The march of Amazon to insert itself into nearly every retail arena continues with the e-commerce giant's latest move to launch its own brick-and-mortar beauty salons. However, this new initiative isn't limited to simply facilitating transactions at real-world locations, inst ...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
Apple released iOS 13.0 on Sept. 19 and announced on the same day the release of iOS 13.1 on Sept. 30. But that deadline was pushed up to Sept. 24, and that's why we have 13.1 just five days after 13.0. But that's good news since we don't have to wait any longer for some of th ...more
Thanks to a new update to Amazon Sumerian, developers will now be able to not only create more realistic 3D content, but also build AR experiences more easily. This week, Amazon revealed that its AR and VR development platform now supports physically-based rendering (PBR), a ...more
Cosmetics augmented reality specialist ModiFace appears to be really benefiting from the brand power of L'Oréal, which acquired the company last year. Now, after Facebook added ModiFace to its AR platform earlier this year, online retail behemoth Amazon is following suit and ...more
French cosmetics giant L'Oréal isn't wasting any time putting its new subsidiary, ModiFace, to work. On Thursday, the company launched a new tool that enables a photo-realistic augmented reality simulation of nail polish shades and textures to be accurately displayed on a user ...more
The latest business move by Magic Leap could result in a significant boost to its spatial computing platform's performance and headset design. On Friday, Magic Leap announced the acquisition of Computes, Inc., makers of a decentralized and distributed mesh computing platform. ...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
The display is one of the most critical components in augmented reality hardware, and on Tuesday, one of the companies making that component, Avegant Corp., closed a funding round of $12 million to support development of next-generation AR displays. Avegant's new funding come ...more
Hand tracking technology company Leap Motion has built a stunningly fluid augmented reality ping-pong game that not only showcases the capabilities of its open source Project North Star augmented reality headset, but also demonstrates how artificial intelligence can elevate im ...more
Google Calendar is a cornerstone of the Google Suite, perhaps second only to Gmail itself. Whereas email is constantly plagued by phishing attacks, as of yet, the calendar is a relatively untapped social engineering attack vector. But it's relatively easy for an attacker to in ...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
While AR apps by Modiface and Perfect Corp. have made it easier for people to shop for makeup without setting foot in a store, MAC Cosmetics wants to give its brick-and-mortar customers the same experience. The makeup giant just made its virtual try-on mirror, featuring 29 cu ...more
In June at the eMerge Americas investors conference, Magic Leap founder (and NR50 member) Rony Abovitz proclaimed that the launch of their flagship product was "not far away." Nearly three months later, an eternity in the tech world, and we have not heard an official launch d ...more
During Google Developer Days, taking place now at the ICE Congress Center in Krakow, Poland, an introductory session on ARCore provides some insights on how the platform operates. The presentation by Googler Tom Slater includes an overview on the three pillars by which ARCore ...more
The Sharknado franchise is, somehow, releasing a fifth movie "Sharknado 5: Global Swarming" (groan) next month. In anticipation of the film's release, the company has decided to create an augmented reality mobile game called, prepare yourself, "Sharknado: ShARkmented Reality". ...more
If I told you to follow as many users as you could possibly follow, in order to get more Instagram followers, that may seem counterintuitive, right? If I told you I'm trying to brainwash/annoy you with how many times I could possibly say versions of the word "follow" in an ope ...more
4DViews, the volumetric capture company that films actors and performers in augmented and virtual reality for things like movies, TV series, and applications, has just released the app 4DViews: Raise Virtual to Reality, to demonstrate its technology for smartphones. The mobil ...more
Few companies have maintained such intense secrecy, in the face of such extreme hype, as Magic Leap, but the closer their mysterious Mixed Reality product comes to mass production, the harder it becomes to hide the details. Hopefully we'll find out way more details soon, as a ...more
Augmented reality allows for all kinds of experiences to happen just about anywhere, and that creates some incredible potential for entertainment. While games like Pokémon GO take you out into the world, one crowd-funded game wants to keep you inside—to scare the crap out of y ...more
Pokémon Go takes the popular franchise and brings it into the real world through augmented reality, allowing us to play the game while exploring our physical environments at the same time. It doesn't just put pocket monsters into a more realistic context, but it changes the ga ...more
The software released in the 2015 iterations of the Samsung Galaxy line of devices—the S6, S6 Active, S6 Edge, S6 Edge+, and Note 5—have some pretty neat camera features that give these devices arguably the best smartphone camera on the market today. Out of the box, Samsung's ...more
If you're someone who frequently awakes in the middle of the night trembling in terror, you might want to consider swapping sides. According to research done at Yüzüncü Yil University, those who sleep on their left side experience more nightmares than those who sleep on their ...more
Last month, Alexander Heit drifted into oncoming traffic after being distracted from the road. His sudden correction forced his vehicle to roll and flip over. He was pronounced dead at a local hospital shortly thereafter. All because of a freaking text message. He was only 22 ...more
Popsci has posted 2009's most amazing scientific images, and there's quite a few great ones in there. A few of our favorites below, click through for all 62. In short, Cow Farts. "Scientists measure methane at the source: In a lush pasture near Buenos Aires, this cow and its ...more
Shark Week, which debuted in 1988 as a week of programming on the Discovery Channel dedicated to the titular predatory fish, has grown into a cultural beast of its own. At Next Reality, we can think of no better way to commemorate the week than to try out some shark-themed AR ...more
The recent announcement that Facebook will begin inserting advertisements into its VR experience on its Oculus Quest headset has set the VR and augmented reality industry into a frenzy. At first glance, the first thing many will point to is the recent history of Facebook and ...more
The augmented reality industry has grown steadily over the past four years, but now it is on a collision course with uber-popular non-fungible tokens technology, with Looking Glass and music artist Reggie Watts among the latest to strike while the iron is hot. Meanwhile, Sket ...more
With the global COVID-19 pandemic preventing Pokémon GO players from venturing into the real world, developer Niantic has adapted the game for trainers to play in a socially-distanced manner. Likewise, with the annual Pokémon GO Fest, typically an exclusive gathering of playe ...more
Who here binges TV on a regular basis? I know I do. Never before have we had so many options for watching our favorite shows, especially when you consider how easy it is to stream from anywhere on a mobile device. But sometimes, all that choice gets a little overwhelming. What ...more
It might sound odd to call interior decorating exciting, especially if you're not a professional within that industry. But that's exactly what it is when combined with augmented reality. I recently found out just how fun it can be when I downloaded the new Sotheby's Curate ap ...more
Like clockwork, Apple has unveiled the latest additions to its ARKit tookit at the annual Worldwide Developers Conference, where ARKit first said hello to the world in 2017, as well as some new tools that take a direct shot at Unity, Unreal Engine, and others. Coming to iOS 1 ...more
After announcing at Google I/O 2019 that augmented reality content would come to Search, Google revealed how it would make that happen with the latest round of updates to ARCore. Scene Viewer, the company's web-based AR format, enables developers to embed gITF 3D models into ...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
If you're hungry for pizza and ordering from Domino's in Australia, you can now see what your pie will look like in augmented reality before placing your order. Available through the App Store and Google Play, the updated Domino's mobile app includes New Pizza Chef, an entert ...more
Traditional media institution The New York Times continues to break new ground in its augmented reality news coverage, this time with a 3D volumetric capture of model Ashley Graham. The feature, part of the publication's coverage of New York Fashion Week, serves to shine a li ...more
As expected, Apple revealed today at the WWDC keynote that ARKit 2.0 will support multiplayer gaming support and persistent content, which will arrive this fall with iOS 12. In addition to persistent and shared experiences, ARKit 2.0 will bring improved face tracking, more re ...more
In this week of Snapchat lenses, there was a significant increase in ones that involve Marvel superheroes (the Infinity War effect), as well as ones with YouTubers. Classic sitcoms will also always do well, as evidenced by some of my previous roundups. Overall, lenses are doin ...more
Contrary to popular belief, augmented reality apps have been available for a while now. I remember using the Layar app (still available for iOS and Android) to explore nearby businesses and landmarks with varying success via an early-generation Android handset. It would be ha ...more
Amazon Web Services (AWS) opened its re:INVENT developers expo with a bang by launching Amazon Sumerian, a new tool that could become the dominant platform for building cross-platform augmented and virtual reality applications. Available now as a preview, Amazon Sumerian is a ...more
A development duo has concocted an iPhone app that displays related tweets based on objects recognized by the device's camera. Or Fleisher and Anastasis Germanidis compiled the experiment, dubbed Twit.AR, using Apple's CoreML machine learning platform and Google's Inception v ...more
Pokémon GO's augmented reality journey is continuing with Apple's newly announced ARKit. It's no surprise considering Pokémon GO is the largest mainstream augmented reality game, with 500 million downloads. Apple mentioned Pokémon GO specifically during WWDC event last week, ...more
From Farmville to selling a company to Google, Amitt Mahajan has been through the startup ringer. Now, as managing partner with Presence Capital, he's funding the future of augmented and mixed reality. With interest in 3D graphics, Mahajan started his career working on game e ...more
You may have heard of Honor of Kings, the multiplayer online battle arena game so popular that it has the potential to do for mobile what League of Legends has done for the PC in the world of competitive online gaming, but you'll soon hear about its western iteration, Strike o ...more
Video: . For the first prank you're going to need an empty container, preferably black, a smoke bomb and a lighter. I gotta say though this prank is not for just anybody so prank at your own risk. Let me show you how its done, first apply some hot glue on the bottom of the smo ...more
Welcome back, my amateur hackers! With Halloween right around the corner, I thought you could have a little fun with your newfound hacking skills using a hack that is guaranteed to freak out your boss, teacher, coworker, friend, etc. Any time someone's computer seems to act ...more
In this tutorial I am going to look at what services are running on our Metasploitable machine and setup firewalls. This is more basic scanning of our machine to get an idea of how to get in. Obviously in a real engagement you would want to do research on Google and whatnot to ...more
Inspiration for tutorial: Foxtrot's "How to Trap a Tracker" If you have been following my past tutorials, (and it's fine if you haven't,) you would know how much social engineering and doxing I do. During these moments when we are convincing people that we are a different per ...more
Although mowing is key to keeping your lawn healthy and good looking, it isn't anything worth jumping up and down for when it comes time to doing it. As it turned out, the first time I mowed my lawn wasn't nearly as fun or exciting as Hank Hill made it out to be. Maybe it was ...more
The Camera app on your iPhone includes new features with the iOS 17 update that will help you take better photos and more impressive videos, but there are a lot of cool new things available that you might not see right away. Many of Camera's new features are exclusive to the ...more
While the long-awaited HoloLens 2 officially arrived this week, details leaked about another, arguably longer-awaited AR headset, the fabled wearable from Apple, and a previously undisclosed partner assisting the Cupertino-based company with the hardware. On the development f ...more
Augmented reality plays a key role in the evolution of adjacent technologies, such as 5G connectivity and brain-control interfaces (BCI), and the business news of the week serves up proof points for both examples. On the 5G front, Verizon's acquisition of Jaunt XR adds anothe ...more
Social media accounts are a favorite target for hackers, and the most effective tactics for attacking accounts on websites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are often based on phishing. These password-stealing attacks rely on tricking users into entering their passwords in ...more
Over the past decade, Marvel Studios has been a dominant force at the box office, raking in more than $21 billion dollars. Averaged out over that span of time, the yearly earnings of those movies outweigh the gross domestic product of some countries. And while those films hav ...more
While photography usually gets all the love, our phones have gotten really good at capturing video. Think about it — when was the last time you needed a camcorder for a vacation? With mobile cameras getting better each year, we're now at a point where smartphones can be used f ...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
Welcome back, my tenderfoot hackers! A number of you have written me telling me how much you enjoy the Mr. Robot series on USA Network. I am also a huge fan! If you haven't seen it yet, you should. It may be the best show on TV right now. Mr. Robot is about a young man with ...more
Seemingly lost in the fanfare of the numerous features and specs of the Nexus 5 were a few highly innovative and handy add-ons—a low-power step detector and step-counting sensor—useful for tracking fitness data. Both of these sensors are supported by Android 4.4 KitKat, but t ...more
While many of the features in the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro series build on what we've seen in previous iPhone models, Apple has packed the 2024 lineup with iOS 18 and plenty of fresh upgrades worth considering. The iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max boast several groundbreaking feature ...more