How to Win on the Bet Games

If you've been following NextReality, you've surely seen me around, or at least have seen my articles. My name is Jason Odom, aka Subere23, and it's about time for a formal introduction. My background primarily falls in the computer game industry, and I have co-owned a small ...more

Throwing a party means making sure everyone has fun, but that pursuit can quickly get out-of-hand. Before you know it, you're once laid back get-together has received so many RSVPs that it becomes obvious you're throwing the party of the century. With an over-abundance of beer ...more

Just as the NCAA men's basketball tournament is set to start later this month, USA Today has decided to trot out an augmented reality mini-basketball game to promote its bracket competition. And while USA Today is prolific publisher of AR news content through its own app, thi ...more

Fast-food chain Jack in the Box has decided to put an augmented reality twist on the traditional sweepstakes promotion by employing the immersive powers of Snapchat. Now through Aug. 18, the chain will run a Jack in the Box AR experience that gives customers a chance to win p ...more

In Mario Kart Tour, you will find that sometimes you are just having a hard time passing the person in front of you. As hard as you try, you have been stuck in second place and you're on the last strip of the track with no items at your disposal. Here is where using a techniqu ...more

The old school staple of many US homes with children, the remote control race track, has been given new life in augmented reality thanks to the Room Racer app for iPhones and iPads. Using ARKit, the app places a miniature race track on a floor or tabletop. The game includes n ...more

If you've been paying attention, you already know that ARKit can detect horizontal surfaces and estimate ambient light, but did you know that it can also help you improve your soccer game? A new app called myKicks uses ARKit to help set up a unique soccer (or "football" if yo ...more

Apple demonstrated their continued interest and investment into the awesome world of augmented reality during their Sept. 12 event, highlighting a few new AR games that will appear on iPhones thanks to ARKit. But that's not all you can expect — as long as you have an iPhone wi ...more

If you've ever wanted to hone your paintball skills, without spending a ton of money and making a huge mess, Show Me Virtual and Apple's ARKit have an app for you. The demo was posted on YouTube and shows how you can master paintball through your phone. Your device acts as a ...more

One of the defining parts of my childhood was getting extremely frustrated with claw machines at arcades. Usually, that was because as fun as they were, they were probably rigged and wouldn't actually grab anything. Which is why a new claw machine demo made with Apple's ARKit ...more

Nvidia's decades-long development of graphics processor units (GPU) for PCs has given it a major leg up in the driverless space. Lead by charismatic founder and CEO Jensen Huang, Nvidia has recently extended its engineering knowhow to add neural networks for machine to its GP ...more

Universal Studios and Cinemark Theaters have enlisted mobile augmented reality game Seek to promote The Mummy, a reboot of the action-adventure film franchise starring summer movie mainstay Tom Cruise. Available as iOS and Android apps, Seek is among a growing number of mobil ...more

At the Microsoft Build 2017 conference in Seattle this past week, 3D application and game platform Unity, partnering with Microsoft, launched a contest that drives HoloLens developers to realize their ideas into a full-fledged application and possibly win money for it. Submis ...more

Unless you had a master of visual effects for a parent, you had to imagine the floor was actually lava when playing the classic furniture-hopping game. With a Microsoft HoloLens, however, you don't have to imagine anything. Video: . Don't Miss: The Red Pill Turns Any Space int ...more

LARPing, or live action role-playing, can look a little silly because it requires a lot of imagination to suspend reality. But mixed reality technology like the Microsoft HoloLens can change all of that with voice commands and special effects. The Medium blog HoloLens Challen ...more

Complex games in mixed reality require a pretty detailed scan of the room, and getting this process right can be both time-consuming and annoying. Computer science students at the University of Washington decided to fix that by turning it into a game. Video: . It's hard to kno ...more

Most smartphone games are clichéd and mundane, but every now and then a mobile game will appear with a new concept or idea that sets it apart from all the rest. While other developers continue to regurgitate the same old "winning" formulas, developer Sebastian Goszyla is chang ...more

In the mid-80s, the Nintendo Entertainment System was released, and it not only revitalized, but also revolutionized the video game industry. With games such as Super Mario Bros., Legend of Zelda, and Metroid, the NES went on to become the best-selling gaming console of its ti ...more

Smartglasses are the future of augmented reality, and Samsung is betting on waveguide maker DigiLens to emerge as a leader in the growing AR wearable industry. On Tuesday, the company closed a $50 million Series C funding round that counts Samsung's venture arm and Pokémon GO ...more

The fortunes of ARKit and ARCore are still in the hands of developers, who have been increasing the number of mobile augmented reality apps on the market, but perhaps not as fast as companies like Apple might have expected. But one new product is looking to literally kickstart ...more

Epic Games just released update v3.4 for Fortnite Battle Royale on all four platforms. This new version brings a number of UI changes, performance improvements, and bug fixes, but the addition that will get the most players excited is a new weapon: the Guided Missile. The Gui ...more

Google's AI investment arm, Gradient Ventures, has joined a $10.5 million round of funding for Ubiquity6 and its platform for shared augmented reality experiences, just weeks after Google's GV fund backed a competing AR cloud platform. The round was led by Index Ventures, wit ...more

Niantic has gotten themselves into a bit of a mess regarding their hit game Pokémon GO recently. The company hosted a fan fest in Chicago earlier this month that ended up being a complete disaster. It was Niantic's first live event which likely had the company shaken after al ...more

Amazon just announced its entry into the set-top streaming content marketplace with its new Fire TV box. Competing directly against Apple TV, Google's Chromecast, and Roku, Amazon is betting on big processing power and voice controls to stand out from the competition. Features ...more

The year leading into fall is turning out to be packed with a flurry of augmented reality activity. Most notably, TikTok is adding another major weapon to its AR arsenal. Also on deck are the powers of Hollywood horror in the form of an innovative approach to AR marketing that ...more

Investors continue to bet on augmented reality, both for short-term returns and long-term plays. This week, Niantic reportedly picked up another round of funding from Samsung and others, based on the success of PokémonGO and the prospects for future revenue. Likewise, investor ...more

Around this time in 2016, the predictions for the next year had reached something of a consensus: 2017 would be the year of augmented reality. But a funny thing happened on the way to the future — nothing much, really. At least not for the first half of the year. It seemed cl ...more

Word games can expand your vocabulary skills in all sorts of exciting and creative ways. Because of this, both the iOS App Store and the Google Play Store are awash with word games, making it hard to differentiate between good and bad titles. This is especially troublesome if ...more

Last month, Leap Motion's vice president of design and global creative director, Keiichi Matsuda (a member of the NR30), suddenly left the company. Just days later, a story leaked that revealed that Leap Motion had twice failed to lock in a potential deal with Apple. Now, as ...more

Now that Google has announced its new Pixel smartphones, folks who rushed to buy an iPhone 7 might be experiencing a bit of buyer's remorse. The new Pixel and Pixel XL are packed to the brim with cutting-edge features and top-notch hardware, and Google seems to be taking direc ...more

Microsoft began shipping the Development Edition of its much-anticipated HoloLens—the world's first untethered holographic computer—back in March. As the name implies, it was only available to developers (we got ours near the end of April), but Microsoft has recently opened up ...more

We started with a static page and evolved to dynamic screens, and making that 2D surface interactive was a relatively straightforward transition in design. But when you can put holographic objects literally anywhere in the room, the way you design apps, games, and experiences ...more

Similar to the feature that lets you dim the light on your PS4's DualShock controller, your Playstation 4 is filled with useful tricks that you may not know about, especially when all you want to do is pick up and play. One of these useful tricks is the ability to turn your TV ...more

Minesweeper is one of those games that everyone plays, but hardly anyone actually knows how to play. Most people just click random squares and see how far they can get. If you don't want to take the time to learn how it works, but still hate losing, computer science student B ...more

Drinking games just got a little more sophisticated (kind of). Startup SmartThings built this awesome Arduino-based machine that automatically pours a shot whenever the US wins a medal in the 2012 Summer Olympics. Goldschläger for gold, Cuervo for silver, and Jack Daniels for ...more

How much screen time is too much for a child? Should you let your children have a smartphone or tablet? What age is appropriate to introduce them to technology? These are just a few tough questions parents face. Research has shown that kids age 8-12 spend up to six hours a da ...more

After entering into settlement talks with Epic Games over the gaming giant's trademark challenge, Nreal is now ready to open up the floodgates to potential early adopters in the augmented reality space. On Thursday, the AR smartglasses maker began taking pre-orders for the Nr ...more

Already among the first game makers to add augmented reality content to an existing game upon the launch of ARKit, Zynga is breaking new ground with mobile AR once again. On Wednesday, the game maker's Custom Street Racer 2 (CSR2) racing game, a free download for iOS and Andr ...more

Magic Leap and Samsung are putting their money where their augmented reality plans are, with the former acquiring an AR collaboration technology and the latter funding a waveguide display maker. Meanwhile, Lenovo and startup Tilt Five are preparing their own augmented reality ...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

Space Ape has soft-launched Go Race: Super Karts, giving you a fresh take on mobile racing games by blending in elements found within the classic Mario Kart series and RPGs for some seriously addicting gameplay. And while it's only available in Australia, Netherlands, and Phil ...more

While it has been slower to arrive than a walker limping through thick Georgia mud, location-based augmented reality game Walking Dead: Our World finally has a confirmed launch date: July 12. Along with a release date, the game's publisher, Next Games, has provided a few more ...more

On Tuesday, at Google's I/O developer conference, the company announced a huge update to its ARCore augmented reality toolkit that matches the latest features of ARKit, and surpasses Apple's AR platform via support for shared experiences. Cloud Anchors is the name Google's ne ...more

Mobile gamers are well aware of this, but zombie shooters have become pretty stagnant and unimaginative in recent years. Too many entries in this genre feature the same cookie-cutter gameplay, but thankfully, Gameloft aims to change this. The company has soft-launched Dead Riv ...more

Spring training has begun in earnest, and to mark MLB's soft debut, GLU has soft-launched a followup to the smash hit MLB Tap Sports Baseball 2017 in Canada. While MLB Tap Sports Baseball 2018 is still technically unavailable outside of Canada, you can actually play this game ...more

Although The New York Times may have won the race in terms of presenting coverage of the 2018 Winter Olympics through augmented reality first, The Washington Post is nevertheless working to compete in AR in a different way—via gaming. This week, the newspaper published an AR ...more

A new survey of game developers paints a somewhat less than rosy future for augmented reality gaming, but there's still some hope for its long-term prospects. The Game Developers Conference, which is holding its annual event in March in San Francisco, recently surveyed about ...more

On Friday, game developer PreviewLabs released the first online multiplayer game for the Microsoft HoloLens. Available for free on the Microsoft Store, Buggy Blasters is a real-time strategy game in which players place and navigate armies of virtual remote control cars. Using ...more

Exotic sports cars are the province of the ridiculously wealthy but, thanks to augmented reality, you can now get closer than ever to a Bugatti Chiron. Social and mobile gaming powerhouse Zynga has updated the iOS version of its popular racing game meets Fast & Furious simula ...more

Just one day before the retail release of the iPhone X, Apple CEO Tim Cook trumpeted the company's continued success during an earnings call with reporters conducted via telephone. And while he rolled out the expected glowing praise for the new iPhone, what stood out most was ...more

Though the Golden State Warriors won the crown as the NBA's best team again this season, the Sacramento Kings continue their rule as the sport's technology leader, debuting their new uniforms from Nike through augmented reality today. With an assist from Zappar's augmented re ...more

Winter is here, which means we have a lot of questions about the coming season of Game of Thrones. It's hard finding someone who cares enough to listen to you rant about why Jon Snow is the rightful ruler of Westeros. It's also hard to figure out who exactly everyone is and is ...more

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 a ...more

Verizon could be getting in on the autonomous vehicle party, judging by its recent investment in driverless software company Renovo Motors. The Wall Street Journal reports that Verizon's (strategic) generosity was part of a $10 million round led by venture capital firm True V ...more

Asobo Studios, one of the first companies to partner with Microsoft on HoloLens development, is applying their expertise towards building applications for various business verticals through their internal HoloForge Interactive team. Their latest proof of concept is a holograp ...more

Netmarble's ChronoBlade, a mobile role-playing game, has made its way to iOS and Android by way of a soft launch that will make it exclusive to users in Canada and Singapore for a couple of months. Its console-quality graphics and extra features will surely make it a hit when ...more

Before the iPhone 7 models were released, there were many rumors pointing to the inclusion of wireless charging, which obviously didn't happen. Now the rumor mill is back at it again for Apple's next smartphone, most likely being called the iPhone 8, and the possibility of wir ...more

The HoloLens opens up new, digital locales within our physical world, so it was only natural for the HoloLens Challenge to ask developers to create a portal into one. One developer rose to the task and gave life to wall art, turning it into an interactive game called Future Bo ...more

Virtual reality and horror were meant for each other. You'll get all the positive aspects of experiencing a terrifying situation such as excitement and an adrenaline rush, without any of the real-life consequences, like being ripped to shreds by a herd of flesh-eating monsters ...more

Android's Google Play Games app has let you track your feats and accomplishments in the games you play for quite a while now, but for some, the immersion experience might be broken after you finish dominating a game only to see your regular-ass name from your Google account on ...more