Kinects

Facial recognition software is being more widely used with every passing day. Your local law enforcement is probably already using it, and it will be even easier for them now that the FBI handed out its own facial recognition software to state authorities. Even the fine folks ...more

It isn't a new gadget, but the EyeClops Mini Projector still makes a great stocking stuffer for Christmas Day. It's great for kids to play with, but for techies— it's sure to be something fun to hack and mod this holiday season. The EyeClops Mini Projector looks more like Wal ...more

The Kinect for Xbox 360 and PlayStation Move might be fun to play with, but people do not look very cool while they're doing it. Air guitar is not particularly flattering (even if done on stage), and neither is air-anything else, as pleasurable as it might be. This is why I fi ...more

The Microsoft HoloLens has a fairly passionate, yet relatively small group of users pushing the developer-centric device forward, mostly spreading the word about the device through word of mouth and meetups. But this weekend, during the annual NBA All-Star festivities, we got ...more

Is that House? Built in Minecraft? Well, time to cross out one more item off my bucket list! As inspiration for this week's Minecraft-themed Tuesday Giveaway (enter here to win an awesome Minecraft Pickaxe!), I present a roundup of amazing things found in Minecraft. The great ...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

While the next-generation HoloLens does not have a launch date yet, we now have a better idea of how big a leap the device will take in terms of depth sensor performance. At the recent Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, held in Salt Lake City, Utah in June ...more

I used to have nightmares when I watched Terminator 2. I mean, I didn't step on a playground for a least two months after I saw that movie. There was something terrifying about computers having so much intelligence. Video: . But that was then and this is now. Terminator was wa ...more

When you wear a holographic computer on your face, you gain some things and lose others. That's certainly the case when using Skype in Microsoft's HoloLens. Some video chats will work better because your caller can see what you see, rather than your face—but others just feel w ...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

Turkey's been consumed, you've awakened from the food coma, and you've escaped the madness of Black Friday. Isn't it about time you tackle a new project? We've got some great new projects for you to help illuminate the darkness of winter. Make your own electroluminescent (EL) ...more

Communication is the key to any healthy relationship, and when I say any, I mean human and non-human. Previously, one of the biggest culprits for not understanding what you meant was Siri, but now it looks like it has some competition with the new Kinect system, which can cont ...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

One of the biggest video games events of the year is about to happen in Japan tomorrow, when the Tokyo Game Show (TGS) kicks off. If you've never heard of it, just think of it as the E3 of the East—a video game extravaganza open to both businesses (Thursday and Friday) and the ...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

With the nation facing a shortage of ventilators for COVID-19 patients and no apparent ramp-up in the production of new ones, engineers, medical resistents, and do-it-yourselfers are sharing plans for homemade versions. But before you go online to start ordering parts for any ...more

Thanks to Flutter, it's now possible to control the music on your computer simply by making a few hand gestures. The app is available for both Windows and Mac and uses your computer's webcam to monitor your hand movements. Through the use of a few simple hand movements, you ca ...more

Since the early genesis of the brilliant Microsoft Kinect hack, inventive applications have been popping up nonstop. One of the most fascinating projects to surface recently falls within the realm of 3D printing. "Fabricate Yourself"—a hack presented at the Tangible, Embedded ...more

"Necessity, not novelty," is a phrase I use often when it comes to HoloLens development. It would be fair to call it my mantra, or mission statement, as I prototype and explore software creation on this new frontier of mixed reality. "What kind of experiences will keep people ...more

Walking, talking, life-size holograms aren't just for staging Hatsune Miku concerts and reviving Tupac, Michael Jackson, and other fallen stars. Holographic technology company VNTANA hacked the Microsoft Kinect to simplify the creation of life-size, 3D projections. For exampl ...more

Video games have been a purely digital medium for some decades now. They exist in the electronic nether, embedded on discs and projected on screens. Since digital distribution has gained popularity, even the physical manifestation of the game disc is going away, leaving games ...more

The relationship between developers and publishers in the video game industry has always been awkward. Many great game developers such as Bizzare Creations, Clover Studio, and Bullfrog Productions have been disbanded due to corporate shenanigans involving their publishers and ...more

Xe Systems, the Private-Defense-Contractor-Formerly-Known-As-Blackwater, has been busy attempting to re-brand themselves. They have a new name, several new sub-names, and have at least titularly shifted their focus to training rather than mercenary work. Controversial founder ...more

Deepak Chopra is one of the last people you'd think to be associated with video games. He's a new age spiritual icon who's built an empire on self-help books and speaking tours, one of which my Marin County liberal parents deigned to drag me to in middle school. Recently, a ne ...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 addition of a new research mode for Microsoft HoloLens will enable researchers and developers to tap into a wider range of data collected by the device's sensors. Available in the Windows 10 RS4 update for HoloLens, application code in Research Mode can access computer vi ...more

Beginning in November, National Football League (NFL) fans visiting New York's Times Square can come as close as any civilian can to stepping onto a professional football field. All for less than the price of a pair of cleats. Today, the NFL unveiled details of the NFL Experi ...more

A new contender has entered the mixed reality ring. San Fransisco-based Occipital has just released an "Explorer Edition" of Bridge—an iPhone-based mixed and virtual reality headset that uses their popular Structure Sensor. At a fraction of the cost of a HoloLens developers ki ...more

We've highlighted the projects of Wavelength Studios a few times over recent months for their work in the augmented and mixed reality space. Since receiving their HoloLens headsets, they've been hard at work on both development community projects as well as efforts for clients ...more

The App Store has been around for almost 14 years now, and during that time, we must have seen over a million games come and go and stay and expand. But only a tiny fraction of those games have become blockbuster sensations because of the mighty App Store's reach on iPhone and ...more

Rumors are swirling today that NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) may have shown us the first public glimpse of the next-generation HoloLens. Are they real? Or just a prototype? We've been digging in all day to find the answers. The "Leaked" HoloLens In a video published ...more

Facebook may have shamelessly copied Snapchat and its camera effects for faces (as well as its World Lenses), but it might beat its social media competitor to virtual body augmentation. The AI Camera Team at Facebook has developed a method for detecting body poses and separat ...more

If you powered up the ol' Xbox 360 last night to watch Netflix, you probably noticed that a new streaming service moved into Xbox LIVE—Hulu Plus. Netflix finally has some competition. Or maybe not. But with a week of free service, they're sure to attract some would-be watchers ...more

This week, we take a break from the holidays and focus on one of our favorite pastimes: video games. With new releases, hacks, and Easter eggs coming out every day, it's easy to be overwhelmed by the choices available. Never fear: we're here to help you sort out the wheat from ...more

Back to the Future Part II missed wildly on many technological advances for the year 2015, such as flying cars and rehydration ovens. However, it connected on several predictions, such as video calling and biometric security, and it was in the ballpark (pun intended) on others ...more

Update: The LG G8 ThinQ has been announced. You can read all of the official specs at our full article on the new phone. 2018 was another rough year for LG. The mobile division lost over $700 million last year despite releasing four flagship-caliber phones. LG, however, remai ...more

It's almost time for the new Xbox 360 dashboard to invade gamers everywhere. Microsoft expects to update the Xbox Live user interface sometime next month, which is said to be the most significant update to the dashboard since the NXE update three years ago. This new Metro-base ...more

Now that Microsoft has squarely focused on the enterprise market with the HoloLens 2, it appears Lenovo is content to play follow-the-leader with its new augmented reality headset. On May 13 at its Accelerate conference in Orlando, Florida, Lenovo unveiled the ThinkReality pl ...more

The streets of Tokyo are about to get a lot scarier (or more awesome), after Suidobashi Heavy Industries unveiled their latest project: a 13-foot tall, customizable, piloted robot. It's armed to the teeth with a water bottle rocket launcher and a BB Gatling gun capable of firi ...more

The next phase of the holographic display is upon us, and Looking Glass is aggressively making sure that it's at the tip of the spear when it comes to leading that charge. On Tuesday, the Brooklyn, New York, and Hong Kong-based startup unveiled the latest in its product line, ...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

We can't be in two places at once, but with virtual touch interfaces we can theoretically use a machine to act as our second body in a remote location. Over at MIT, Daniel Leithinger and Sean Follmer, with the advisement of Hiroshi Ishii, created an interface that makes this p ...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

A woman from space that who has been dead hundreds of years has been resurrected on the internet and you're the IT assigned to fight the viruses attacking her. Child of Eden is a mesmerizing musical game, with fluid animations, great game play, and lots of replay ability. Pla ...more

Apple CEO Tim Cook has said that augmented reality (or, AR for short) will "change everything." But what, exactly, is augmented reality? Generally, augmented reality refers to the process of presenting virtual objects and imagery — usually through a wearable lens or external ...more

When Microsoft unveiled Mesh a couple of weeks ago, the move revealed a major part of Microsoft's next steps toward dominating the augmented reality space, particularly with regard to enterprise customers. But aside from the general details contained in the announcement, what ...more

As I've mentioned in recent days, it was refreshing to discover that Microsoft's HoloLens 2 stage production was every bit as accurate as presented (check out my hands-on test of the device for more on that). But beyond watching Microsoft's deft HoloLens 2 stagecraft, and try ...more

In response to Sony unveiling its own holographic display back in October, Looking Glass Factory CEO Shawn Frayne quickly penned a letter welcoming the electronics mainstay to the field, with a post-script teasing the reveal of their own for December of 2020. That day is fina ...more

Mimesys, whose core focus has always been about creating holographic representations of humans for virtual and augmented reality, has released a video showing off their holographic communication platform in action. This new communication tool uses a combination of virtual real ...more

Any sufficiently cool new technology will be immediately repurposed to do something even cooler. Such is the case with Apple's iPhone X and its Animoji feature, which has led to something completely unanticipated: Animoji karaoke. The best example of this new pastime being en ...more

Most sandboxes wait for children on a playground or the occasional zen garden raking. This one combines light, sand, and depth cameras to create a completely malleable topographical map you can alter with a brush of your hand. Video: . Gary Glesener, director of the Modeling a ...more

Here at NextReality, we talk a lot about the many different ways of controlling holograms in the HoloLens and other augmented and mixed reality devices; New and creative ways are coming more and more every day. Most recently is something called the HoloSuit. In the 25-second c ...more

Microsoft dropped a couple of huge bombs at their Windows 10 event Wednesday afternoon. Free operating systems and holographic glasses? This must be a Sci-Fi novel or a Hollywood blockbuster, because it reeks of fiction. As it turns out, we are indeed living in a world where ...more

The contenders: PS3: Singstar Dance 360: Harmonix's Dance Central Wii: Just Dance 2 Out of the three 'god do I really dance like that?' upcoming games, which one is better? Singstar Dance will come out for the PS3 using the new Move controllers and Harmonix (Rock Band) wil ...more

Some of the big guns developing augmented reality technology fired shots at their competitors with announcements and leaked plans this week. Enterprise augmented reality software and hardware makers were served notice by Microsoft when the company strengthened its own offerin ...more

The spirit of Google's Tango augmented reality platform lives on at Vivo, a China-based company that has developed its own 3D sensor for mobile devices. Presented during this week's Mobile World Congress in Shanghai, the smartphone maker revealed its new the time-of-flight (T ...more

A group of researchers from Stanford University and Princeton University has put together the largest RGB-D video dataset to date with over 1,500 scans of over 700 different locations across the world, for a total of 2.5 million views. This dataset, called ScanNet, has been s ...more

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

Years ago, in 2013, Occipital introduced its original Structure Sensor for iOS, a mobile 3D scanning device for measuring three-dimensional objects. Soon after, in an unrelated deal, Apple acquired PrimeSense, the company that made one of the components for Occipital's scannin ...more

James Ashley, Atlanta-based Microsoft MVP and author of Beginning Kinect Programming with Microsoft Kinect, has been running monthly challenges since around the release of the HoloLens Developers Kits. Each month, those of us who follow what happens in the community can look f ...more