Next Reality News
News: Occipital's Bridge Headset—The iPhone's Answer to HoloLens—Is Available Now
A new contender has entered the mixed reality ring. San Fransisco-based Occipital has just released an "Explorer Edition" of Bridge—an iPhone-based mixed and virtual reality headset that uses their popular Structure Sensor. At a fraction of the cost of a HoloLens developers kit, this could be a place many curious people use to find their NextReality.
News: How I Got Started with the HoloLens & NextReality
If you've been following NextReality, you've surely seen me around, or at least have seen my articles. My name is Jason Odom, aka Subere23, and it's about time for a formal introduction.
News: Rony Abovitz Responds—Says 2017 Is Going to Be 'An Exciting Year' for Magic Leap
In response to the flurry of doubtful headlines about Magic Leap today, set off by an unflattering article from The Information, Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz released a short blog post quickly detailing what to expect from the company over the next year. The gist comes down to this: big things are happening in 2017.
News: Ex-Magic Leapers Confirm the Demo Video We All Thought Was Faked... Was Faked
When the "Just another day in the office at Magic Leap" video was released last year, it was called a mind-blowing, stunning, and breathtaking take on mixed reality gaming. It was a great presentation of what the technology could be, but not for a second did I think it was anything other than a concept video, and I'm not the only one who thought that. This was a goal to reach for mixed reality, not the reality.
News: Vuforia AR Starter Kit Hits the Unity Asset Store for Free
In mid-November, Vuforia officially released Vuforia 6.1, which has full support for the Microsoft HoloLens. They also released their AR Starter Kit to the Unity Asset Store, which contains scenes that show you how to use Vuforia features. While I have yet to find any confirmation, I believe it is safe to assume that the AR Starter Kit will work with the HoloLens. I already had a Vuforia tutorial planned for this week, so as soon as I know for sure, I will begin working on it.
News: Microsoft Goes Long for Mixed Reality
The theme running throughout most of this year's WinHEC keynote in Shenzhen, China was mixed reality. Microsoft's Alex Kipman continues to be a great spokesperson and evangelist for the new medium, and it is apparent that Microsoft is going in deep, if not all in, on this version of the future. I, for one, as a mixed reality or bust developer, am very glad to see it.
News: ARM Snapdragon Processors Running Windows 10 Is a Good Sign for Mixed Reality
At the WinHEC Shenzen 2016 Keynote, Microsoft showed off a system running Windows 10 smoothly on an ARM processor. This could be great news for developers of mixed reality software.
Video: PokéLens—A HoloLens Concept Game with Project Downloads
Ready to finally play some Pokémon on your HoloLens? Here is your chance! KennyWdev has released a video showing off his newest build of PokéLens, a Pokémon clone for the HoloLens similar to Pokémon GO. In the video, you get to see two Pokémon battle it out on what appears to be an office floor. Apparently, Pikachu is "super effective." This coincidentally appeared online the same day that another developer, Sky Zhou, showed off his Smash Brothers-style Pokémon game.
News: First App of Its Kind Streams Your HoloLens Screen to iOS
Kazendi, a London-based HoloLens development and rapid prototyping studio, just released a new iOS app in Apple's App Store that lets developers stream HoloLens applications live from the headset to an iPad or iPhone. It's called HoloStream, and is the first iOS/HoloLens crossover app we've seen so far.
News: My First Hackathon—What It Took to Win HoloHack Atlanta
Beginners luck is a phrase I have always hated. But really, beginners luck comes down to not letting your experience in something get in the way of the idea.
News: Osterhout Design Group Just Raised $58 Million—We'll See Why at CES 2017
As we slowly approach its January 3 start date, CES 2017 seems to be shaping up to be an exciting year for smart glasses as well as augmented and mixed reality.
News: Brenda Freeman Leaves Behind TV & Film to Join Magic Leap as CMO
Today, December 7, it was officially announced that Magic Leap has found their replacement for the recently departed Brian Wallace. Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz has tapped Brenda Freeman, former EVP and Chief Marketing Officer of National Geographic Channel, as their new Chief Marketing Officer.
News: HoloToolkit's Expanded Spatial Mapping Capabilities on HoloLens Now Open Source
For those of us that were blown away by the spatial mapping and user experience in Fragments and Young Conker, the version of spatial mapping that came stock in the HoloToolkit was lackluster at best. It became apparent really quick that to get an amazing presentation would require some heavy shader knowledge and some badass mesh culling skills, at the very least.
News: Concept Video Shows Just How Impressive Pokémon Battles Can Be on the HoloLens
Regular HoloLens developer and YouTuber Sky Zhou, a founding member of mixed reality studio Matrix Inception, has done it again. With an Xbox One controller in hand, watch as he makes these Pokémon battle it out Super Smash Brothers-style in his HoloLens app.
News: HoloLens App Muralize Combines Art & Technology—From an All-Female Developer Team
One thing you'll find a lot of in the Windows Store for HoloLens is demos and mockups, but very few projects are as fully realized and fully-functioning as Muralize. Created by Magnopus, an all-female development team, Muralize first appeared in the Windows Store in late-November of 2016, and makes it easy and fun to create real-life murals using a HoloLens.
News: ThyssenKrupp's Smart Cities-Themed HoloHack Starts December 2nd in Atlanta
This weekend, Atlanta, Georgia will be the battleground for a large group of HoloLens designers and developers. HoloHack, a 24-hour hackathon put on by elevator manufacturer ThyssenKrupp, will be taking place at The Garage, and the design theme will be smart cities.
News: Two Doctors Simplify Spinal Surgery with the HoloLens
True innovation tends to come from the places we least expect as developers. The Microsoft HoloLens is still a very new product, and some of the other headsets are still just ideas, so the rules for mixed reality are not set in stone. That means all the real problems to be solved are yet to come.
News: Boeing Is Fighting Wildfires with the Microsoft HoloLens & Large Drones
Fighting fires has always been a dangerous and noble venture, even with the proliferation of aerial firefighting. But things are looking to get a lot safer for firefighters with the help of the Boeing and mixed reality.
News: Unity 5.5 Is Out Now & Officially Supports HoloLens Development
Microsoft and Unity have been working closely to make sure that HoloLens and Windows Holographic are supported closely with the popular game engine. Unity released a special HoloLens Technical Preview version earlier this year based off of Unity 5.4, but the update today of the main Unity app, version 5.5, has all those Holographic enhancements built right in.
News: Alibaba Leads InfinityAR's Latest $18M Round—Diversifying Their Augmented Reality Portfolio
China's e-commerce site Alibaba has been making heavy investments in augmented and mixed reality startups. In February of this year, they led a $793 million round of Series C financing of Magic Leap. And now they've just invested in Israeli-based InfinityAR, which acquired $18 million in its Series C financing.
News: Holographic Remoting—What It Is & Why It Makes the HoloLens So Much Better
The HoloLens is the world's first untethered holographic head-mounted computer, which Microsoft has been rather proud of—and they have every reason to be. Of course, as soon as we developers get adjusted to the idea of keeping the scope of our projects inside the bounds of the HoloLens' processing power, Microsoft hits us with the Holographic Remoting Player.
News: Microsoft Research Shows Off Mobile Holoportation
In recent years, wave after wave of technological advancement has led us down roads that are beginning to look more and more like science fiction stories. In their efforts to bring us from science fiction to science fact, Microsoft Research showed us a new communication medium called Holoportation earlier this year—and now they have found a way to make this highly complex holographic system far more mobile.
News: The Scaling Ratios Every HoloLens Dev Should Know for Clean Text in Mixed Reality
Designing for mixed reality, especially for the HoloLens, can present unique challenges. Dong Yoon Park, a Principal UX Designer at Microsoft with a passion for typography, recently gave a talk to the Windows Holographic Users Group Redmond (WinHUGR) about the pitfalls he ran into trying to convert what started out as a 2D iOS app 5 years ago to the newer 3D Holographic frontier with Unity.
News: Augmented Reality Helps Dutch Police Out on Crime Scenes
Dutch police are using a system very similar to Pokémon GO on smartphones, but they aren't walking around trying to catch little pocket monsters. The purpose of this system is to give augmented reality help to first responders who may be less qualified to work a fresh crime scene. If successful, the idea of a contaminated crime scene could be a thing of the past.
News: Win $430K for Your HoloLens Concept App in the US Dept. of Education's EdSim Challenge
The US Department of Education has put together a competition called the EdSim Challenge with a $680,000 purse to facilitate next-gen education. The event calls upon augmented and virtual reality, as well as video game developers, to bring immersive simulation concepts to prepare the workforce of the future.
News: Microsoft Gives Windows Insiders Peek into New Paint 3D
If you've ever been inspired to try out 3D modeling after enjoying computer-generated imagery in video games and movies, chances are you've checked out an paid applications like 3ds Max (previously called 3D Studio Max), or even free ones like Blender, then just went "No Way! It's way too complicated."
News: Windows Holographic Lands in Windows 10 Insider Build 14971
Windows Insiders running Build 14971 of Windows 10 in the Fast Ring can now look for the "Windows Holographic First Run" app to check to see if their PCs are up to the task of running Windows Holographic. It won't detect your VR headset yet, but at least you'll be able to see if your computer will be compatible.
News: Mixed Reality Headset 'Linq' Takes Direct Aim at HoloLens' Lack of Gaming
With the release of the HoloLens, Microsoft has put itself in both a great position while giving the competition a serious target to aim for. This is normally the case for anyone that is first to the market with a new idea, and now we've finally got a good competitor HoloLens coming. Stereolabs, a company known for its impressive 2K stereo camera, will be entering the mixed reality head-mounted display space with a Developers Kit as soon as early-2017.
News: Make Movie Magic on the HoloLens with Microsoft's New Actiongram Fantasy Contest
Want to go to Seattle and meet the Actiongram team?
News: Taqtile's HoloMaps Gives HoloLens Users Ability to View, Scale & Draw on 3D Maps
HoloMaps, an application by Seattle-based Taqtile, is available for free on the Windows Store. Taqtile, whose Vice President of Product Management was Microsoft's former Director of Business Development, is one of the few partners currently in the Microsoft HoloLens Agency Readiness Program. This interactive 3D map they have created, powered by Bing, offers more than just a top-down view of the world on the HoloLens.
News: Inputs for the HoloLens Can Be from Any Device... Even a Smartphone
We've highlighted the projects of Wavelength Studios a few times over recent months for their work in the augmented and mixed reality space. Since receiving their HoloLens headsets, they've been hard at work on both development community projects as well as efforts for clients. This brings us to their latest work—a way to control holograms on the HoloLens with our pocket-based modern miracles, also know as smartphones.
News: Trimble Releases SketchUp Viewer, the First Commercial HoloLens Application in the Windows Store
Visualization is one of the obvious commercial applications for technology such as Microsoft's HoloLens. The ability to see the assets of a project in different scales—from micro to larger-than-life—with a quick air tap will play a large part in the coming augmented reality revolution. Whether the assets are art for a game, interior design, raw financial data, or architecture, data visualization will play an important role in the future. This is due, in part, to our ability to absorb informat...
News: DataMesh's HoloDesign Makes Redesigning Spaces Easy with a HoloLens
What does our future hold when augmented and mixed reality finally enter the mainstream? As developers, we are always looking for the ultimate solutions to the problems our users see. Welcome the innovative minds of DataMesh Consulting and their impressive HoloLens interior design solution called HoloDesign (previously "Decoration").
News: HoloLens Can Give Tank Crews 360-Degree X-Ray Vision on Missions
As a commercial and potentially consumer product, one might assume it very unlikely to see the Microsoft HoloLens in the military marketplace. And that assumption would be completely wrong. One company from the Ukraine is currently working on using the mixed reality head-mounted computer for 360-degree vision inside armored tanks. If a tank crew could see the entire battlefield there are in, they would likely have a better chance of accomplishing their mission and avoiding damage. Tanks are l...
News: Reputable Analyst Predicts Apple's AR Ambitions Are Heading to Cars
Google and Microsoft have both established platforms and hardware for emerging digital realities, but Apple, true to form, hasn't had much to say on the subject. They've shown interest in augmented reality, and we've seen patent filings that indicate research and development, but a recent rumor points to that research ending up in your car instead of a rose gold headset.
News: Quickly Build Complex Worlds Inside of Virtual Reality with Unity's New EditorVR
Today at the Unite '16 conference in Los Angeles, Unity's Timoni West and Amir Ebrahimi showed off its new virtual reality authoring and world editor, EditorVR, using the HTC Vive. Coming in December to Unity is a version of its editor that works inside a VR headset, which will change the way developers interact with the worlds they build—even if they aren't building for VR.
News: Watch the Unite '16 Los Angeles Keynote from Unity
Today in Los Angeles, Unity will be at the Loews Hollywood Hotel to host Unite '16, its annual developer conference. Unite is Unity's platform for showing the development community its upcoming direction and roadmap for augmented and virtual reality, game development, 3D technology, and more.
News: We're Very Close to the Dark Future of Deeply Augmented Reality in Black Mirror's 'Playtest'
Black Mirror, Netflix's technology-horror anthology, never fails to provide thought-provoking entertainment centered around emerging and futuristic technologies, and the third season's second episode, "Playtest," delves deep into the worlds of mixed, augmented, and virtual reality. While designed to leave you haunted by the end, offering a more "evil" narrative than we'll likely see in our actual future, the episode explores possibilities that aren't as far off as one might think.
News: 3 Ways Developers Are Already Turning Mixed Reality into a Multi-User Platform
Microsoft's HoloLens may the coolest new advancements in technology we've seen in quite some time, and anyone (with deep pockets) can buy one right now. But so far it's been an isolated platform where you experience mixed reality alone and others watch you air tap nothing but air. Developers are working to change that, and we're seeing the first examples crop up online already.
News: New Windows 10 Creators Update Bridges the Divide Between Physical Objects & the Digital Environment of Mixed Reality
Today, Microsoft announced its Windows 10 Creators Update, adding the ability to scan objects in your world and bring them into the computer. With newly-announced inexpensive VR headsets and the HoloLens, you can enjoy those transplanted 3D objects in mixed and virtual reality.