Next Reality: Page 33

If you've ever wanted to hang out with a flying unicorn that sounds like actor/comedian Patton Oswalt, get ready to get Happy!

Based on newly surfaced information, transparent smartphones like those teased in Iron Man 2 and those hand-tracking monitors made famous in Minority Report may eventually end up being "designed by Apple in California."

While the world is only recently becoming aware of its existence, augmented reality has been around in some form or another since the '90s. In the last decade, with the advancement and miniaturization of computer technology — specifically smartphones and tablets — AR has become far more viable as a usable tool and even more so as a form of entertainment. And these are the people behind mobile AR to keep an eye on.

The Star Wars saga may have occurred a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, but Nissan is using a futuristic technology to bring stormtroopers and droids into its dealerships.

If you're a regular reader of Next Reality, you're more likely to spread the joy of augmented reality than most others. But it can be difficult to introduce newbies into the AR fold if you don't give them exactly the right starting point in terms ease-of-use and affordability. But fear not, oh gift-giving AR pioneer, we're here to help!

Amazon Web Services (AWS) opened its re:INVENT developers expo with a bang by launching Amazon Sumerian, a new tool that could become the dominant platform for building cross-platform augmented and virtual reality applications.

An AR/VR developer has managed to use the iPhone X to transport players into an emulation of the classic '90s video game Star Fox as the game's antagonist.

A Brooklyn-based startup has launched a glasses-free holographic display for less than the cost of an iPhone 8 Plus.

While most of Hollywood and its celebrity class are enthralled by virtual reality, a new augmented reality experience featuring some of the music and film world's top talent is preparing for virtual liftoff.

After spending a good portion of 2017 teasing us with images and bits of news, Lenovo, in a partnership with Disney and Lucasfilm, has finally released its Mirage AR headset along with the Star Wars: Jedi Challenge game collection.

Considered by many (perhaps unfairly) to be a very public failure, Google Glass can add another plot point to its comeback story, this time as a tool to teach social skills to children and adults with autism.

Alright, calm down and take a breath! I know the object creation chapter was a lot of code. I will give you all a slight reprieve; this section should be a nice and simple, at least in comparison.

Alright, let's dig into this and get the simple stuff out of the way. We have a journey ahead of us. A rather long journey at that. We will learn topics ranging from creating object filtering systems to help us tell when a new object has come into a scene to building and texturing objects from code.

If you or someone you know has younger kids and you're looking for an augmented reality toy, Pai Technology has just the educational option for you.

San Francisco-based startup AstroReality is putting the AR in lunar with a high-detailed model of the moon that comes to life through an accompanying augmented reality mobile app.

As it turns out, Apple did get AR hardware into its retail stores for the 2017 holiday shopping season, but it's not the headset we've been hearing rumors about for years; it's the MekaMon battle-bot.

While AR apps by Modiface and Perfect Corp. have made it easier for people to shop for makeup without setting foot in a store, MAC Cosmetics wants to give its brick-and-mortar customers the same experience.

If you bought your first mobile phone in the early-to-mid-2000s, there's a good chance that it was a Nokia and it had the game Snake preinstalled.

We may have to wait a few years before they arrive, but reports of Apple's headset taking shape in Cupertino gives the tech world hope that its white knight for consumer AR is on its way.

Live theater doesn't typically benefit from the kind of computer-generated special effects that big-budget Hollywood blockbusters deploy, but that could change soon thanks to Microsoft's HoloLens.