Next Reality Features
News: Play Games & Share Live Experiences in Virtual Worlds with AltspaceVR
People fear virtual reality will isolate us, but the right experience can prove it does the opposite.
NR50: Next Reality's 50 People to Watch: Tony Parisi
Tony Parisi, the global head of VR/AR at Unity Technologies, has been passionately working with virtual and immersive spaces for a long time. And while the internet world we live in now is very different than when Parisi was co-authoring VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) — an early attempt at creating 3D environments that would work in a web browser — some of the questions that were assumed answered are being asked again.
Brief Reality: Augmented Reality Companies Earn Accolades for Innovation
A pair of organizations recognized companies working in augmented reality for their innovative technologies over the past week. Meanwhile, another company used augmented reality for a sector that is overdue for a technology makeover, while another company has developed new camera modules that could usher in the next evolution of mobile AR.
News: Apple's Phil Schiller Hints at Future Smartglasses by Framing Augmented Reality as Sci-Fi
Whenever you attend or remotely watch a major Apple event, you're likely to see Phil Schiller, the company's senior vice president of worldwide marketing, unveiling a brand new product on stage. Outside of an official event, Schiller is the second most likely person (after Apple's CEO Tim Cook) you'll find delivering a rare tidbit of new Apple info or perspective to the public.
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: Magic Leap Virtual Meetings App, More Apple AR Headset Rumors, & Lenovo Unveils Enterprise Smartglasses
When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. At Magic Leap, the lemons are the COVID-19 pandemic, and the lemonade is a new solution for virtual meetings born out of social distancing.
News: Snapchat Debuts Rumored Glasses with No Augmented Reality Features
Snapchat accidentally—and then intentionally—announced their digital eyeglasses, known as Spectacles, over the weekend. While we'd hoped their augmented reality-heavy platform would result in related hardware, Spectacles unfortunately seek to "reinvent" little more than a video camera.
News: Windows Holographic Is Coming to Intel's Project Alloy Cord-Cutting Headset
Most popular virtual reality headsets, like the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, require a tethered connection to the computer and that imposes some obvious restrictions on how much we can move in our space. We'd all prefer a simpler, untethered option, and Intel wants to provide just that.
News: HoloIsland Turns Any Room into a Tropical, Mixed Reality Island
Wish your dull room was a little more refreshing? Through the power of mixed reality and the Microsoft HoloLens, one app can transform your space into a relaxing tropical island.
News: Popular App Shazam Trying to Cash in on the Trendiness of AR with Hiring of New CTO
While it remains unknown how exactly augmented reality will make its way into the mainstream (the Microsoft HoloLens sitting at $3,000 isn't exactly accessible), many brands have been trying to integrate the tech into their mobile apps, mimicking the success of Snapchat and its popular AR filters. One of those brands going all in on augmented reality is Shazam.
Market Reality: Magic Leap Founder Launches New Company, Snap Acquires AI Tech, & Facebook Offers Spark AR Classes
Just as the augmented reality industry grows, so too does the segment dedicated to creating experiences for the tools becoming available.
News: Snap Rolling Out New Spectacles with AR Features by End of Year, Report Says
The augmented reality smartglasses future that Snap founder Evan Spiegel has teased for so long may be closer than many realize.
News: Facebook's Oculus Quest Turned into Augmented Reality Guitar Hero Experience via This Developer App
The augmented reality passthrough abilities of Facebook's Oculus Quest were only fully opened to independent developers recently.
Dev Report: Find & Use 3D Objects Faster with Google's Poly API & the Unity Editor
With Google's release of Poly API on Thursday, the search giant has found a way to simplify the workflow for AR creators by enabling the ability to integrate its 3D object search engine Poly directly into an application.
News: This AR Experiment Adds a Life Clock to Anyone with a Face
Do you know when you're going to die? Your iPhone or iPad does. That's the premise behind Death Mask, an experimental app developed by Or Fleisher and Anastasis Germanidis.
News: AltspaceVR's Democracy Plaza Puts You in the Middle of the 2016 Election
Most of us don't get the opportunity to see election coverage first hand, but with virtual reality, we're not as restricted. AltspaceVR has teamed up with NBC News to let you log in on your computer or VR headset and actually take part in the action—just not physically.
News: Magic Leap Drops Video Teaser for Game of Thrones Experience
There are only three more episodes of Game of Thrones left before the saga is over, but Magic Leap is capitalizing on the series' popularity while it still can.
Apple AR: ARKit Update for Pokémon Go Makes Monsters Bigger & Smarter
If you ever thought the Snorlax in Pokémon Go should be taller, and you have an iPhone compatible with ARKit, get ready to look up.
Market Reality: Future of AR Series: 5G, AR Cloud, Blockchain, & Apple Glasses, Plus Marvel & HBO Franchise Hits Go AR
Over the past two years, the tech industry has formed a series of symbiotic relationships that are now converging in the augmented reality space. This week, we took a look at these interrelated technologies and how they are shaping the future of AR.
News: Defeat the Dreaded 'Sharknado' in the Franchise's New Mobile AR Game
The Sharknado franchise is, somehow, releasing a fifth movie "Sharknado 5: Global Swarming" (groan) next month. In anticipation of the film's release, the company has decided to create an augmented reality mobile game called, prepare yourself, "Sharknado: ShARkmented Reality".
News: First Truly Mainstream, Hit Augmented Reality App May Arrive Through Advertising, Says Unity CEO
Despite the launch of ARKit a year ago, and ARCore this year, a true killer app has not arrived for either platform, that's according to the head honcho for one of the leading development environments for 3D applications.
Market Reality: Apple Sets Stage for AR Smartglasses, Spatial Adds Funding, & Pinterest Enters AR Makeup Game
We may or may not see Apple's long-awaited take on AR smartglasses this year, but the company is more than getting its practice swings in with its current wearables business, which hit record revenue in 2019 according to financial results released this week.
Apple AR: This App Totally Lets See Your Weed Right in Front of You, Man
If there's one augmented reality app idea that should have gone up in smoke, it's probably Tokédex, an app that brings cannabis to the world of AR.
Apple AR: Kaon Interactive Ports Their Marketing Apps from Tango to ARKit
Apple has billed ARKit as a means to turn millions of iPhones and iPads into augmented reality devices. The refrain is similar for Kaon Interactive, a developer of product catalog apps for businesses.
News: DAQRI Focused on Growth as It Promotes Former Qualcomm Exec to CEO
Augmented reality headset maker DAQRI today named chief product officer Roy Ashok as the company's new chief executive officer to accelerate the company's growth.
Apple AR: Creepy Effects Make Surfaces Bubble & Boil
This man's effect using Apple ARKit is both really cool and really freaky. In his tweet, John van der Zwaag said that this "alters reality" rather than just adding to it.
News: Shopping for a New Couch? Amazon Wants You to See It in Your Home (While You're Still in the Store)
Amazon has been toying with the idea of opening physical retail stores for some time now, even opening old-fashioned bookstores in select locations and teasing cashier-less convenience stores. But the online retailer has some new ideas in the works, including implementing virtual and augmented reality into retail home stores.
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.
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.
News: Seek's CEO Reveals How Its New AR Patent Could Change the Entire 3D Space & Looks into the Future of Smartglasses
Among the various components of the emerging augmented reality space, the most lucrative is the advertising market. The prospect of turning every object, every location, ever signpost in the real world into a discount code or virtual transaction interface is why AR will ultimately be more profitable than VR.
News: The Perceptoscope Brings Mixed Reality to Any Location
With most augmented and mixed reality devices, you wear a purchased headset and use it alone, in a place of your choice—but not this one. Ben Sax decided to reinvent the binoculars to create a mixed reality experience that anyone can walk up to and try for free. He calls it the Perceptoscope.
News: Resolution Games Scores $7.5M in Funding Round Backed by Google, Unity Founder, & Others
Fresh off shipping an augmented reality game for Magic Leap, Resolution Games has farmed another $7.5 million in funding through a Series B round.
News: Apple Working on Rear-Facing AR Sensor for 2019 iPhone, Report Says
Apple CEO Tim Cook told us that augmented reality would change everything, and now we have a better idea of exactly what he meant.
News: John Hanke, CEO of Pokémon GO Maker, Says AR, Not VR, Should Be the Way of the Future
It isn't too hard to see John Hanke's bias towards augmented reality. His company, Niantic, created the astronomically profitable game Pokémon GO, which revolves around AR technology. However, Hanke has a case against virtual reality—he believes it just won't be healthy, in more than one sense of the word.
Market Reality: Magic Leap Draws Comics, Warby Parker Tries AR, Facebook Acquires GrokStyle, & LeBron Dunks via Snapchat
This week, the recurring theme in augmented reality can be summed up fairly succinctly: content is king.
News: CNN Brings Its News Networks to Magic Leap One
News junkies who own the Magic Leap One received some good news on Thursday, as CNN has published an app for the headset to display the network's news coverage in augmented reality.
News: What Augmented Reality Needs to Come of Age
Augmented reality (AR) holds much promise for how we'll interact with technology in the future, but we still have many hurdles to clear before that dream fully comes to fruition.
NR50: Welcome to Next Reality's 50 People to Watch in Augmented & Mixed Reality
Those of us that work with or around augmented and mixed reality have seen a powerful shift in the last year as the popularity and interest have grown in the field. With Microsoft's HoloLens release, the popularity of Pokémon GO, and the constant rumor mill known as Magic Leap, the terms augmented reality and mixed reality have started to become a part of the modern vernacular more and more each passing day.
News: Snapchat Is Quietly Developing Augmented Reality Glasses
In the wake of Google Glass' failure, we can expect other companies to fill the void in due time. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Snapchat may be one of the first.
News: 'Create Magic in Seconds' with Lightform's New Computer Made to Project Augmented Reality
Lightform might just be the thing to have at your next party. The San Francisco-based company just created the first computer ever able to connect to a projector and instantly scan 3D scenes to mix reality with projected light.