Magic Appears Coin

The natural marriage between fashion and augmented reality is charging onward, but not just from the major brands we already know about. A new Los Angeles-based startup called Kollectin has decided to harness the power of AR to power its entry into the fashion accessories mar ...more

The annual Augmented World Expo (AWE) typically packs the front page of Next Reality with new products and services from companies in the augmented reality industry. However, this year, some of the biggest business news came from outside the conference, as ownership of two of ...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

On Monday, the world watched in horror as the historic Notre Dame Cathedral went up in flames in Paris. Just days later, on Wednesday, the augmented reality team at USA Today managed to add a related interactive 3D experience to its app (iOS and Android), displaying the famou ...more

If you thought Google was sitting on the sidelines of the growing race toward mainstreaming augmented reality, think again. A patent published by the US Patent and Trademark Office last week may have given the world a sneak peek at the AR headset reportedly under development ...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 hype for HBO's Game of Thrones reached proportions as epic as the series itself this week with the latest release of the final season's official trailer, but it's a Snapchat promotion that will truly make fans at SXSW bend the knee. Using what Snapchat calls AR Marker Tec ...more

Mobile app publishers are using augmented reality to solve everyday measurement problems from measuring the length or height of items to previewing furniture in the home. Now, it looks like checking luggage dimensions for carry-on eligibility is another volumetric problem inc ...more

Last year at CES, RealMax blew away the AR headset competition with a prototype AR headset surpassing 100 degrees field of view. This year, after announcing the launch of the new RealMax Qian headset in December, the company has returned to Las Vegas with a product that is re ...more

The release of Avatar Chat for Magic Leap One and Spatial for HoloLens during the fourth quarter of 2018 appeared to revolutionize video calling via augmented reality. But a new startup called Mimesys, which is showing off its software at CES this week in Las Vegas, has upped ...more

With CES in full swing, it seemed like Magic Leap would have little to announce at the major tech event, but it turns out that one of its partners has weighed in with a rather substantial update regarding the company. On Wednesday, AT&T announced that it would be expanding it ...more

Although next week will mark the late David Bowie's 72nd birthday, his fans and admirers are the ones receiving a gift in the form of an augmented reality app that explores the artist's career Available for $7.99 on the App Store and Google Play on January 8, "David Bowie Is" ...more

Nearly a year to the day after the unveiling Magic Leap One, Magic Leap has dropped another update to the Lumin OS that runs the device. Lumin OS version 0.94 is available now as an over-the-air update or via download on the Creator Portal for Magic Leap One users. The bulk ...more

Christmas has arrived early for ARCore app developers, as Google just unwrapped a few iterative improvements to the augmented reality toolkit in version 1.6. The first improvement comes in the form of improved lighting in Sceneform, Google's 3D rendering library for Javascrip ...more

One the leading game developers for the PlayStation 4 and Oculus Rift platforms, Insomniac Games, is finally releasing its first major augmented reality title: Seedling for the Magic Leap One. Back in November, we gave our impressions of the game after sampling it at the L.E. ...more

It looks like the Harry Potter version of Pokémon GO won't appear in 2018 after all, as the company has decided pushed the game's release to 2019. "Get ready for some exciting and fun adventures ahead," the company said in a blog post. "We've been hard at work with our partne ...more

A sizzle reel just released by augmented reality cloud company 6D.ai shows off what kind of hyper-realistic AR experiences developers can build with its SDK. For its forthcoming game Dragon Duel, developer Happy Giant created an AR dragon that can climb real world objects and ...more

The last time The Weather Channel showed off its broadcast augmented reality, the internet couldn't stop talking about how immersive the presentation looked, despite being shown on a 2D display. Taking viewers inside a virtual version of Hurricane Florence, guided by a host s ...more

The arrival of Magic Leap One is tantalizingly close and, although the company has been saving the last details for launch day, a few of the more important details were found this week hiding deep in the code on Magic Leap's website. While Magic Leap's AR hardware will be her ...more

Regal Cinema's augmented reality magazine Moviebill enjoyed a big debut in April and it has its sights set on an even bigger (virtually) outing with its next edition. Arriving in Regal theaters on June 22, the second issue of the publication will feature Jurassic World: Falle ...more

We watched the first piece of public-facing content Magic Leap has released so you don't have to, and, well, you didn't miss much. To be fair, the company's new video show, called Magic Leap Live, isn't designed to entertain. Instead, it's meant to educate and inform develope ...more

Riding the coattails of one of the biggest movies this year, the first edition of the new Moviebill augmented reality magazine will be available at Regal Cinema theaters nationwide this weekend alongside the release Avengers: Infinity War. Moviegoers will be able to scan the ...more

Cosmetics maker Coty is hanging an augmented reality Magic Mirror on the wall of its Bourjois boutique in Paris that will tell customers which shade of makeup will make them the fairest of them all. And while the concept of AR-powered cosmetics marketing isn't new, Coty's ver ...more

Snapchat has released three new augmented reality Lenses that boast uber-accurate face tracking courtesy of the TrueDepth camera on the iPhone X and ARKit. Starting on Friday, professional wrestler-style face paint, a Day of the Dead-inspired mask with gold roses, and a golde ...more

All those early prototype images Magic Leap is so fond of showing off are great, but they rank a far second when compared to a new set of images just revealed by Microsoft in relation to the HoloLens. In a blog post on Tuesday, Microsoft's Bay Area Team posted images of the e ...more

Sketchfab, one of the leading 3D model aggregators, continues to defend its turf from encroachment by Google. This time, the company has deployed a new API that gives developers even easier access to Sketchfab's extensive library. With Sketchfab's download API, augmented and ...more

Noted poet T.S. Elliot once wrote that "April is the cruelest month." But Magic Leap might argue that March is the most miserable, as the Ides of March brought more legal woes to augmented reality startup. Elsewhere, its closely-held branding secrets have been spilled by way o ...more

If you're a Harry Potter fan who has ever wanted to have your own Hogwarts adventure, you're in luck — Jam City is close to releasing "Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery," a mobile game that allows you to attend the magical school yourself. In fact, it's so close you can pre-regis ...more

We've seen a number of unique mashups of augmented reality with other bleeding edge technologies, but somehow it took until 2018 for someone to come up with a now obvious complement to AR: 3D printing. Cornell information science doctoral student Huaishu Peng has developed an ...more

While the company is adamant that the Magic Leap One: Creator Edition will ship this year, currently, it seems its CEO is more interested in striking deals with content partners than releasing details about the headset. Meanwhile, in perhaps the most poorly-written SEC filing ...more

Master director Steven Spielberg's virtual reality epic Ready Player One is coming to theaters in just a few weeks, but you can get an early look at some of the best parts the latest trailer, "Come With Me," which was revealed on Thursday. But while the film is supposed to be ...more

During the unveiling of its content partnership with the NBA, Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz, with an assist from former player/current pitchman Shaquille O'Neal, described at least one of the ways fans would be able to experience sports using the augmented reality device. What ...more

On Tuesday, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver joined Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz on stage to unveil a partnership between the two companies. While the device was not displayed on stage, NBA legend Shaquille O'Neal appeared via video wearing a large-sized Magic Leap One: Creator Ed ...more

While the mainstream consumer market waits for cool augmented glasses to arrive from Magic Leap, or maybe even Snap Inc. (Spectacles 2.0??), AR headset maker DAQRI and its business customers are finding new, money-saving and time-saving use cases for the technology today. A r ...more

In its continued pursuit to elevate retail technology, Amazon has been awarded a patent from the US Patent and Trademark Office for a digital mirror that lets customers virtually try on clothes with different backgrounds. According to US Patent No. 9858719 (as originally disc ...more

A Brooklyn-based startup has launched a glasses-free holographic display for less than the cost of an iPhone 8 Plus. HoloPlayer One (see what they did there?), from Looking Glass Factory, consists of a light-field display, such as those rumored to appear in Magic Leap's devic ...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

Usually, when I see a video that is captioned "wait for it," I'm quick to dismiss what could possibly come at the end of the clip. In this case, however, I was totally wrong and the final result was definitely worth the wait. Watch as a row of precisely-spaced brick dominoes ...more

The one big question remaining about Google's upcoming Pixel phones has finally been answered: Yes, the Pixel and Pixel XL have unlockable bootloaders—at least, if you buy directly from Google. We reached out to Google looking for a firm answer on the topic, and Google Spokes ...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

Virtual reality headsets are all the rage these days, and among the menagerie of tech companies gunning for the top spot, there's one mysterious startup that is ahead of the game—Magic Leap—and you can tell just by watching their latest demo video of their product in action. V ...more

I don't know about you, but when I shoot a slow-mo video on my iPhone, I'd also like to have a regular speed copy of it, just in case slow motion doesn't fit the video right. Traditionally, converting slow-motion video required manually speeding the video back up in editing a ...more

With the release of the ARChon Runtime, many Android apps can now be run within the Chrome web browser. Minor changes must be made to existing Android APK files before they can be installed on Chrome, so the process isn't exactly as easy as pasting an Android app into a folder ...more

Known for its easily recognizable filters—and coining the hashtag #nofilter—Instagram has long been an app that focused more on photo posting rather than photo editing. Yet today, Instagram released an upgrade for both Android and iOS users that edges the app towards becoming ...more

Your iPhone goes with you everywhere, and its touchscreen interface is all you need to navigate and use all your installed iOS apps. But an external keyboard can make your iPhone an even more efficient tool for productivity tasks such as drafting long emails, composing detaile ...more

Thanks to rapid advancements in the field, generative AI can do some amazing things already, from generating text, images, and video with just a prompt to automating tasks and developing new products and services. Now, artificial intelligence can even help you craft emails dir ...more

Downloading content from TikTok is relatively easy, even if the video is protected, but the same can't be said of Reels, Instagram's version of short-form videos. Instagram doesn't make it easy to download content unless it's your own, and that's especially true with Reels. Ho ...more

Snapchat may trail Facebook and Instagram in terms of daily active users, but a new partnership with Samsung may get those innovative AR Lenses onto the mobile devices of a lot more users. Non-fungible tokens, perhaps the hottest segment of the blockchain tech industry at the ...more

Investment in augmented reality remained robust in 2019. For the third consecutive year, we looked back on the biggest funding deals in the AR industry this week, and a familiar name came out on top. One of the companies investing in AR, Qualcomm, announced its new chipset fo ...more

They say it is always darkest before the dawn. If that's the case, then perhaps there's a light ahead for Magic Leap after more unfavorable news in the form of executive departures. One of Magic Leap's legal foes, Nreal, is already seeing brighter days, with Epic Games workin ...more

So you can't seem to win in Mario Kart Tour? Whether it's your first game in the Mario Kart series or not, Mario Kart Tour can be challenging, especially when you don't know the tracks. Instead of struggling your way through the cups, try out these five tips to get a leg up. ...more

The streaming content vision from Magic Leap recently underwent a quiet but major update, courtesy of AT&T. Previously, Magic Leap's retail and 5G partner AT&T made its DirecTV Now streaming television service available to Magic Leap One users. But now that the company has la ...more

While a viable version of consumer-grade smartglasses has yet to find mainstream success, two more contenders emerged this week, as Vuzix confirmed that a leak of a fashion-forward design is legitmate and Vivo introduced tethered smartglasses designed to pair with its new 5G s ...more

Developers in the augmented reality industry got a lot of love this week. While Microsoft is marketing the HoloLens 2 toward the enterprise segment, the company is still working hard to give the indie developer community a chance to purchase the next-generation AR headset. Me ...more

As much funding as Magic Leap has secured, another round of funding will still catch headlines. However, the latest funding solidifies the company's strategy for succeeding in the consumer segment of AR. Meanwhile, it looks like Facebook is ramping up its efforts to get its o ...more

When you're riding in an Uber, on your way to meet family or friends, they may want to know where you are exactly to see how long until your arrival. On the other side of the coin, there may be times when you want to tell family or friends where you and your Uber car are witho ...more

They say home is where the heart is. So, the opportunity to view the inner sanctum of Magic Leap is like gaining access to what makes the company tick, just as the fruits of its labor make it into select AT&T stores. Elsewhere, while Apple's big games, news, and TV event didn ...more

As Microsoft continues to bask in the glow of its HoloLens 2 unveiling and begins ramping up the hype to launch, Nreal and Vuzix are carving out their own niches in the AR hardware landscape. Nreal continues to make waves with its forthcoming tethered smartglasses, and its fo ...more

The hype around augmented reality has risen to a fever pitch over the past two years, and if this week's selection of business news stories are any indication, the din is about to get down right deafening. That's because the Microsoft's follow-up to the original HoloLens is a ...more

Despite its status as a hot commodity amongst emerging technologies, the augmented reality industry is not immune to the ebbs and flows that occur in every industry. As Microsoft prepares to unleash the sequel to original HoloLens, Meta Company has crashed and burned, as the ...more