News and Updates from Next Reality: Page 23

With all the talk about the impending release of the Magic Leap One, some have forgotten a very important, competing release on the near horizon: the HoloLens 2.0. Well, now we have new information that tells us when (roughly) the device will be released, as well as a few other exciting tidbits.

If you cover a particular area in tech long enough, you develop certain pet peeves, and one of mine happens to be devices that attempt to keep us wed to the Google Glass style of augmented reality. And while I remain mostly uninterested in such devices, one of these products recently earned my admiration and might work for you, too, under the right circumstances. It's called the Golden-i Infinity.

Although some look to golf for some quick off-the-grid time, the scenic hills and blue skies of your local putting green are not immune from the ever-expanding reach of augmented reality. A new update to the Golfshot mobile app brings new AR features to iPhones and iPads designed to help golfers determine shot distances during course play.

Less than two months after launching its augmented reality platform for casual gaming and shared experiences, Snapchat is ready to make Snappables available to advertisers.

Usually, the camera adds 10 pounds, but with a new augmented reality effect in Like's mobile app, the camera can actually make you look slimmer.

The availability of space for filming immersive content has just gotten bigger with the launch of Innovation Studios by Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Escape rooms, those real world puzzle games that challenge teams to solve a mystery and gain their freedom from a locked room, are all the rage right now. But augmented reality games such as The Lockdown could make them obsolete.

Last week's Augmented World Expo felt like a distant memory by this Monday, as Apple unveiled ARKit 2.0 at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference. Certainly, this news would overshadow anything augmented reality this week as it nearly eclipsed AWE when early reports leaked of the toolkit's new superpowers.

On Wednesday, June 6, the people at Magic Leap finally (FINALLY) decided to give the public a dedicated, slow, feature-by-feature walkthrough of the Magic Leap One: Creator Edition. How was it? About as good as it gets without actually getting to see what images look like through the device when wearing it.

While mobile gaming, in the 10 years since the App Store launched, has matured to console-level quality, premium augmented reality games built with ARKit (or ARCore) have been scarce.

Just a year after facing trade secret theft allegations from his former employer, ex-Meta Company employee Kevin Zhong and his new company are ready to ship the product that triggered the lawsuit.

As expected, Apple revealed today at the WWDC keynote that ARKit 2.0 will support multiplayer gaming support and persistent content, which will arrive this fall with iOS 12.

Looking to inject a little more processing juice into your HoloLens? Unity can fix you up with the Standalone Universal Windows Platform Holographic Emulation.

As Magic Leap prepares to ship the Magic Leap One later this year, the company is putting its focus on mentoring developers and creators to build a content ecosystem for the spatial computing platform.

The NBA Finals is underway, and now basketball fans with iPhones and Android devices can get closer to the action for free than they ever could with expensive courtside tickets.

The Augmented World Expo is winding down in Santa Clara, where Qualcomm, Vuzix, and Meta Company were among the companies making big announcements.

While numerous startups are competing to convert the AR Cloud from a pie-in-the-sky to a reality, Wikitude is thinking smaller with the latest edition of its augmented reality SDK.

On the one year anniversary of the introduction of ARKit, Apple is planning to reveal major updates its augmented reality toolkit for mobile apps at its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose, California next week.

On Thursday, at the Augmented World Expo, Stockholm, Sweden-based eye tracking company Tobii announced that the augmented reality display company Lumus will integrate its eye tracking technology into the Lumus DK50 AR development kit.

This time last year, computer vision company uSens introduced a stereo camera module capable of hand tracking. Now, uSens can achieve the same thing with just a smartphone's camera.

Augmented reality headset maker Meta Company unveiled Meta Viewer, its first software application, during its keynote at the Augmented World Expo in Santa Clara on Wednesday.

If two hands are better than one, then two hand-tracking SDKs must be better than one as well.

Electronics maker Epson is courting developers to its Moverio smartglasses with an updated software development kit (SDK) and integration with a web-based tool for publishing augmented reality experiences.

Confirming a previous report from last week, Qualcomm announced its Snapdragon X1 platform designed for augmented and virtual reality devices during an event at the Augmented World Expo in Santa Clara on Tuesday, with Meta and Vuzix among the first manufacturers to adopt it.

As Facebook, Apple, Samsung, and others offer augmented reality selfie effects and content that challenge its platform, Snapchat has continued to innovate with its augmented reality capabilities.

The premise of Jurassic World revolves around splicing genes to create new dinosaurs, so it is fitting that the location-based AR game is a clone of Pokémon GO merged with the DNA of the Jurassic Park franchise.

Just in time for the release of Pixar's highly anticipated sequel, AR Emoji based on characters from The Incredibles 2 have arrived for Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+.

Many Americans will celebrate the start of the summer this Memorial Day weekend with backyard cookouts, and two brands hope to solidify their invites to those parties through augmented reality experiences in Snapchat.

Although retailers like Mac Cosmetics and Zara have been celebrated for deploying innovative in-store augmented reality experiences in their brick-and-mortar locations, a new report throws cold water on the practice.

The company behind Japan's beloved Gozilla, Japan's Toho Studios, has for years tried to give fans the sense of what a giant, nuclear-powered lizard invading Tokyo might feel like. Until now, those attempts have been limited to the movie theater, but now, with the help of the Microsoft HoloLens, Godzilla is finally getting its chance to invade the actual city, with terrified fans looking on from a safe distance.

One of the leading chipmakers for smartphones is getting ready to announce a new processor made specifically for augmented and virtual reality headsets.

Less than a week after securing a $25 million Series C funding round for automotive HUDs, DigiLens has introduced a new waveguide display for motorcycle helmets that's thinner, lighter, brighter, and manufactured at a lower cost.

Even in augmented reality, Wile E. Coyote still can't catch the Road Runner.

Just weeks after officially launching its mobile augmented reality toolkit, Google can now claim one of its first Android and ARCore app exclusives with the Curate app from Sotheby's International Realty.

Consumers are chomping at the bit for augmented reality smartglasses from Cupertino's finest, but one market analyst is saying not so fast, Apple fans. Meanwhile, automotive AR is gaining speed, with the latest milestone coming courtesy of a major investment in waveguides by Continental. And although mobile AR apps have already arrived, retailer Target is taking a different approach. So why is Target tinkering with web-based AR? Answers below...

Location services company Mapbox has added new capabilities to its location-based gaming tool to fend off Google's challenge for the same mobile app category.

Noted analyst Gene Munster is predicting that Apple's initial entry into the augmented reality wearables category will be a year later than previousreports have estimated.

Google's Pixel smartphone had a decent head start as one of the first devices to offer ARCore, but that early exclusivity has been frustrating for some Android device owners. Some of that frustration was relieved when Google added more Android devices to the ARCore list in February.

Royal wedding fever has officially taken over the media, and that obsession with the UK's latest marriage event has now extended to Snapchat, thanks to a new Lens from the Today Show.

Department store chain Target is the latest retailer to offer an augmented reality cosmetics app for customers to virtually try on lipstick.