Do Magic Appearing

Investment in augmented reality remained robust in 2019. For the third consecutive year, we looked back on the biggest funding deals in the AR industry this week, and a familiar name came out on top. One of the companies investing in AR, Qualcomm, announced its new chipset fo ...more

It's safe to say that we can call the annual ranking of AR investments a holiday tradition at Next Reality. Following our 2018 and 2017 editions of the biggest AR investments, we've expanded the list to include the top 25 this year. While there are many familiar names at the ...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

As Microsoft continues to bask in the glow of its HoloLens 2 unveiling and begins ramping up the hype to launch, Nreal and Vuzix are carving out their own niches in the AR hardware landscape. Nreal continues to make waves with its forthcoming tethered smartglasses, and its fo ...more

Influencers of augmented reality demonstrate expertise in their fields and outline a strong vision for the future that they evangelize to others. They help define the direction of the industry and identify others who foster and create innovation in the field. The idea of the ...more

The mysterious technology product teased via an eccentric TED Talk nearly five years ago has finally been revealed, and it's called the Magic Leap One: Creator Edition. After all of the non-disclosure agreements, furtive comments from CEOs and insiders given early access to th ...more

A new technological movement without the technology itself is just an idea sitting and waiting. Once the technology is present in the equation, movement forward can begin. This is how many of us see the head-mounted displays (HMDs) and smartglasses that have recently entered t ...more

The future of augmented and mixed reality offers many possibilities, mostly because we're still figuring out everything it can do. While Meta is open to exploration, they've spent a lot of time thinking about what the future of this technology will be. We spoke to Ryan Pampli ...more

Just days ago, Georgio Armani canceled his live show in Milan and opted to stream it instead due to coronavirus concerns. Now, at the start of Paris Fashion Week — shadowed by similar worries — Burberry has launched an augmented reality tool that lets you view the latest high ...more

After jumping to the head of the class of augmented reality journalism in 2019, USA Today is continuing to push the medium forward in 2020. The latest AR story from the media company explores one of the biggest stories of 2019 in the Boeing 737 Max aircraft, which the Federal ...more

The world of CES, the annual technology conference in Las Vegas, usually brings a few surprises, but few expected Samsung to fire off its first real augmented reality salvo at the event. But that's exactly what the South Korean company did late Monday when it unveiled a proto ...more

With the defending champion Golden State Warriors and Drake's favorite team, the Toronto Raptors, set to face off in the NBA Finals starting Thursday, Snapchat has gifted hoops fans with a pair of augmented reality experiences. For fans in attendance at the games, Snapchat us ...more

If you've gone anywhere near a television in the US in the last 48 hours, you've probably seen some of the reports of Hurricane Florence and its devastating wind and rain making its way toward the Carolina coast. But if you're not a weather nerd, with your eyes locked on The ...more

When it comes to augmented reality apps, visually immersive experiences are plentiful, but audio experiences are somewhat underrepresented. A new app for iPhones and iPads seeks to shift the AR paradigm toward the latter. Now available via the App Store, the Fields app create ...more

Like Marvel's Avengers, Facebook's Camera AR platform now has a number of new AR superpowers at its disposal, so it is fitting that Earth's Mightiest Heroes have the distinction of displaying them. Available now in via Facebook on iOS and Android, the Avengers: Infinity War A ...more

What do you get a co-worker for Christmas, Hannukah, or Kwanzaa when he or she already has a Meta 2 headset? Last week, Meta Company shared a delightful video of its employees unwrapping virtual Secret Santa gifts through the Meta 2. Gifts included a UFO beaming up dreidels, ...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

Magic Leap took years to launch, but when it did, the company managed to quickly become the leading rival to Microsoft's HoloLens (at least when it comes to experimental immersive experiences). On Friday, Magic Leap continued that journey by holding a different kind of launch ...more

After talking up the Magicverse for the past year and adding new capabilities to Lumin OS to accommodate it, Magic Leap appears to be inching ever closer to actually launching its cross-platform flavor of the AR cloud while introducing a new tool for its development community. ...more

If you need to know whether you are really a Hufflepuff or a Gryffindor, then it's time to get yourself an augmented reality sorting hat. The sorting hat game went live for Harry Potter fans this week within Wizarding World, a new mobile app and website launched by Harry Pott ...more

We already know that major players like Magic Leap have been planting the seeds of augmented reality for mainstream consumers through wireless partnerships with AT&T, NTT Docomo, SK Telecom. But now, one of India's leading telecom companies has joined forces with a much lesse ...more

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, t ...more

In just a few weeks, on May 29, the annual AWE (Augmented World Expo) conference will take place once again in Silicon Valley (Santa Clara, California, to be exact). And while everyone will be on the lookout for the next big thing in augmented reality coming from major player ...more

As one of the leading 3D engines for augmented reality development, a new release of Unity is a significant event that carries the potential to facilitate huge leaps forward in AR content creation. Unity version 2019.1, arriving about a month ahead of the 2018 edition, makes ...more

It's a magical time of year for basketball fans, with the NCAA Tournament in full swing and NBA frontrunners in the midst of their push to clinch spots in the playoffs. To capitalize on the season, Magic Leap is making its own push, highlighting new features in the NBA app fo ...more

News junkies who own the Magic Leap One received some good news on Thursday, as CNN has published an app for the headset to display the network's news coverage in augmented reality. Available immediately, the CNN app carries live news, on-demand programming, and digital exclu ...more

After some social media teasing, the Star Wars universe's Magic Leap debut has finally arrived. On Tuesday, Magic Leap announced the release of Star Wars: Project Prog, which is available for free via Magic Leap World. In addition, ILMxLAB, the immersive entertainment divisi ...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

The tradition of using cutting edge technology to prepare for missions in space, in this case, augmented reality, continues with a new team of international astronauts slated to board the International Space Station (ISS) later this year. On Tuesday, European Space Agency ast ...more

In the aftermath of the launch of the Magic Leap One, Magic Leap has ejected two more executives from their leadership roles. Chief marketing officer Brenda Freeman and chief business officer Rachna Bhasin have been transitioned into advisory roles but will continue to report ...more

Despite the relatively small size of Magic Leap's first annual L.E.A.P. conference, there was a lot to see and experience. Apparently missed by many was one of the best experiences I had at the event: Wingnut AR's unreleased Pest Control game. For those of us who hate bugs, t ...more

As promised last week, Magic Leap has finally released the long-awaited augmented reality game Dr. Grordbort's Invaders. The game, developed by Weta Workshop, is easily the most well known and hyped title among all of the Magic Leap apps (and there aren't many) currently on t ...more

Magic Leap One owners with itchy trigger fingers may have their itch scratched next week, as Magic Leap has shared a brief teaser on Twitter for the long-awaited Dr. Grordbort's Invaders game from Weta Workshop. The video concludes with the Magic Leap logo and the hashtag #le ...more

While many of the latest content partnerships announced by Magic Leap appear to lean towards entertainment and gaming, a new partnership with medical technology provider Brainlab has Magic Leap getting down to more serious business. The companies have arrived at an exclusive ...more

The first mobile augmented reality app out of the gate with support for Magic Leap One Creator Edition is Thyng, who is planning to release the headset version of the app later this year. Available now for iOS and Android using their respective AR toolkits, Thyng enables user ...more

It is almost indisputable that smartglasses and head-worn displays are the future of augmented reality. However, at this precise moment, they are still a very niche market. Those who have been in the presence of a HoloLens, Meta 2, or Magic Leap One have witnessed how powerfu ...more

Facing mixed reviews for the Magic Leap One, Magic Leap has already returned to the lab to improve on the device's successor. On Monday, in a bid to facilitate further innovation and spread its physical footprint, Magic Leap revealed a new Center of Excellence in Lausanne, Sw ...more

The critics of Magic Leap have been circling for a couple of weeks now, but that isn't stopping the company from pushing forward with major new partnerships. The latest Magic Leap tie-up is with none other than motion capture actor Andy Serkis and his UK-based The Imaginarium ...more

Less than 20 days after the launch of Magic Leap One, Mapbox has jumped at the chance to provide its map services to Magic Leap developers through its Maps SDK for Unity. Dubbed the Magic Maps SDK, the toolkit enables developers to pull 3D vector maps, satellite maps, and ele ...more

When Magic Leap One owners unbox their new devices over the next few months (or, if they are lucky, days), they will have some familiar augmented reality news content to consume. That's because the augmented reality coverage available via the NY Time app for iOS and Android w ...more

The annual Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is one of those events that everyone talks about, so an augmented reality experience in the festival's mobile app and from one of its headlining acts, Eminem, basically means the technology is officially cool. The iOS versio ...more

Magic Leap loves to stoke mystery around its still unreleased product, the Magic Leap One: Creator Edition, and now we've found yet another piece of the puzzle in the form of an Easter egg on the company's website. When you hit one of Magic Leap's 404 error pages, you see a s ...more

The future of augmented reality isn't on your smartphone or face, it's in the everyday items all around us. At least that's the belief of Gordon Meyer, the vice president of marketing at New York-based startup Lampix. Meyer joined me recently in New York to talk about why he ...more

Magic Leap has reached a major milestone in the lead-up to the launch of its Magic Leap One: Creator Edition by opening access to its developer portal and software development kit (SDK) to all developers. In a Twitter post, the company announced that it has made the "technica ...more

The legal travails of Magic Leap appear to have no end in sight, as a lawsuit filed by an ex-employee further threatens to dampen the startup's 2018 launch. A new legal complaint has been filed by former Magic Leap worker Kimberly Couto that alleges the company employed hundr ...more

Eventually, even the most private company has to file its patents and unveil its tightly-held secrets, and Magic Leap is no exception. The US Patent and Trademark Office recently published a treasure trove of Magic Leap patent applications that appear to provide more details ...more

Last week, Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz teased his Twitter followers with some "fun and cool stuff" to share in the coming days. On Monday, he made good on that promise, sort of. If you're a fan of Sigur Rós, he hit the right note, but if you were expecting to see what the com ...more

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. Apparently, Iguodala "felt" something in his hand while he w ...more

4DViews, the volumetric capture company that films actors and performers in augmented and virtual reality for things like movies, TV series, and applications, has just released the app 4DViews: Raise Virtual to Reality, to demonstrate its technology for smartphones. The mobil ...more

Magic Leap, the mysterious Florida-based mixed reality start-up, announced on Wednesday that it would be opening a 260,000 square-foot expansion in Florida, and bringing along with it 725 new jobs over a five-year period. To make this happen, they will be making an $150 millio ...more

The coronavirus pandemic has ushered in an unprecedented time in modern history where terms like "social distancing" and "self-quarantine" have pushed their way into the zeitgeist. One of the most popular (and likely most effective) ways that employers have done their part in ...more

The still-unfolding story of China's Nreal augmented reality startup continues to develop, with each turn uncovering another unexpected wrinkle. Now, in a new filing with the courts in its legal battle with Magic Leap, the company has revealed a sudden name change, as well as ...more

The business world is currently figuring out how to deal with the coronavirus crisis, with many offices opting to work remotely for at least the next few weeks as a safety precaution. Predictably, this has thrown remote meeting software back into the spotlight, especially augm ...more

The international profile of augmented reality startup Nreal continues to quietly rise thanks to gradual updates and various strategic branding opportunities. Among the latest and most prominent is the appearance of none other than Hollywood legend Kevin Bacon using the Nreal ...more

Halloween is barely in the rearview mirror, but Coca-Cola is ready to bypass Thanksgiving altogether to accelerate the arrival of Christmas, and the brand has enlisted augmented reality as an accomplice. On Tuesday, the company introduced its holiday packaging for its Coca-Co ...more

With the files on our devices getting more important as the years go by, the need to keep things organized continues to rise. The longer you have a device, the messier the internal storage might become. Having a file manager would be extremely useful in this situation. You cou ...more

We've got almost a full year until the next installment of Ghostbusters arrives, but in the meantime, it turns out that Sony is about to launch an augmented reality experience that will let fans use immersive computing to combat the franchise's whimsical apparitions. Starting ...more

Music producer Mark Ronson, fresh off his Oscar win for Best Original Song as a co-writer of "Shallow," the song by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper for the movie A Star Is Born, has now added augmented reality to his varied repertoire. On Wednesday, Ronson and Sony Music release ...more

The augmented reality cloud will probably be one of the most important pieces of digital real estate in the next few years, and China has no intention of being left out of the virtual land grab. During Huawei's Developer Conference this weekend, the company took the wraps off ...more

The longer it takes Apple, Snapchat, Facebook, and other tech giants to build their own version of augmented reality headsets and smartglasses, the longer runway of practical experience Microsoft gains with the HoloLens and its sequel. The latest example: AR cloning. Count Sa ...more