Next Reality News

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.

News: Unreal Engine Maker Epic Games Lands $1.25 Billion Investment to Drive Future of Gaming & AR

While these days it is better known for the cross-platform gaming sensation Fortnite, Epic Games also makes Unreal Engine, one of the top development environments for 3D content and, in turn, augmented reality and virtual reality experiences.

News: Pokémon GO's New Ability to Track Steps in Background Is First Step Forward for Niantic's AR Cloud Platform

Niantic's most successful app, Pokémon GO, has become the first app to integrate the company's Real World Platform, the developer's AR cloud technology that enables multiplayer AR, persistent content, and occlusion with physical objects.

News: Moschino & H&M Harness the Power of Magic Leap One to Intro Augmented Reality to the Fashion World

Magic Leap has already entered the realm of entertainment and enterprise, but on now it has blazed its way into a new augmented reality frontier: fashion.

News: Magic Leap Updates Create App, Reveals Behind the Scenes Development at Magic Leap Studios

Among all the new Magic Leap app announcements made at the recent L.E.A.P. conference, an update to one of the company's major in-house apps went mostly unnoticed: Create 1.1.

News: 'Hyper Reality' Visionary Keiichi Matsuda Parts Ways with Leap Motion

After a little more than a year at motion tracking technology maker Leap Motion, Keiichi Matsuda has resigned his position as vice president of design and global creative director, the company announced on Wednesday.

News: Former Googlers Raise $8 Million Funding to Reinvent Remote Collaboration Through Magic Leap & HoloLens

Last week, Twilio showed off how avatar-based chat communications will work on the Magic Leap One, and now a new startup has unveiled yet another way that augmented reality telepresence and remote collaboration can take place on the device.

News: Lyft's Pick Up of AR Cloud Startup Blue Vision Labs Could Bring AR Features to Ride-Sharing

On Tuesday, Blue Vision Labs, one of three Google-backed companies working on AR Cloud platforms, announced its acquisition by ride-sharing company Lyft.

News: The First Smartglasses with True Mainstream Appeal Arrive via North's Focals

The dream of Google Glass lives on via North's stylish and normal-looking smartglasses that bring text messages and navigation prompts into the user's field of view and Amazon Alexa integration for voice-activated assistance.

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: ESPN, Fox Sports, & NBA's Clippers & Mavericks Draw Up Augmented Reality Plays to Win Over Fans

Augmented reality is becoming a slam dunk for sports entertainment, as leagues, their teams, and their broadcast partners have been quick to adopt AR.

News: Ghostbusters World AR Game Arrives as Halloween Treat & We Dive into Its Location-Based Tricks

Because timing is everything, the latest entry in the location-based augmented reality gaming sweepstakes, Ghostbusters World, has arrived just in time for Halloween.

News: Inside Magic Leap's Cinematic Partnership with Andy Serkis & The Imaginarium's Experimental Motion Capture Experience

By now, you've probably already seen Andy Serkis and his performance capture demo for Magic Leap. And sure, marrying motion capture acting and augmented reality sounds compelling, but how does it really work as an experience?

Market Reality: Magic Leap, Twilio, Jaunt, & Adidas Reveal the Future of AR Content & Communication

A week after the L.E.A.P. Conference, our cup of Magic Leap news continues to floweth over, with the company's content chief giving us some insight into the company's strategy, and Twilio sharing what its virtual chat app looks like.

News: AR Cloud Startup 6D.Ai Video Gives a Peek at Next-Level Mobile AR from Devs Using Company's SDK

A sizzle reel just released by augmented reality cloud company 6D.ai shows off what kind of hyper-realistic AR experiences developers can build with its SDK.

News: The Weather Channel Takes Broadcast AR to Next Level with Wildfires Report

The last time The Weather Channel showed off its broadcast augmented reality, the internet couldn't stop talking about how immersive the presentation looked, despite being shown on a 2D display.

News: Twilio & Magic Leap Deliver First Live Demo of Avatar Chat Communications App

On Thursday, yet another piece of the Magic Leap puzzle fell into place at Twilio's Signal developer and customer conference in San Francisco.

News: Snapchat Lens Studio Adds New Segmentation Templates to Its Bag of Augmented Reality Tricks

On Thursday, Snap released three new templates for its Lens Studio that will give creators access to augmented reality capabilities previously only available to Snap's own design team.

News: Wingnut AR's Pest Control Is Unreleased, Mostly Unseen, but Undeniably One of Magic Leap One's Best Titles

Despite the relatively small size of Magic Leap's first annual L.E.A.P. conference, there was a lot to see and experience. Apparently missed by many was one of the best experiences I had at the event: Wingnut AR's unreleased Pest Control game.

News: HoloLens Update Brings Display Mirroring & Quick Actions Menu for Routine Tasks

Microsoft has informed HoloLens users that the company will begin rolling out a mandatory update for HoloLens as part of its Windows 10 October 2018 release that brings a number of new features and quality-of-life improvements to the headset.

Hands-On: Hands-On with Magic Leap & Weta Workshop's Dr. Grordbort's Invaders

Over the last few years, the only thing teased by Magic Leap more than the Magic Leap One itself has been the company's flagship gaming title Dr. Grordbort's Invaders. The game, developed by New Zealand studio Weta Workshop, finally got its debut last week during the L.E.A.P. conference in Los Angeles.

News: MagiMask Is Probably Not the AR Headset You're Looking for, but Offers a Cute Trick for Mobile AR

So far, consumer augmented reality headsets haven't found mainstream success. That's primarily because no manufacturer has managed to hit the sweet spot between slim form factor, performance, and affordability.

News: Jaunt Hit with Layoffs as Startup Abandons VR Business to Focus on Augmented Reality

After building its business on virtual reality, Jaunt is leaving the technology behind to focus on building tools for creating augmented reality content.

News: The Sims Freeplay Adds Multiplayer Augmented Reality Mode via ARKit 2.0

Electronic Arts is inviting players of The Sims Freeplay and their friends to visit the homes of their Sims in augmented reality with a new AR mode that supports multiplayer and persistent content using ARKit 2.0.

News: Magic Leap's Chief Content Officer Rio Caraeff Opens Up on Walled Gardens, Data Privacy, & Blockchain

Over the years, Magic Leap's long-cultivated shroud of mystery led some onlookers to buy into the company's dream before even trying the device, while for others, the secrecy seems to have stoked the kind of resentment and overcorrecting critique usually reserved for the mighty Apple.

News: Owlchemy Labs ARCore Experiment Lets Android Users View a Friend's VR Experience from Their Smartphone

Google subsidiary Owlchemy Labs has cooked up an experimental ARCore mobile app that enables smartphone users to follow along with their VR friends as they play games in a head-mounted display.

News: Adobe Recruits Adidas to Create AR Retail Store Experience via Project Aero

At its annual MAX event kicking off on Monday in Los Angeles, Adobe gave the audience a new preview of its forthcoming Project Aero augmented reality authoring tool during the keynote presentation.

Market Reality: L'Oreal's Rochet Leads NR30's AR Influencers & Magic Leap Demonstrates Its Own Influence at L.E.A.P. Con

This week, Next Reality released the fifth and final set of profiles on the NR30 leaders in augmented reality, with this chapter focusing on the influencers in the industry.

News: Visualix AR Cloud Platform Looks to Give Enterprises the Ability to Virtually Map Their Facilities

A new augmented reality cloud platform from German startup Visualix is working to give enterprises the capability to scan their own warehouses, factories, and stores and create maps for augmented reality navigation.

News: Snapchat Becomes SnapCAT with AR Lenses for Your Feline Friends

Have you ever browsed through Lenses on Snapchat and got bummed out when the app recommends that you "try this with a friend" and you're all alone? Well, now you can take AR snaps with your cat!

News: Niantic Levels the Pokémon GO Playing Field Between iPhone & Android with ARCore Support

Players of Pokémon GO on Android now have a reason to turn on AR mode with the release of AR+ support via ARCore.

News: Apple Continues Assembling AR Arsenal with Acquisition of Spektral's Background Removal Tech, Report Says

Adding another arrow to its quiver of augmented reality acquisitions, Apple has reportedly acquired Spektral, a computer vision company with technology for real-time compositing (otherwise know as the "green screen" technique in broadcast TV and film).

News: I Met Magic Leap's AI Assistant Mica & Saw the Future of Augmented Reality

Unlike VR, when you're talking about augmented reality, describing what an experience is like can be incredibly difficult — primarily because the experiences are even more contextual than relatively static virtual worlds that don't involve real-world settings.

News: Niantic Plugs Its Real World Platform into Deutsche Telekom's 5G Network & MobiledgeX Servers

When Pokémon GO developer Niantic launches its Real World Platform for augmented reality gaming, it will run over 5G speeds courtesy of T-Mobile parent company Deutsche Telekom and the edge servers of its MobiledgeX subsidiary, the companies announced today.

News: Snapchat Originals Blend Augmented Reality Scenes into Scripted Shows & Documentary Series

Snapchat is joining the ranks of Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, YouTube, and Apple in the trend toward streaming original programming, but with a twist that rings true to its roots.