? Are they participating in some new social media craze? Is their activity an omen that the zombie apocalypse is upon us?

AR Snapshots: Anime Makeovers, Mandalorian Helmets, Twerking Muppets & More on Snapchat

In the three years since Snapchat launched Lens Studio, developers and artists have created more than 1.5 million AR camera effects with the desktop tool.

News: The Best Marvel Movie Scenes Featuring Augmented Reality Concepts That We Might Use in the Near Future

Over the past decade, Marvel Studios has been a dominant force at the box office, raking in more than $21 billion dollars. Averaged out over that span of time, the yearly earnings of those movies outweigh the gross domestic product of some countries.

News: Airbus Previews Military Sandbox App for HoloLens

As Microsoft works toward fulfilling its $480 million contract to supply modified HoloLens 2 headsets to the US Army, Airbus is preparing to supply advanced augmented reality apps for the device.

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.

How To: Add Full Body Motion Tracking to the HoloLens with a Kinect

Thanks to Project-Infrared, there's now a pretty straightforward way to add motion tracking to the HoloLens: Connect it to a Kinect.

HoloLens Dev 102: How to Make Physical Objects Come to Life on HoloLens with Vuforia

It seems to me you can't swing a dead cat near an augmented reality developer without hearing the word Vuforia escape their lips. PTC's software solution has become the go-to for most developers in the mobile AR space, and since they recently added full support for the HoloLens in Unity, I figured it was about time we learn to make something with it.

News: This Snap Spectacles Game Lets You Grow a Digital Pet in Augmented Reality

While the rest of Big Tech is still moving relatively slowly on augmented reality smartglasses, Snap continues to supercharge its own experimental AR wearable called Spectacles.

News: Spider-Man & Tony Stark's Smartglasses May Become Reality Thanks to DIY YouTuber

Sure, Tony Stark was able to build the original Iron Man suit in a cave with a box of scraps, but can the average do-it-yourselfer replicate the EDITH smartglasses from Spider-Man: Far From Home in a similar fashion?

News: Microsoft Mixed Reality Capture Demonstrates the Future of Music Videos via Volumetric Capture

Video may have killed the radio star, but will volumetric capture and augmented reality kill the video star?

News: HoloLens Can Now Simulate Childbirth to Train Medical Students

Medical training technology company CAE Healthcare has given birth to the latest example of how augmented reality can help to build practical operating room skills for doctors and nurses. The company's newest product is called LucinaAR, which harnesses the power of the Microsoft HoloLens.