If you've ever wanted to hang out with a flying unicorn that sounds like actor/comedian Patton Oswalt, get ready to get Happy! NBC Universal Media's new augmented reality mobile app promotes the new series "Happy!" on the SYFY channel. The app brings to life the title charact ...more
With the advent of ARKit, apps that can place virtual furniture in a real room have become nearly a universal practice for furniture retailers, with Pottery Barn being the latest to join the fray. While it might seem as though Pottery Barn is playing catch-up with the likes o ...more
If you're like me, you probably have a wishlist of Android games you'd love to buy, except the high price tags keep you away. A few bucks can feel like a fortune in the Google Play Store — you just can't bring yourself to pay that much. Well, lucky for you, Google Play has som ...more
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. The makeup giant just made its virtual try-on mirror, featuring 29 cu ...more
If DroneBase's new AR platform inspires even half the creativity among its users as Minecraft did with its community, then drone pilots are about to enjoy acres of blocky worlds to explore among the clouds. That new platform is called AirCraft, and it's available as a beta fe ...more
The Oreo Beta for Samsung's Galaxy S8 and S8+ is official and available to download on your device. Now that we have the update in hand, we've started detailing several of the changes and features. We've already looked at the new Notification Channels functionality, so in this ...more
The bandwagon for NFL teams using augmented reality to engage fans isn't exactly full, but it is starting to get a bit crowded. The Philadelphia Eagles (iPhone | Android), the Houston Texans (iPhone | Android), and the Denver Broncos (iPhone | Android) are the latest teams to ...more
For those who enjoy the finer things in life, premium Scottish distillery The Macallan is bringing an augmented reality art gallery, viewable through the high-priced Microsoft HoloLens, to select cities in celebration of whisky season. The Gallery 12 hosts interactive art pie ...more
Update 10/22: We were curious to see if the transparency was available when you activate the Pixel 2's automatic dark theme by setting a dark wallpaper, and we're happy to report that it is! Google doesn't really use an OEM skin on its new Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL, but they've ...more
Until Star Wars Jedi Challenges arrives in November, a forthcoming ARKit revision of HoloGrid: Monster Battle from Tippett Studios and Happy Giant, might be the closest most Star Wars fans can get to playing the HoloChess game from the movie. While it lacks the official Star ...more
When Apple introduced ARKit earlier this year, they trotted out IKEA as one of the companies it was working with to build an augmented reality app that lets customers see furniture as it would appear in their home. While the Swedish furniture monger did not make an appearance ...more
In June at the eMerge Americas investors conference, Magic Leap founder (and NR50 member) Rony Abovitz proclaimed that the launch of their flagship product was "not far away." Nearly three months later, an eternity in the tech world, and we have not heard an official launch d ...more
At IFA in Berlin today, Sony introduced the latest models of the Xperia line, with new features in tow that should appeal to creators of augmented and virtual reality content. The Xperia XZ1 and XZ1 Compact both carry the Motion-Eye camera that can capture video at 960 frames ...more
The total solar eclipse is just a few days a way and everyone is buzzing about it. It will be visible in the US from Oregon to South Carolina with 16.5 million people able to view it. However, the other 306 million people in the US are out of luck when it comes to viewing the ...more
CyberTimez and the Wounded Warrior Program, using the Vuzix M300 monocular smartglasses, are teaming up to help supply veterans with little to no sight. The overarching goal here is helping these injured service members to find a new level of independence in a sight driven wor ...more
The app SketchAR is an easy, innovative way to trace what you want to draw onto the canvas of your choice. It was first released on iOS and Android Tango phones, but now, finally, it has been released on Microsoft's HoloLens. SketchAR uses computer vision to scan the environm ...more
With mobile developers near and far primed to implement augmented reality into their iOS apps with Apple's ARKit, uSens offers them a new tool for markerless location tracking. The tracking solutions provider announced today that they have developed an inside-out positional t ...more
Lazy makeup enthusiasts, this new service is what you've been waiting for! Makeup giant Estee Lauder's latest project incorporates augmented reality to help customers test out their lipsticks without even getting out of bed. The company collaborated with Modiface — a group th ...more
Wise Snacks wants baseball fans to reach for potato chips instead of peanuts and Cracker Jacks, and it's calling augmented reality out of the bullpen to close the deal. The snack maker has partnered with two Major League Baseball teams, the Atlanta Braves and the New York Met ...more
Developers are really having a field day with Apple's ARKit, announced last month. Since it's release to developers, videos have been appearing all over the Internet of the different ways that developers are getting creative with the ARKit using iPhones and iPads. Here are a ...more
A new cross-licensing patent deal signed by Nokia and Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi will bring increased collaboration between the two companies. One area of focus in which both Nokia and Xiaomi have already agreed to work together is augmented reality. Don't Miss: Augmente ...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
Honestly, this deal is pretty sweet. As of today, Amazon has added five new devices to their "Prime Exclusive Phones" program. The program allows Prime users to buy midrange handsets unlocked at a discount that goes up to $80. Of course, there's a little catch. Users who buy ...more
Say goodbye to boring video chats over Messenger. Now the app is rolling out new features that can make any chat interesting and fun. There are a ton of them too, ranging from filters, to AR masks, to reactions. Reactions can be found by clicking on the 'thumbs up' icon at t ...more
Instagram Stories is one of the most flexible ways to share creative and original content with your followers. It allows you to alter text, markup images, and add cool graphics and stickers, along with other fun ways of expressing yourself. The way you can use Stories goes be ...more
Android O doesn't have an official code name yet, but it's certainly got plenty of cool new features. The OS won't officially debut until Q3 2017, but we've gotten our hands on some of the updated stock apps thanks to the Android beta program. Developer krisyarno went ahead a ...more
With the hype surrounding the iPhone 8, Apple's announcement that it's developing driverless software, and the new iOS 11 beta out, it seems like the tech giant is constantly in the news. Today, Apple's continuing this streak with updates for its iWork app suite on iOS and mac ...more
Vuzix Corporation has lifted the preorder status on its M300 Smart Glasses, making the augmented reality device available for purchase by resellers, registered developers, enterprises, and consumers. The M300 is targeted for business use-cases, particularly industrial, constr ...more
This week, augmented reality spawns in the world of online role-playing games with a soft launch down under from an indie game developer. Meanwhile, in Asia, another startup wins a coveted award for its AR headset. Finally, an established player in the mobile AR touches up its ...more
Samsung has some competition as LG may be incorporating OLED panels for their new flagship V30 launching later this year. Last month, it emerged that the "other" South Korean company would be preparing to mass produce curved OLED panels, which may be featured on the LG V30. L ...more
Kik is an extremely popular messaging app, but it has a few annoying features that we all just sort of put up with. You can't turn off read receipts, nor can you hide when you're typing, and the photos you take with Kik's camera show up differently than ones you send from your ...more
Firefox Focus has been out for iOS for a while now, so it's about time Mozilla began porting the app over to Android. It's an amazingly private browser that protects you from trackers and ads when you're surfing the web. It blocks a wide range of online trackers, erases your b ...more
Stop me if you've heard this one before. You plop a marshmallow down in front of a kid and propose the following: You can eat this marshmallow now, or you can wait twenty minutes and eat two marshmallows. What do you think the kid is going to do? Better still, what do you thin ...more
Bose Corp is the latest company trying to make another dollar off of you without your permission. Bose Connect, the companion app to the swag $350 Bose headphones, is not the Jane to your Jack that maybe we all hoped it to be. Yesterday, Kyle Zak filed a lawsuit against Bose ...more
Reddit user Mr. Squishy recreated the entire Game Boy Pokémon Red Version game in Vanilla Minecraft, i.e., a Minecraft server without gameplay modifications. Instead of using mods, he used 357,000 commands blocks—blocks that execute commands in the popular sandbox game. How lo ...more
Here's another workday distraction for all you social media lovers out there: Pasted, launching out of beta today on iOS, is a simple collage and photo editing app mixing iconic '90s imagery with a love of the The Shins. Founded by Zeke Howard and Ben Fogarty of Spruced LLC, ...more
Soon, users will no longer need an expensive headset or even a smartphone to experience mixed reality. The new Microsoft update will be bringing mixed reality applications to every Windows computer next month. This new upgrade to Windows 10 named the Windows 10 Creators Update ...more
Augmented reality seems to be the talk of the town lately, with everything from glasses to furniture stores prepping to implement exciting, new AR technology. Well now, it looks like even our food is getting a makeover for the augmented reality future. Dr. Katsunori Okajima, ...more
Crayon, a free 3D drawing application by the mysteriously named arkalian, showed up in the Windows Store recently, so I gave it a try like I do all new apps for Windows Holographic. Truthfully, I loaded it up not expecting much, but wow, was I wrong. It's a simple idea, but it ...more
A few days before Christmas last year, we saw the first glimpse of HoloSuit, a new motion controller by startup Kaaya Tech. This full-body motion controller is designed as a tracksuit with sensors that can be used to control devices such as a computer or Microsoft HoloLens, an ...more
HoloLens developer Michael Peters of In-Vizible has released quite a few videos since receiving his HoloLens last year. Many of his experiments are odd and funny, but some include serious potential approaches to data visualization. In the videos embedded below, you'll specific ...more
Unity released the Beta 5.6 on December 13 with a bunch of new upgrades in the works, including support for Vulkan, better instancing options, and more improvements to particles—to name just a few that are potentially relevant to the mixed reality community. And today, Decembe ...more
Ah, ginger. From stir fry to smoothies, ginger is a reliably sharp and refreshing flavor that adds zing to everything it touches. It may be a pain in the ass to remove the skin from ginger (or not), but the zest it brings to food is well worth the trouble. Don't Miss: How to B ...more
As the first phones to be made by Google, the new Pixel and Pixel XL have several slick customizations that you won't find on any other Android device. There's tons of functional stuff like the new Google Assistant and a much-improved camera app, but also a few aesthetic tweak ...more
Video game emulation has saved arcade and console classics from obsolescence, and that wonderful hobby has found its way onto the Microsoft HoloLens—with some three dimensional upgrades, of course. If you own a Windows PC, you may have heard about 3DNes, a Nintendo Entertainm ...more
We're inching closer towards the singularity—that point where technology advances to the steepest slope of the logistic function S-curve and simply skyrockets at a rate we've never seen before. Somewhere along the way, the line between humans and the tech we rely on will becom ...more
Android Nougat came with a lot of new features, including a futuristic and sleek circle animation. When this article was originally published, it was rumored that the circular design would be used as the new boot animation in Android 7.0—but as it turns out, you'll only see th ...more
Last year's inaugural Amazon Prime Day may have been a bit of a bust, but the online retail giant seems to be making up for it this year with some killer deals. Google Nexus 6P Chief among them is the phenomenal deal on Huawei's popular Nexus 6P for 25% off either the 64 GB ...more
How do you safely store your augmented, virtual, or mixed reality headset when you're not using it? Cybust hopes you're willing to shell out $89 to display it like a sculpture around your house. Don't Miss: What's the Difference Between Augmented, Virtual, & Mixed Reality? ...more
The new Google phones, which are rumored to ditch the Nexus moniker for Pixel, will most likely come with an Android feature that 7.0 Nougat doesn't currently have—a new set of navigation keys. Don't Miss: Get Android Nougat Features on Your Marshmallow Device The new phone ...more
It looks as though Samsung will continue to tone down the look of TouchWiz, according to a leaked look at the newest "Grace" user interface for the upcoming Galaxy Note 7. HDblog, who acquired the leaked UI, shows off the beta version of the new skin in their video below. Don ...more
When we think of pickling, we usually think of using veggies like cucumbers, carrots, and peppers. However, with summer upon us, we found ourselves thinking about fancy pickled berries as a novel way to use all those gorgeous gems that are popping up at the market. We did a l ...more
Several Samsung phones have a feature that turns the screen black and white when the battery is getting low. This takes advantage of the AMOLED display in these devices, because unlike red, green, and blue pixels, no battery power is used to display black pixels on this type o ...more
When Hey Siri was first introduced in iOS 8, it was a pretty lackluster feature since you had to be plugged into a power source in order to even use it. Since then, newer devices (iPhone 6s, 6s Plus, SE, 9.7-inch iPad Pro) don't need to plug in to have always-on Siri, which ma ...more
When Android Nougat is released sometime this fall (or sooner), a new feature called "Quick Reply" will allow users to respond to incoming text messages directly from the notification. It will definitely be nice to carry on a conversation without leaving the screen you're curr ...more
Don't Miss: Revolutionary Pasta Hacks You Need to Know Homemade lasagna is a delicious, irresistible comfort food—but not if you're the one making it. Handling lasagna noodles can be a painful process that leaves you clutching hot noodles with sore, bare hands—something that ...more
Summertime means lots of parties, picnics, and barbecues—and wherever a group of fun-loving adults can be found basking in the sun's rays, delicious cocktails are sure to flow freely. The larger the party, however, the more glasses there are to keep track of. That leads to a ...more
This week has been quite a successful one for Google, thanks to non-stop news coverage of their developer-focused I/O conference. Now, there's even more reason for the buzz as they've just announced that Project Ara, their modular smartphone that could revolutionize the indus ...more
Google first introduced Google Home, its latest smart product in the works, at the company's I/O conference in May 2016. It will directly compete against Amazon's Echo, which has so far been a success with over 3 million devices sold, and it was even featured as FBI Agent Dom' ...more
Images of the newest Moto X flagship phones surfaced over the weekend, and it looks like Motorola has a cool new feature in store for the handsets, which are tentatively titled Vertex and Vector Thin. There are 12 dots near the bottom on the backs of each phone in the photos, ...more