Mystery is a tricky thing. Used correctly, it can give onlookers the impression that wondrous and perhaps valuable things are afoot. However, once the veil of suspension of disbelief is removed in any significant way, that same mystery can quickly turn into not just skepticism, but outright anger at what may have seemed like an attempt to dupe trusting onlookers.
Amid the opulent and historic confines of Paris, Microsoft is now hosting an exhibit at a local museum that brings a historic map of a Normandy tourist destination to life in augmented reality.
Among all the new Magic Leap app announcements made at the recent L.E.A.P. conference, an update to one of the company's major in-house apps went mostly unnoticed: Create 1.1.
Unlike VR, when you're talking about augmented reality, describing what an experience is like can be incredibly difficult — primarily because the experiences are even more contextual than relatively static virtual worlds that don't involve real-world settings.
Have you ever seen pictures or videos of balloons being let go into the sky and randomly floating away in all directions? It's something you often see in classic posters or movies. Well, guess what? Now you'll be able to do that without having to buy hundreds of balloons, all you'll need is ARKit!
Developers can now publish augmented reality experiences that are viewable through the experimental version of Chrome and ARCore.
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.
On Monday, at its annual Build developer conference, Microsoft revealed two new apps for the HoloLens apps.
Last week, we told you about Microsoft's Alex Kipman and his nomination for the annual European Inventor Award, presented by the European Patent Office (EPO). And while that's big news in and of itself, it turns out we overlooked a very important detail buried in the EPO's video presentation. What was it? Only one of the most sought-after data points related to the HoloLens since its launch: how many have been sold.
Snapchat has released three new augmented reality Lenses that boast uber-accurate face tracking courtesy of the TrueDepth camera on the iPhone X and ARKit.
Next to things like natural disasters and disease, the specter of war is one of the only things that threatens to derail the 21st century's long stretch of technological innovation. Now a new app is using augmented reality to remind us of that by focusing on those most impacted by war — children.
Whenever Japan does something new in tech, the cute factor is almost always taken into account. The same holds true for augmented reality, as Yahoo! Japan has just revealed its take on AR map navigation with a new AR Mode.
What many thought was inevitable, based on recent hints, has been revealed to be in the planning stages: Snapchat is working on smartglasses. The surprising information came out on March 2 in a report that also claims Snap Inc. is planning to release version two of its Spectacles product in the third quarter of 2018.
We already showed you the dark side of augmented reality in the form of a virtual girlfriend from Japan, but now the same country has given us something a lot less creepy that could be the future of virtual pop stars everywhere.
Augmented reality headsets with depth sensors, like the HoloLens, offer a much more immersive experience than the average smartphone at present, and one app demonstrates that in a uniquely entertaining fashion.
Unsurprisingly, Google wants to be the caretaker for augmented reality on the web, and its latest move in this endeavor is a 3D model viewer prototype called Article that's designed to work across all web browsers.
Mobile AR developer Blippar has achieved a breakthrough by releasing what appears to be the first commercially-available AR navigation app.
In case you didn't already know, augmented reality is here. It's no longer just an idea in a cyberpunk novel. And while augmented reality has been around for a long time, the actual technology is finally catching up to the idea.
The bandwagon for NFL teams using augmented reality to engage fans isn't exactly full, but it is starting to get a bit crowded.
If social media apps were houses in a neighborhood and augmented reality photo effects were candy, then Facebook went to Costco and brought home a full pallet of treats.
Just in time for a new season of professional basketball, the National Basketball Association (NBA) has released a new app for iPhones and iPads built on ARKit that turns your driveway into a basketball court.
This morning Google announced ARCore, an SDK for Android devices that will allow augmented reality developers to add new functionality to Android 7.0 and up, all without any special hardware other than the camera of a phone.
3D modeling can be a long drawn out process. If you are a developer or programmer without 3D modeling experience, this process can be daunting, to say the least. This often leaves developers hunting sites like TurboSquid or the Unity Asset Store for free temporary models at the very least, or often times buying final models that don't quite fit their needs.
Numerous examples exist of doctors and surgeons using HoloLens to plan surgeries. The device has even been used to view reference images during a procedure and stream it to a remote audience. Until recently, it has not been used to augment the surgeon's view of the patient during a live surgery.
Heathrow Airport's most recent arrival isn't a flight, but rather an interactive children's game featuring augmented reality technology.
Free beer and AR? What could be better? Amstel, a Dutch beer brand, has launched an innovative sampling campaign using an AR app called "Snatch." Snatch is a treasure hunt gaming app, and if you win the game, your prize is 10,000 free pints of Amstel beer, redeemable at Mitchell & Butler pubs.
We are totally buggin' about Pinterest's update to their Lens. I know, I had to.
While two augmented reality companies were recently recognized for their innovative technologies, other companies have turned to augmented reality to innovate in their respective fields. Over the past week, use cases have ranged from selling snacks and video games to raising awareness for public health issues.
One thing that I got more and more excited about as we got closer and closer to the Microsoft Build 2017 developers conference was finally learning about the new Acer Windows Mixed Reality head-mounted displays (HMD). Brandon Bray, Principal Group Program Manager at Microsoft, had teased us a few weeks earlier at the Vision Summit event in Los Angeles, California, and said there would be a lot more information at Build. Fortunately for us, he was right.
The Augmented World Expo (AWE) is upon us, and that means it's time to get excited about all the awesome next reality things to come.
At Next Reality, we've been following the Microsoft Hololens because of its enormous potential. Unlike virtual reality, which enshrouds the user in a complete virtual world, augmented reality melds the virtual with what's really there in front of you. And while some of us may use AR technology to stealthily surf the web during working hours, others are looking towards using AR for the betterment of society. Like putting the HoloLens in space.
In the nascent AR/VR race, any release news is big news. For augmented reality, those invested in the new technology eagerly await the release of Microsoft's Hololens and any inkling of information that comes with it. If you're one of those folks, you're in luck, as new information has just been disclosed about one of Microsoft's partners on the project, Lenovo, and their Hololens; including its release date and price.
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. This week's column starts with a stock price that's performing well for one company — one that HoloLens developers should know quite well.
NBA star Andre Iguodala, of the Golden State Warriors, got to try out a Magic Leap demo in Florida and started dishing out some pretty revealing details about the upcoming mixed reality headset to CNET's Brian Tong.
We live in a marvelous age, a time where technology is driving us forward as a species at a rapid pace, and tech-driven miracles are becoming more and more commonplace. While the human race may not be focused on building the largest wonders of the world, as it once was in history, the current order of wonders are much smaller in scale—even internal.
The HoloLens is a natural medium for 3D data visualization, which offers a far more ideal approach over 2D screens to managing multiple resources simultaneously and grasping the bigger picture. We've already seen how management is using holograms to oversee cities, firefighters, and the military, and now training for sports teams is being addressed with VAR Football.
DAQRI, a company mostly known for its odd but fun-looking industrial Smart Helmet, unveiled their new Smart Glasses product at CES 2017. Their smartglasses look like a strange attempt to answer the Microsoft HoloLens, and the price tag of $4,995 for the developer's edition reinforces that notion.
Merge VR, a company mostly known for its virtual reality experiences, is moving into and creating an augmented reality experience that combines an iPhone or Android smartphone, a set of goggles to put your phone in, and a box about the size of a Rubik's Cube which looks more akin to the Lament Configuration seen in the Hellraiser film series. When used in concert with the smartphone and goggles, the toy cube, called Holo Cube, becomes one of many AR experiences.
When developing for the HoloLens, keeping a constant 60 fps (frames per second) while making things look beautiful is a challenge. Balancing the processing power to display complex models and keeping the frame rate where it needs is just a straight up painful process, but a solution seems to be on the horizon.
The HTC Vive and Valve's SteamVR make for one of the more compelling virtual reality experiences, mixing in real-world motion tracking with the immersive headset. But third-party manufacturers couldn't tap into the Vive's full potential and make creative new peripherals—until now.
