Live Vision

As a native of Alabama, Apple CEO Tim Cook has a special place in his heart for the state. He also empathizes with the struggles that African-Americans have historically faced in the state, particularly during the 1950s and '60s civil rights era. Now, Cook and his company are ...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

With Android 10 hitting the streets (at least for those mobile devices that get quick updates) and the public release of iOS 13 dropping on Sept. 19, Google is releasing an update on Thursday to ARCore that adds some fantastic new benefits to its cross-platform capabilities. ...more

As promised with its teaser from Build 2019, Microsoft has unveiled the details for its augmented reality version of Minecraft for smartphones. The company published a new trailer for the game, which has a rather similar feel to the trailer Niantic originally produced for Pok ...more

If Google hasn't already demonstrated that it is serious about augmented reality, then it made it abundantly clear at the Google I/O keynote on Tuesday. After opening remarks from Google CEO Sundar Pinchai, which included a preview of AR navigation included in the Google I/O ...more

While Google isn't ready to commit to a wide release of the AR walking navigation mode for Google Maps, the company has begun testing the feature with members of its Local Guides crowdsourcing community. As a result, I've had the opportunity to test an alpha build of the feat ...more

After years of waiting, Microsoft has finally updated its industry-leading augmented reality device, the HoloLens. During a pre-show event at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, HoloLens inventor Alex Kipman, along with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Julia White, ...more

The HoloLens has made enough of an impact on the healthcare industry for Microsoft technology partner Medivis to convince investors to pledge $2.3 million in funding for its surgical platform. On Tuesday, along with closing its seed funding round, the company unveiled its Sur ...more

I was today years old when I first heard of Bhad Bhabie, but I'm told she is apparently a rapper with a rags-to-riches story. So, of course, she should get her own reality show. And Snap is pulling out the big guns to promote her Snap Original show, Bringing up Bhabie, with a ...more

The era of smartglasses designed for consumers has officially begun, as shipments of North Focals began arriving at its stores this week. And the company now has plans to expand its retail footprint. Meanwhile, a new player is emerging in the 3D content creation market, curre ...more

Among a crowded field of AR cloud companies aiming to power the future of augmented reality by creating a world of persistent holographic content that lives in a cloud, accessible across devices and accounts, Ubiquity6 is hoping it has found a way to differentiate its platform ...more

Another contestant has emerged in the race to deliver a mainstream augmented reality car navigation system, with Silicon Valley-based Phiar picking up $3 million in seed funding to launch its own artificial intelligence-based mobile app by mid-2019. The Venture Reality (VR) F ...more

Mystery is a tricky thing. Used correctly, it can give onlookers the impression that wondrous and perhaps valuable things are afoot. However, once the veil of suspension of disbelief is removed in any significant way, that same mystery can quickly turn into not just skepticism ...more

On Thursday, Mojo Vision, a startup comprised of former engineers from Apple, Amazon, Google, and other Silicon Valley mainstays, emerged from stealth backed by $50 million in funding for a hands-free augmented reality platform that runs without smartphones, tablets, or other ...more

Ingress, the godfather of location based-AR games developed by Pokémon GO creator Niantic Labs, is getting a new lease on life via Ingress Prime, a reboot of the game built on the Niantic Real World Platform. After teasing the reboot late last year, Niantic launched the new g ...more

A new augmented reality cloud platform from German startup Visualix is working to give enterprises the capability to scan their own warehouses, factories, and stores and create maps for augmented reality navigation. During next week's Augmented World Expo (AWE) Europe, the co ...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

Three new iPhones means you have to make a choice: Do you go with the smaller iPhone XS, the larger iPhone XS Max, or the cheaper iPhone XR? There's lots to like about each model, but if you want to make an informed decision, it's time to learn what each has to offer. Here's w ...more

Computer vision company Blippar has already dabbled with outdoor AR navigation, but now it wants to make it easier for people to make their way through indoor spaces with augmented reality. On Thursday, the company introduced its Indoor Visual Positioning platform for AR navi ...more

Confirming a previous report from last week, Qualcomm announced its Snapdragon X1 platform designed for augmented and virtual reality devices during an event at the Augmented World Expo in Santa Clara on Tuesday, with Meta and Vuzix among the first manufacturers to adopt it. ...more

During Tuesday's keynote at the I/O developer conference, Google unveiled new capabilities for its Lens visual search engine and expanded the availability of the platform in smartphone camera apps. Introduced at last year's edition of the conference, Google Lens launched as a ...more

Augmented reality startup 6D.ai is now accepting applicants for the closed beta of its 6D SDK. While operating in the background on a smartphone, the computer vision platform captures a dense 3D mesh in real time using just the device's camera (such a feat typically requires ...more

RED has apparrantly been blowing minds with the revolutionary technology inside its upcoming Hydrogen One. Like the Razer Phone in late 2017, most of the cool tech lives inside its screen — which, also like the Razer Phone, is unlike any other on the market today. RED, too, is ...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

Augmented reality hardware maker Vuzix came to the rescue of a vision-impaired student in Pennsylvania today by delivering a pair of Vuzix M300 Smart Glasses to enhance her eyesight. Alyssa Baxter, a student at Portage Area Junior-Senior High School in Pennsylvania, was born ...more

We may not know what Magic Leap's product looks like. And we haven't received even a "save the date" for its launch. But we know that it will display mixed reality comics from Madefire when whatever it is arrives. Announced as part of the Future of Comics in New Realities pan ...more

Clearly, the next big battlefield for tech gamesmanship between Apple and Google will be augmented reality. While the announcement of the new iPhones by Apple may have underwhelmed in the AR department, they did highlight their new ARCore platform and Core ML image recognitio ...more

To revise a line from the Blues Brothers, when it comes to ARKit apps, we've got both kinds — home utilities and games. As such, two more candidates for each category have made their way to the app store. In addition, one by one, NFL teams are taking a pass at augmented reali ...more

At the end of June, Unity 2017.1, the newest version of the popular 3D development engine, went live. And with that release, it brought out some very cool new features like Timeline and Cinemachine, to name a few. Now, for those of us that develop with Unity and follow the bet ...more

Waymo revealed more clues about its future business model after it said yesterday it plans to kill its Firefly pod-like car project and focus more closely on offering driverless systems for commercially available car and truck models. A blog post published yesterday by Waymo' ...more

The Augmented World Expo (AWE), the biggest event for augmented, virtual, and mixed reality companies, developers, customers, and connoisseurs, is happening right now. You know what that means for us here at Next Reality? Companies presenting and exhibiting at AWE are releasin ...more

Augmented reality is quickly becoming a popular tool for marketing use cases, as demonstrated by new projects serving the automotive, entertainment, and tourism industries this past week. Blippar Cranks Up Automotive Recognition to Deliver AR Content Last week, Blippar intro ...more

Pottery Barn has teamed up with Google to create 3D Room View, a new mobile app to allow all wannabe interior designers (like me) to pick out the perfect couch, table, or whatever, and then overlay it onto a spot in his or her house. I used to obsess over the Pottery Barn Tee ...more

As a commercial and potentially consumer product, one might assume it very unlikely to see the Microsoft HoloLens in the military marketplace. And that assumption would be completely wrong. One company from the Ukraine is currently working on using the mixed reality head-mount ...more

Apple released the second developer beta of iOS 17.2 for iPhone on November 9, and there are some new features for Camera and Siri and quite a few changes from iOS 17.2 beta 1. So far, there have been many new features discovered on iOS 17.2 since it was first released to bet ...more

We're still awaiting the arrival of consumer-grade AR smartglasses from the likes of Apple and Facebook. But that doesn't mean there aren't AR products out there to try this holiday season. The year 2020 marked the arrival of mobile devices equipped with sensors that are desi ...more

The original iPhone SE was, for some, the perfect iPhone. It brought back the popular one-handed form factor of the iPhone 5 but packed in the internals of the then-new iPhone 6S. Now, the second-generation iPhone SE is here for 2020, but can it live up to what made the first- ...more

The top five apps of the 2010s were all social media apps of some kind, and the fact that's not surprising to you says a lot. We may use them for other reasons here and there, but our phones are social media machines at their cores. The thing is, some make better machines than ...more

After more than two years of teasing, augmented reality startup Mojo Vision has confirmed that "invisible computing" means what we've suspected all along. That's right -- the company is working on smart contact lenses, and it claims to have a working model in testing. On Wedn ...more

In years past, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) mostly dabbled in the future as far as the long-term vision for augmented reality was concerned. This year, however, objects in the future are much closer than they appear. While the outlook for truly mainstream AR smartglass ...more

In a bold move, Samsung has decided to forgo the Galaxy S11 moniker and jump straight to the S20. Perhaps it's marketing for the new 20:9 aspect ratio and 120 Hz display, or maybe it's just the fact that it's releasing in 2020. Besides the number, Samsung is borrowing from Ap ...more

Over the past year, Magic Leap has teased its cross-platform vision of the AR cloud, which it dubs the Magicverse. While the company shared a timeline for its debut next year, it also served up new developer tools for the present. Facebook is also looking to the future of aug ...more

Just like Apple and Google, Facebook has been working to develop computer vision shortcuts designed to give mobile apps augmented reality superpowers. And while Apple's ARKit and Google's ARCore use computer vision to guess the position of horizontal and vertical surfaces, Fa ...more

There's a direct correlation between the proliferation of augmented reality apps and the demand for 3D content, and PTC just quantified that in dollars. On Wednesday, the company committed $470 million to acquire Onshape, makers of computer-aided design (CAD) software that ha ...more

Long before the HoloLens or the Magic Leap One, a California-based team of independent filmmakers envisioned what the future of augmented reality might look like. Now, after millions of people viewed the initial short film called "Sight," the directors, operating under the na ...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

If you salivate at the idea of waking up to the Jarvis-powered smart window from the opening minutes of Marvel's Iron Man, then connected home appliance maker CareOS is here to make your playboy billionaire philanthropist dreams come true. At CES 2019, the company unveiled th ...more

Last week, Twilio showed off how avatar-based chat communications will work on the Magic Leap One, and now a new startup has unveiled yet another way that augmented reality telepresence and remote collaboration can take place on the device. Emerging from stealth on Wednesday, ...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

Following in the iPhone X's footsteps, the iPhone XS and XS Max, as well as the iPhone XR, have all ditched the iconic Home button last seen on the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, which is one giant leap toward Jony Ive's ultimate vision of an iPhone that's a clean slab of glass. However ...more

The iPhone XR has touched down alongside the XS and XS Max, and it utilizes tried and tested materials found on the iPhone 8, while being molded in the same vein as the iPhone X. The budget-friendlier flagship comes with its own set of design elements to set it apart from its ...more

Apple's successor to the iPhone X is a beautifully made smartphone with much of the same characteristics, including a 5.8-inch OLED screen, two storage choices, and Face ID. But many features set the iPhone XS apart from its predecessor, as well as the other 2018 lineup of iPh ...more

This week, Next Reality published its annual feature on the leaders in the augmented reality industry, the Next Reality 30. So it's no coincidence that the companies represented in the top four spots of the NR30 also made business headlines in AR this week. While Magic Leap i ...more

Apparently, it's Google Week for the augmented reality business. Now that ARCore has a firm foothold in the app ecosystem, Google is making a case with educators and marketers that the apps should have a place in schools and campaigns, and the company is also encouraging deve ...more

In this series, we are going to get you to the edge of building your own cloud-based, cross-platform augmented reality app for iPhone, Android, HoloLens, and Meta 2, among other devices. Once we get the necessary software installed, we will walk through the process of setting ...more

The year is 2018. You just received your own Magic Leap One: Creator Edition. What now? Rewinding back to today, we know of one specific app that will be available for Magic Leap's device, along with two others that could be tagged as highly likely. Paired with Magic Leap's o ...more

Whenever you attend or remotely watch a major Apple event, you're likely to see Phil Schiller, the company's senior vice president of worldwide marketing, unveiling a brand new product on stage. Outside of an official event, Schiller is the second most likely person (after App ...more

Andre was enjoying the carefree life of a 12-year-old with his friends, riding his bike and playing sports, like all kids that age. Schoolwork wasn't hard for him, and his grades showed that. Then, the headaches began. He lost vision in one eye, symptoms that drove his famil ...more

A new study casts real suspicion on the possibility of life on Mars. Why? It seems the surface of the planet may be downright uninhabitable for microbial life as we know it. Over the years, and with research into life on other worlds, visions of extra-terrestrials and "little ...more

Whether it's terrorism or brain-hungry zombies you're neutralizing, first-person shooters are an awesome way to immerse yourself within a new world and kill some time with your iPad or iPhone. And with so many games available in this genre, we wanted to show off ten of our abs ...more