Market Reality: North Secures More Funding, Google Unveils New Glass, & McGraw-Hill Takes AR to School

After a rough run of news, smartglasses maker North still has the confidence of investors, as evidenced by its latest round of funding.

Speaking of smartglasses, Google will continue to court businesses over consumers, as the tech giant announced its next-generation of Glass Enterprise Edition.

Meanwhile, a major education publisher is taking on AR, while one computer vision startup bought another to supe up its own AR platform.

Smartglasses Maker North Closes $40 Million in Funding

Despite the recent gut punch of staff layoffs, Canada-based smartglasses startup North and its Focals are likely to be in the game for a while longer.

On Sunday, a Canadian newspaper published a report that claims the company recently snagged $40 million in new investment cash, a financial lifeline that could help the company stay afloat as it continues to add new features to its flagship product.

Read on to find out more details about the deal and what the funding says about North's future...

REALITY BITES: Snap backfills another opening from its recent executive exodus, appointing Derek Andersen vice president of finance to the role of chief financial officer, which was vacated by Tim Stone earlier this year. Lara Stone, who filled in as interim CFO, will become chief people officer.

Google Revamps Glass Enterprise Edition with Snapdragon XR1

As the tech world patiently waits for the advent of mainstream consumer smartglasses, Google is content to stick to the business world (for now).

Nearly two years after refocusing Glass on the business sector with its Enterprise Edition, on Monday, Google unveiled the sequel to its smartglasses, which run on Android and Qualcomm's Snapdragon XR1 chipset designed for augmented reality wearables.

Continue reading for more information about the next edition of Glass and the business world's reception to the smartglasses...

REALITY BITES: The growth of augmented reality means the demand for developers is also growing. Jake Blakeley, an AR product designer for Facebook who cut his teeth on Spark AR, lends his advice for making the transition into 3D development.

McGraw-Hill Pursues Augmented Reality for Higher Education

In the wake of Apple and Google pitching augmented reality to schools, McGraw-Hill is stepping up its own augmented reality efforts for education.

On Tuesday, the publishing powerhouse announced a partnership with Alchemie, an educational app startup that gamifies learning, to develop augmented reality apps for college-level chemistry courses through a National Science Foundation research grant.

Read further to learn more about McGraw-Hill's plans to graduate to augmented reality and how Alchemie fits the curriculum...

REALITY BITES: It's no secret that Apple has been building an augmented reality team, but it's hiring efforts have increased dramatically over the past year. According to Thinknum currently has 33 openings for its AR team, with a concentration in market research, resale, and retail applications.

Streem Acquires Computer Vision Peer Selerio

There's no shortage of augmented reality platforms for remote video assistance, but startup Streem is looking to give its offering a leg up with an infusion of new technology.

This week, Streem announced that it has acquired Selerio, a computer vision startup with technology that enables occlusion and object recognition for AR apps.

Read more about the startups and their technologies and how they could be greater than the sum of their parts...

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.