People fear virtual reality will isolate us, but the right experience can prove it does the opposite. AltspaceVR is a virtual world you can utilize to chat with others around the world, but that's not all. You can also play card and board games, a game of laser tag, or a song ...more
Microsoft's enjoyed being the only mixed reality headset on the block for a little while, but the Meta 2 intends to join the party very soon. According to UploadVR, in a couple of weeks they'll begin shipping alpha versions of their headset with improved hand tracking. Don't ...more
When we got our first look at US Army soldiers testing Microsoft's modified HoloLens 2 last year, it still looked very much like the commercial edition, with some additional sensors attached. Today, the prototype Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS), produced under an ...more
This week, Google showed off some wild new and innovative AR experiences that showcase the WebXR protocol for browser-based AR content, while 8th Wall applied its own web-based AR platform in service of Captain Morgan. Meanwhile, other brands, including Hulu, Coinbase, and Ra ...more
When it comes to augmented reality wearables, it's currently an enterprise world. As such, Magic Leap's latest Lumin updates are centered on features that appeal to enterprise customers. And Epson and Spinar are joining forces with a solution for distributed workforces. Mean ...more
People fundamentally distrust magicians. And they should. The illusions they proffer are just that, illusions meant to astound rather than tangible interactions and results that have weight and meaning in our real world. Our lizard brains know this, and, no matter what the out ...more
After establishing itself as a leader among media companies in augmented reality in journalism over the course of 2018, The New York Times pulled back from the technology this year. But this week, the media giant finally returned to the AR space to produce a story on air poll ...more
What if, back in 2013, Google Glass had launched not as a Star Trek Borg-like eyepiece, but as a pair of seemingly normal shades, with the augmented reality lens and camera hidden within the frame? Google Glass has been almost permanently tagged with the "glasshole" moniker, ...more
Ten days after Magic Leap declared that it had selected the winners of its Independent Creators Program, the company has officially released an almost full list of grant recipients. For its first round of grants, the company filtered its submission pool of more than 6,500 app ...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
Despite funding difficulties that forced Meta to place employees on temporary leave in September, the augmented reality headset maker is reminding enterprise companies that it remains a viable option for visualizing and working with 3D design models. Earlier this month, Amar ...more
The team at Magic Leap just got a millennial-style boost with the announcement that financial news network Cheddar is coming to the Magic Leap One. Cheddar CEO Jon Steinberg revealed the news in a surprise tweet early Tuesday morning. Don't Miss: Hands-On with Magic Leap's A ...more
In a leaked company memo, Snap CEO (and NR30 member) Evan Spiegel has made it clear that the future of the company lies not only augmented reality but also hardware that enables those AR experiences. In other words, Snap is definitely planning on getting into the smartglasses ...more
People say that money makes the world go 'round. And it's no different in the world of augmented reality. If there are any doubts about the future of the AR industry, it doesn't seem like many venture capitalists or corporate investors share those doubts. According to Digi-Ca ...more
Last month was a whirlwind for the augmented reality industry, with the Augmented World Expo, Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, and an exciting Magic Leap Twitch livestream all wrapping up before the ides of June. Now that we've had a chance to fully digest it all, we h ...more
Last week's Augmented World Expo felt like a distant memory by this Monday, as Apple unveiled ARKit 2.0 at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference. Certainly, this news would overshadow anything augmented reality this week as it nearly eclipsed AWE when early reports leaked ...more
On Wednesday, June 6, the people at Magic Leap finally (FINALLY) decided to give the public a dedicated, slow, feature-by-feature walkthrough of the Magic Leap One: Creator Edition. How was it? About as good as it gets without actually getting to see what images look like thro ...more
China-based virtual reality headset maker ANTVR has decided to enter the augmented reality space, and to do so it's launching its headset on Kickstarter. The company claims that its new Mix AR device has a field of view that surpasses the Meta 2, the HoloLens, and others withi ...more
The augmented reality business was all about audiences this week. Vuzix looked for an audience with the Supreme Court of New York regarding a defamation lawsuit against an investor. Magic Leap held an audience with royalty, showing off the Magic Leap One in a rare public appe ...more
Just days after Bose did its best to frame a pair of glasses frames with spatial audio as "augmented reality," a patent application from Magic Leap, surfaced on Thursday, March 15, offers a similar idea, but with real AR included. The patent application refers to the Magic Le ...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
After announcing another massive round of funding to the tune of $502 million, Magic Leap is adding another powerful weapon to its creative arsenal: John Gaeta, the man who helped develop the iconic Bullet Time effect for The Matrix series of films. Gaeta made the announcemen ...more
For a company who hasn't released a product and has a reputation for being secretive, Magic Leap sure has a tendency to make waves. Over the past few weeks, they've refreshed their website design, released an abstract YouTube video, and announced a partnership with Madefire to ...more
What happens when a entrepeneur/theme park creator and special effects artist/magician team up? You get a team crazy enough to create the first true virtual reality theme park (sorry, Six Flags). They only have a single experience so far, but it's already taken a giant leap be ...more
Magic Leap has had a rough couple of years, highlighted by high-profile executive departures, lawsuits, troublesome patent shuffles, and massive layoffs. Despite this, things seem to have calmed down at the augmented reality startup under Peggy Johnson, but there are still qu ...more
The last few weeks were fairly busy in the realm of augmented reality and remote meetings developments. Most of that activity was generated by some mammoth announcements from Snap and its Spectacles AR smartglasses, and Google, with its Project Starline experimental holographi ...more
Just as predicted (but perhaps with less fanfare than usual), Apple has made the move of adding a depth sensor to the rear camera of its latest edition of the iPad Pro. What is surprising is the type of sensor it is, and that plot twist raises the level of intrigue for Apple' ...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
Bus stops can provide shelter in the event of rain, and now they also protect you from augmented reality squid. Surprising recent commuters at bus stops in Los Angeles and New York, outdoor media company Outfront Media used the cover of night to add Watchmen-inspired augmente ...more
Higher-fidelity 3D content and next-generation AR experiences take more computing power than most modern AR headsets and mobile devices can handle. But Nvidia is introducing a new cloud-based solution to address that need that will stream AR content to modern devices. During ...more
The landscape of augmented reality marketing is growing by leaps and bounds nearly every month, with Hollywood and the cosmetics industry leading the way. But increasingly, the alcohol industry is coming up with interesting ways to ply its liquid wares in virtual space, the l ...more
It looks like Jaunt's pivot from VR to volumetric captures services for augmented reality experiences has paid off. That's because Verizon has now acquired the company for an undisclosed amount, per a brief announcement issued by Jaunt on Monday. Don't Miss: The Future of Au ...more
Now that we've had our hands on the Magic Leap One for almost a year and early adopter developers have had the opportunity to publish apps for the AR headset, it's time to see how it stands up against the rigors of a day at the office. We did just that, and we wrote about it! ...more
The Association for Computing Machinery's annual Siggraph conference, taking place next week in Los Angeles, will bring researchers from around the to show off their latest innovations in imaging and display technology. This year, the conference has a new headlining act, as M ...more
Trying to figure out which music streaming service to subscribe to can be a difficult task when the playing field is so crowded. Each has its benefits, as well as downsides, so finding the right one for your needs and wants can take a lot of overwhelming research. But we've do ...more
In a legal brief entered on Monday, Florida-based startup Magic Leap has filed suit against the founder of Nreal, a former employee of Magic Leap, claiming that the company's Nreal Light smartglasses were built using Magic Leap's intellectual property. The documents, which we ...more
The collaboration between Magic Leap and Wacom, which was first announced during last year's L.E.A.P. conference is progressing rapidly. And now we have a little more information in the way of a visual demonstration shown off by Nobutaka Ide, Wacom's CEO. Don't Miss: Hands-O ...more
The idea of remote assistant apps in augmented reality has been taking off in the last couple of years, but Epson is introducing a differing kind of solution for companies that may benefit from a more straightforward dynamic before going full-on immersive with higher-end AR re ...more
After improving hand-tracking and adding multi-user sharing features in the last Lumin OS update, Magic Leap has upped the ante yet again. In the Lumin OS 0.95 update (accompanied by SDK 0.21), Magic Leap introduced tracking for eight key poses from varying positions, as well ...more
The long and somewhat tumultuous journey of Leap Motion has come to an end, thanks to another startup. While most of the augmented reality industry was knee-deep in technical discussions about the future AR and new product reveals, Ultrahaptics quietly acquired Leap Motion on ...more
It took a while, but one of the most anticipated Magic Leap One accessories is finally here. Magic Leap has quietly added the official Magic Leap One carrying case, which we previewed last year, to its website. Don't Miss: Storing & Transporting Magic Leap One Safely Works w ...more
Finland-based Rovio, one of the pioneers of mobile gaming, is now ready to break new ground in augmented reality with its Angry Birds franchise. Along with its AR development partner, Sweden-based Resolution Games, the publisher is following up Angry Birds FPS: First Person S ...more
Already a dominant force at the box office, Marvel Studios appears intent on establishing itself as the ruler of augmented reality media as well. After licensing Iron Man to Hasbro for the Hero Vision Iron Man AR Helmet as a tie-in to Avengers: Infinity War, Marvel has return ...more
The Game of Thrones premiere is fast approaching, and along with it, Magic Leap has begun to unveil some of the fan-centric swag associated with its immersive experience based on the hit TV series. On Monday, a contributor to the unofficial Game of Thrones fan site Watchers o ...more
After showing off a prototype of the Grordbattle multiplayer first-person shooter at the Game Developer Conference, Magic Leap has added a new Shared World feature in version 0.95.0 of the Lumin OS update released this week. Shared World, which is still an experimental beta f ...more
While Magic Leap turned heads at the Game Developers Conference with AR experiences at the Unity and Unreal Engine booths, news broke that the company was the winning bidder for ODG's patents. Speaking of GDC, Epic Games used its pulpit at the conference to announce a new fun ...more
To build hype for the HoloLens 2 among developers, Microsoft is borrowing a page out of Magic Leap's playbook. Starting on March 12, Microsoft will livestream a six-part series of talk shows, dubbed The Realities Show, that will examine various aspects of the next-generation ...more
Although Niantic is already an augmented reality startup unicorn thanks to the success of Pokémon GO, the company has reportedly captured yet another round of funding. Citing sources close to the matter, the Wall Street Journal reports that the AR gaming and software develope ...more
In their first head-to-head major contract clash, Microsoft has emerged victorious over Magic Leap, as the US Army has awarded a $480 million contract to the HoloLens maker. Microsoft will provide 100,000 customized HoloLens units to the Army for its Integrated Visual Augment ...more
The landscape for mobile augmented reality apps is still mostly filled with utility and gaming apps, but a new entrant into the space is looking to pull children into the mix. A just-released iOS app called Bookful takes classic children's stories usually found in large-sized ...more
Magic Leap's recent L.E.A.P. conference was free to all who registered in time, but if you weren't able to make the trip to Hollywood, the company just released video of some of the sessions that took place over the course of two days. The sessions, which are really discussio ...more
Augmented reality is becoming a slam dunk for sports entertainment, as leagues, their teams, and their broadcast partners have been quick to adopt AR. This obsession with the immersive space is particularly true when it comes to the NBA. The league itself has produced AR apps ...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
You want whales? Ok, you'll get whales! That seems to be the unspoken message from Magic Leap via its latest update in the form of several new experiments posted inside its Helio app. Years ago, Magic Leap stoked its early hype by showing off an image of a massive augmented r ...more
Fans attending the US Open Tennis Championships in Queens, New York, which kicks off on Monday, will have the opportunity to meet tennis star Venus Williams in an augmented reality game sponsored by American Express. Fittingly, Williams' younger sister Serena was recently fea ...more
The narrative that Magic Leap has weaved for the Magic Leap One has focused on the freedom of spatial computing versus dated modes of 2D screens. So a partnership with Shutterstock, a company that licenses stock photos and videos to creators, is a bit unexpected. But a closer ...more
In the wake of the smoke from the meticulously orchestrated launch of Magic Leap One, the company has revealed what "leapers" can expect to experience via Lumin OS when their devices arrive between now and the end of the year. Among the core applications of the Lumin OS are t ...more
After weeks of teasing what many hoped might be a live, on-device demo of Magic Leap software to go along with the hardware glimpse we got last month, it turns out that all we got was a bit of new demonstration video footage. Once again hosted by Alan Noon, a senior learning ...more
Magic Leap just did something it didn't do during its recent Twitch hardware demo: show us some new demo footage of what augmented reality really looks like through the Magic Leap One. During this week's Unite Berlin conference, an event dedicated to Unity developers, Magic L ...more
Less than two months since unveiling Project North Star, Leap Motion has released the reference design that will allow developers, makers, and even manufacturers to build their own augmented reality headsets based on Leap Motion's work. The version of the Project North Star h ...more