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.
Elsewhere, the demand for AR among businesses remains high, with Jaunt shuttering its VR business in favor of building its AR content services. Also, via Adobe's AR tools, Adidas demonstrated how retailers can leverage AR experiences in stores.
Magic Leap Content Chief: 'We're Trying to Give You Superpowers'
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.
Now, months after the Magic Leap One's release, the company has finally had its first public outing with developers, early adopters, and the media via the L.E.A.P. conference. It's no longer about smoke and mirrors and NDA agreements. Magic Leap has, finally, exposed itself to real scrutiny. But that scrutiny didn't end at the release of the device, or the parade of executives on stage at last week's L.E.A.P. event.
Finally, the company's leadership is ready to face some of the more specific questions that we didn't get answers to during the controlled, pre-release embargo interviews, or brief post-software demo question and answer sessions.
This time, we managed to get Magic Leap's chief content officer, Rio Caraeff, to sit down in a room away from all the spatial computing hubbub to answer a few nagging questions we've had about Magic Leap since its release...
REALITY BITES: AR continues to attract enterprise adopters, with Lenovo being just the latest. The company has sealed a $240M agreement with IBM Services to enhance its call centers with AR remote support and AI assistance.
Twilio Previews Magic Leap's Avatar Chat Experience
On Thursday, yet another piece of the Magic Leap puzzle fell into place at Twilio's Signal developer and customer conference in San Francisco.
During one of the stage presentations, Twilio co-founder and CEO, Jeff Lawson, walked on staging wearing the Magic Leap One to introduce the first live demo of the company's new Avatar Chat app.
Read on to learn more about what the experience looks like and what it means for Magic Leap's app ecosystem...
REALITY BITES: A report by International Data Corporation forecasts that approximately 220,000 AR headsets will shipped by end of the end of 2018. Based on the newly robust market for mobile AR, the company has adjusted its longer-term forecast for AR headset growth, with more than 21 million headset shipments estimated for 2022, but with just 2.8 million units tagged to the consumer segment.
Jaunt Cuts Jobs as It Jumps Ship on VR for AR
After building its business on virtual reality, Jaunt is leaving the technology behind to focus on building tools for creating augmented reality content.
The company cited a robust response to its volumetric capture technology as one of the reasons for its business decision.
Therefore, over the next few weeks, the company will begin shuttering its VR products and services, and work with existing customers to ensure existing projects are completed.
The move is bad news for some of Jaunt's domestic employees. Read on to find out how they've been impacted and how Jaunt's decision reflects the strategic direction of some of its high-profile investors...
REALITY BITES: Move over, QR codes. Vuforia parent PTC previewed its VuMark barcodes at AWE Europe this week. The codes support embedding of both hyperlinks and AR content, as well as displaying company logos in the middle of the labels.
Adidas Tries on Adobe's Project Aero for AR Experience in Retail Stores
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.
As part of the preview, Adobe showcased a collaboration with Adidas that places augmented reality at the center of the retail store of the future.
Keep reading to learn more about Adidas's AR concept and how Adobe and other development tools will facilitate more experiences like it...
REALITY BITES: Packaging company Constantia Flexibles reports that 69% of consumers prefer products that offer smartphone interaction. Now, that company has partnered with Wikitude to embed AR content into a wide array of product packaging for clients.
Every Friday, Next Reality reviews the latest headlines from the financial side of augmented and mixed reality. This weekly Market Reality column covers funding announcements, mergers and acquisitions, market analysis, and the like. Check out previous editions of Market Reality for more news you may have missed.
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Cover image via Magic Leap/YouTube
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