Augment

The reveal of Apple's new ARKit extensions for iPhones and iPads, while not much of a shock, did bring with it one big surprise. By finding a solution to surface detection without the use of additional external sensors, Apple just took a big step over many — though not all — s ...more

One Instagram creator's augmented reality homage to Disney's deep bench of animated characters has earned him fifteen minutes of fame. Taking a page from the enchanted book attraction at the Sorcerer's Workshop of Disney California Adventure, content creator Arno Partissimo p ...more

Contrary to popular belief, augmented reality apps have been available for a while now. I remember using the Layar app (still available for iOS and Android) to explore nearby businesses and landmarks with varying success via an early-generation Android handset. It would be ha ...more

Snap Inc.'s dedication to augmented reality has expanded the world lenses in Snapchat to our own Bitmojis. While it's great to see our characters interacting with real environments, we haven't seen them connect to other Bitmoji in AR space. That all changes with "3D Friendmoji ...more

While autonomous vehicles are almost assuredly the future of personal transportation, we are likely many years from seeing self-driving cars become as ubiquitous as manually-driven ones, as the auto industry has a myriad of government regulations and other constraints to conte ...more

In a previous tutorial, we were able to measure vertical surfaces such as walls, books, and monitors using ARKit 1.5. With the advent of vertical plane anchors, we can now also attach objects onto these vertical walls. In this tutorial, you'll learn how to make your augmented ...more

We already know that the connection between virtual and augmented reality is pretty tight, with tools like Unity making porting some apps between the two platforms fairly frictionless. But there are some things currently going in VR that just don't need to come to the world of ...more

In our last ARKit tutorial, we learned how to measure the sizes of horizontal planes. It was a helpful entryway into the arena of determining spatial relationships with real world spaces versus virtual objects and experiences. This time around, we'll dive into a slightly diff ...more

The original iterations of the Terminator film franchise have served as the inspiration (via the heads-up display of the T-800) for future augmented reality dreams, so it is fitting that the current crop of AR gives the latest installment in the series a promotional boost. Wi ...more

Welcome to the first annual Next Reality 30, our list of people who've made the biggest impact on the augmented reality space in the last 12 months — and what a 12-month roller-coaster ride it's been. Apple introduced ARKit-powered apps last fall, Google launched ARCore for An ...more

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. In AR, everythi ...more

There's a new trend on Instagram Stories: People are making viral AR filters where images of popular characters from TV shows, movies, and other mediums shuffle above your head until one sticks. The filters range from Disney and Pokémon characters to Harry Potter and Friends, ...more

There are already a few ways to use your home computer on the go, but none of them feel very natural when you're out and about, and are clunky options at best. Samsung wants to change that with Monitorless, their upcoming augmented reality smartglasses, which offer remote desk ...more

One of the neatest tricks available in Google Lens, an app that can identify and interpret real world information, is the ability to copy text from the app's camera view and paste it into a digital document. And while the computer vision assistance of Google Lens takes care o ...more

The coming year promises to be a good one for those of us watching the augmented and mixed reality world. And the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), starting Jan. 5 in Las Vegas, Nevada, for its 50th year, is bringing 2017 in with a bang—we're expecting a ton of great announceme ...more

If we were to assign a theme for the 2019 edition of the Next Reality 30 (NR30), it might be something along the lines of, "What have you done for me lately?" Many of the top names in the industry from the 2018 edition remain the same, but their positions have shuffled. The p ...more

Do you see a red door and wonder if it might be a good idea to paint it black? You could "ask Ask Sherwin-Williams," or, better yet, you could just ask the new augmented reality features in the retailer's mobile app. While the company's ColorSnap Visualizer app for iOS and An ...more

To promote Battle of Azeroth, the latest expansion for the World of Warcraft franchise, Blizzard Entertainment has conjured a Shoppable AR Lens that is now available in Snapchat's app carousel. The experience, initially launched via Snapcode on Aug. 8, begins in the front-fac ...more

A development team in Silicon Valley is nearing early access release of a new hardware-independent augmented reality platform called Phantom AR. Compatible with Android and iOS-based headsets, as well as the Microsoft HoloLens and Meta 2, Phantom AR runs the entire augmented ...more

Samsung's big reveal of the Galaxy S9 and S9+ at Mobile World Congress revolved around its "reimagined" camera and augmented reality capabilities. Between AR Emojis, Bixby, and ARCore, the Galaxy S9 and S9+ offer more native AR software features than any other device. AR is s ...more

As a developer, before you can make augmented-reality robots that move around in the real world, controlled by a user's finger, you first need to learn how to harness the basics of designing AR software for a touchscreen interface. In recent years, the vernacular for referrin ...more

Another innovative use of augmented reality - we've seen transparent walls, t-shirts that play Rock, Paper, Scissors, an iPhone operated video game drone; and now, a tattoo that comes to life. Just tattoo a simple "barcode", point a webcam at it, and a flying animated dragon w ...more

When the titular hero of your superhero movie activates his powers with a catchphrase, it would be pretty neat if your augmented reality promotion for that film could react to the user's voice. Luckily for Warner Bros., Snapchat happens to have relatively new voice recognitio ...more

The world of augmented reality has seen a myriad of different products, from sensor-laden smartphones to robust holographic headsets, but Google Glass's failures nearly killed the middle ground. Based on our hands-on time with a prototype, LAFORGE Optical did what Google coul ...more

Just months after we previewed the augmented reality, volumetric video conferencing powers of Mimesys, the company has undergone a major change — it's now a part of Magic Leap. On Thursday, Magic Leap announced the acquisition of the Belgium-based startup that allows Magic Le ...more

Lebron James, or King James to his royal subjects, is extending the reach of his kingdom beyond basketball and into the realm of augmented reality. The NBA superstar, in his role as pitchman for Nike, is the centerpiece for a new in-store Snapchat AR advertisement at the Hous ...more

Coming soon to an Android device near you: Diminished Reality! What's Diminished Reality? A lot like Augmented Reality, really, but with one big difference: Where AR giveth, insinuating virtual elements into a live representation of the real world, Diminished Reality taketh aw ...more

The year 2020 was a pivotal span of time during which the word "virtual" took on a brand new meaning. Instead of referring to VR or augmented reality, the term was hijacked to describe meeting across long distances through a variety of software tools, most often through video. ...more

You can almost detect the collective breath-holding of the augmented reality industry as it waits for Apple's inevitable entry. A new Apple wearable built with augmented reality technology is likely the device that will finally make the smartphone take a backseat. Apple's for ...more

Now that we've officially seen the HoloLens 2 and Microsoft has shown off the improvements and new superpowers of the augmented reality headset, what about the specs? Luckily, Microsoft has laid bare the full specifications for its next-generation headset. Let's dive in and s ...more

AR.js is a new JavaScript solution that offers highly efficient augmented reality features to mobile developers. With HoloJS released back in December, there is a potential that the free AR.js, developed by Jerome Etienne, one of Next Reality's 50 people to watch in augmented ...more

Every industry has its own jargon, acronyms, initializations, and terminology that serve as shorthand to make communication more efficient among veteran members of that particular space. But while handy for insiders, those same terms can often create a learning curve for novic ...more

Starting April 10th, you'll will be able to book 15-minute appointments online to try on an Apple Watch in person at Apple Stores across the world. With the April 24th release date just around the corner, making an appointment is a great idea for those who are unsure about whi ...more

Move over, cosmetics companies. The athletic footwear industry wants to be able to give their customers the opportunity to try on products in augmented reality as well. A new mobile app from augmented reality commerce company Wannaby, appropriately named Wanna Kicks, uses sma ...more

The limitless applications of 3D data visualization will enable a more efficient approach to many of life's problems. Each day, developers exploring this technology are finding new ways to solve these problems in mixed reality; 3D modeling, easier house management, spinal surg ...more

We've shown you the best augmented reality headsets, and now it's time to show you the rest. These are the AR headsets you've probably never heard of or even seen. The AR headsets that, in some cases, have a shot at the big time, and may one day reach widespread adoption, and ...more

If not the future of computing in general, augmented, virtual, and mixed reality certainly will change the world of gaming. If you want to try your hand at shaping this evolved medium, the Unite Europe conference posted a talk that explains the first things you need to learn t ...more

In 2018, augmented reality went from the vague promise of interesting things in the near future to tangible developments in software and hardware, proving that immersive computing is indeed the future. Traditional mobile apps on smartphones continued to maintain user attentio ...more

The mobile augmented reality war for dominance between Apple and its Asia-based rivals is in full effect. On Wednesday, Samsung continued the pattern it established with the Galaxy S10 4G smartphone by adding adding a depth-sensing camera to the new Galaxy Note 10+, which giv ...more

Over the past decade, Marvel Studios has been a dominant force at the box office, raking in more than $21 billion dollars. Averaged out over that span of time, the yearly earnings of those movies outweigh the gross domestic product of some countries. And while those films hav ...more

Modern warfare takes on a more literal translation with the advent of new augmented reality displays revealed recently by the US Army to improve soldiers' situational awareness on the battlefield. A new helmet-mounted displays, named Tactical Augmented Reality (TAR), integrat ...more

The augmented reality feature in Pokémon GO is one of the key components that draw people in to the popular Android and iPhone game. Indeed, there's nothing quite like the sight of a Pokémon standing around in an otherwise uninteresting parking lot. But this novelty effect us ...more

On Sunday, Apple CEO Tim Cook (the number one person on our NR30 list) made a rare television appearance to talk about and show off his current obsession: augmented reality. In a segment on the new HBO documentary news series from Axios, Cook invited two of the site's journal ...more

Comparing the present-day states of the consumer and enterprise sectors of augmented reality is like evaluating the merits of sports car versus work trucks. Like consumer AR, sports cars are sexy and exciting, but perhaps a bit impractical at times. On the other hand, enterpri ...more

Augmented reality allows for all kinds of experiences to happen just about anywhere, and that creates some incredible potential for entertainment. While games like Pokémon GO take you out into the world, one crowd-funded game wants to keep you inside—to scare the crap out of y ...more

Lions and tigers and bears are just a few of the animals that Google users can now bring into their physical environments. Less than a month after previewing augmented reality capabilities in Search at Google I/O, Google has begun to roll out support for embedding 3D content ...more

We've seen a variety of AR experiences related to athletic footwear over the years, but Puma is betting sneakerheads will buy into a version of interactive design where sneakers are the augmented reality experience The shoemaker launched the LQD Cell (pronounced "liquid cell" ...more

Throughout this NR50 series, we have talked about the incredible growth the augmented and mixed reality space has seen in the last year. More devices, software, developers, and use-cases seem to arrive daily. For this growth to have occurred, it took the work of many people, f ...more

Dark mode themes for mobile apps are all the rage these days, but YouTube is taking that a bit literally with its latest augmented reality experience. On Monday, to promote the release of Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, which debuts in US theaters on Friday, Disney released a v ...more

Earlier this year at WWDC, Apple made a big show of featuring augmented reality as a central part of iOS moving forward. But since then, other than comments from the company's CEO, Tim Cook, we haven't seen much direct promotion of augmented reality from the company. Until now ...more

Just because augmented reality is the technology of the future doesn't mean it can't reach into the past of computing. Shared via Twitter on Monday, Instagram product designer George Kedenburg III has published the "Desktop 96" camera effect, which emulates the classic deskto ...more

Fans of the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man have yet another way to experience the web-slinger in augmented reality. To promote the pending release of Spider-Man: Far From Home on July 4, Sony Pictures has published a mobile app for iOS and Android that brings Spider-Man int ...more

The developer who gained notoriety for his What Disney Are You? augmented reality filter on Instagram is striking again while the iron is hot. This time around, content creator Arno Partissimo has brewed up a version of the filter for Harry Potter fans via Spark AR, Facebook' ...more

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. On Thursday, at the Augmented World Expo in Santa Clara, uSens unveiled the beta version of it ...more

In the last couple of days there's been a lot of speculation about the powers of Microsoft's HoloLens 2, but few have had a chance to get their hands on one to see if the company's claims live up to what HoloLens inventor Alex Kipman showed off on stage. Nevertheless, amid th ...more

Under the rocket's red glare and the bombs bursting in air, the Statue of Liberty is swaying in celebration this Fourth of July thanks to Snapchat. On Thursday, Snapchat launched a new augmented reality experience to commemorate Independence Day for those at or in the vicinit ...more

While augmented reality experiences can already appear to be magical, particularly to the uninitiated, one developer is doubling down on its mystical potential for the ever-popular Magic: The Gathering card game. Available now in the App Store and Play Store, MTG Manager help ...more

Taking photos that are actually printed and hung on a real wall, versus being shot and shared via a social wall, is a seemingly lost art, but PhotoBloom AR wants to change that with augmented reality. Through an online portal, customers can upload a video and associated targe ...more

We've been predicting the rush of augmented reality wearable makers from China for a couple of years, and now it looks like it's in full swing, with one of the most promising entrants coming from startup Pacific Future. The China-based company was on the CES show floor this w ...more

While Microsoft dominated the augmented reality news at this year's Mobile World Congress, a small AR startup we've covered in the past arrived in Barcelona, Spain, to unveil the next phase of its mission. This week, China-based Nreal made the potential mass adoption of its N ...more