New Years Day

Watching movies will always be one of my favorite forms of entertainment. I can spend an entire day watching movies and not feel the slightest bit guilty about it. You can learn from movies, so don't ever let anyone tell you that you're wasting time. Now, if I was über rich a ...more

You know what I had for breakfast today? A ham and cheese sandwich with a glass of orange juice. Now, there's nothing wrong with a ham and cheese sandwich, but some nice, warm, fluffy pancakes would have made my day. I wish I would have seen this Reddit post earlier this morni ...more

The last time we heard from Meta, the makers of the Meta 2 augmented reality headset, things looked pretty bleak. Now, as several new facts have come to light, we have confirmation regarding the beleaguered company's fate: Meta is done. As we reported back in September, the c ...more

Every other year, Apple comes out with "S" model iPhones that enhance and speed up their main series models from the previous year. This year, however, because of the highly-anticipated 10th anniversary iPhone, aka the iPhone X, Apple has dropped the "S" and moved straight to ...more

Are we about to witness the future of Android OS? Of Google? Of the entire smartphone ecosystem?! Google has just turned 18 today (right?), Android just had its 8th birthday, and the rumor mill is firing on all cylinders in the lead-up to the October 4 launch event where they ...more

This week's Apple earnings offered a report of solid performance and guarded optimism about future iPhone sales, which may be impacted later this year by issues around the current coronavirus epidemic in China. But what seems to have surprised many on Wall Street are the stro ...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

As excitement looms for Apple's annual parade of pomp and circumstance for its latest lineup of iPhones, some hidden hints in an internal build of iOS 13 has Apple enthusiasts salivating for what Cupertino is testing in the AR wearables realm. While Apple has yet to even conf ...more

While Apple's smartglasses development reportedly moves forward behind-the-scenes, the company continues to build on its AR software foundation in its mobile ecosystem with further iterations to its ARKit platform and the introduction of new AR development tools. On the other ...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

Anyone who has been within a block of any wireless brick and mortar store or tech conference in the last couple of years has no doubt seen banners, posters, and videos promoting 5G high-speed wireless services on the way. The last time I can remember a technology being so hyp ...more

All of the the tech industry giants, including Apple, Facebook, and Google, are working on new smartglasses and/or AR headsets, but this week, Google took a major step forward with gesture recognition technology that could make its way into AR wearables, posing a threat to Lea ...more

Signaling a new direction forward for the company, Magic Leap shook up its executive suite by re-assigning to top leaders to new advisory roles. Meanwhile, a new startup backed by Hollywood executives, tech venture firms, and notable angel investors plans to bring new life to ...more

In its goal to push the visual quality of real-time rendering to a new level, Unity is starting the new year off right by releasing a sneak peek at its upcoming interactive rendering improvements via a short, three-minute first-person interactive demo called "Book of the Dead. ...more

The growing list of dangerous antibiotic resistant organisms has just acquired three new members. Researchers have discovered three new species of Klebsiella bacteria, all of which can cause life-threatening infections and have genes that make them resistant to commonly used a ...more

With summer just ahead, you, or your children, may be looking forward to some pool time or the water park. When planning water-based fun this year, keep a heads-up for microbes. Between the germs on the bodies of swimmers and fecal material in the water, the clean looks of th ...more

The ability of one microbe to adapt is giving it a whole new career as a sexually transmitted disease. Usually content with the back of the throat and nose of those who carry it, the dangerous pathogen Neisseria meningitidis has adapted to cause an illness that looks a lot lik ...more

Have you ever had the stomach flu, aka the 24-hour flu? Well, chances are high that you never had influenza, but an intestinal infection called gastroenteritis. While sometimes severe cold symptoms can be confused with the flu, the same is not true for the differences between ...more

Hello New Year. Guess what? Vacation is almost over, and I don’t feel like going to work. The Puritans were so … 17th century. That was then. I am now. So, here is my resolution: I want to help usher in a new stage in American industry: enlightened entitlement. No more feeling ...more

With Passover soon upon us, many Jews are dreading a week (or eight days for Conservative and Orthodox Jews) of making matzo, the staple of their diet. Matzo is also known as "the bread of affliction," and I'm pretty sure it's because by day three or so you're convinced that m ...more

Not all weather sources are equal. When you're looking at the forecast, you hope that it's at least semi-accurate so you can plan the week and days ahead, but many sources are unreliable. And with the famous Dark Sky API shutting down on March 31, 2023, you'll need an alternat ...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

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 story of Meta and its Meta 2 augmented reality headset isn't over, there's a new development that could impact its ultimate fate. During the waning days of January, the US District Court of Delaware finally weighed in with an update in the patent infringement case against ...more

If you subscribe to notifications for Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz's Twitter feed, you'd think everyone in the world already has a Magic Leap One. Alas, that is not the case, but those not within the geographic areas of Magic Leap's LiftOff service now have a loophole through w ...more

As we enter the second half of 2018, rumors for the second season of flagships have started to emerge. On the Android side, this means the latest iterations of the Google Pixel, Galaxy Note, LG V series, and Huawei Mate. Thanks to FunkyHuawei and XDA, we now have some solid ru ...more

In January, ZTE announced they would be conducting an Oreo beta program for Axon 7 users to test Android 8.0 before the masses. Since then, no additional information was released — until today, when ZTE finally opened up the Oreo beta to US customers. Using the link below, US ...more

I have spent a good portion of this year traveling between cities and various emergent technology conferences and events. Most of these events have been really good, but in terms of augmented and mixed reality, the Augmented World Expo, in its eighth year running, definitely s ...more

NextReality will be giving readers a rundown of the augmented and mixed reality news briefs from the preceding week that we didn't cover already. This way, you'll never miss anything of importance in the NextReality landscape, and will always know what's going on with new augm ...more

There's already some fierce competition between Snap and Facebook in the AR space, but it's about to heat up even more, with Snap snatching up a 3D mapping startup that could add some new AR capabilities to its arsenal. Meanwhile, Facebook is investing a sizable portion of it ...more

Widgets have been available on the iPhone for a while now, but they were tucked away in the Today View or hidden in the quick actions menu for app icons on the home screen. Android had always had a leg up on Apple in the widget department because they were so much more versati ...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

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

After testing the waters with a few pop-up stores along the West Coast earlier this year, North is bringing its smartglasses to more cities across the US and Canada. With a presence at Amazon's re:Mars Conference this week in Las Vegas, North's summer tour started this week V ...more

While Microsoft dominated the augmented reality news at this year's Mobile World Congress, a small AR startup we've covered in the past arrived in Barcelona, Spain, to unveil the next phase of its mission. This week, China-based Nreal made the potential mass adoption of its N ...more

The tradition of using cutting edge technology to prepare for missions in space, in this case, augmented reality, continues with a new team of international astronauts slated to board the International Space Station (ISS) later this year. On Tuesday, European Space Agency ast ...more

Returning to the spotlight after its debut at last year's CES, augmented reality smartglasses maker Rokid is back with a new update. On Monday, the China-based startup announced Project Aurora at CES in Las Vegas. Rokid describes the new prototype hardware device as functioni ...more

While Unity is already the leading 3D engine for augmented reality content in terms of volume, the announcement of Project MARS, a new augmented reality authoring tool, at Unite Berlin in June promised to expand AR development to a whole new audience of designers and other non ...more

Cinemark may not be as big as AMC Theatres, but it also has a subscription if you want cheaper access to movie tickets. There aren't as many theaters, but if there's no AMC around you, there will likely be a Cinemark to save the day. But is the price of its Movie Club plan wor ...more

Just six days after the release of dev beta 3, developers now have their hands on the fourth iOS 12.1 beta. While Apple has recently followed a lengthy and inconsistent release schedule with its beta software, the company seems to want to keep testers happy with 12.1 — beta 4 ...more

This year marks the first for Apple to exclude the Home button from any new iPhones. If you're going from a Home-button iPhone to a new XS, XS Max, or XR, you might be a bit stumped when trying to perform basic tasks, such as activating Siri. While you can't hold down the Home ...more

With iOS 12, Apple is making up for mistakes from the past, with iPhone batteries being no exception. The new update builds upon both battery health and performance throttling tools introduced in iOS 11.3 by offering users more information about your iPhone's battery usage tha ...more

Front and center for iOS 12 this year is Group FaceTime, which allows users to chat with up to 31 additional people at once. While that ambitious feature is sadly delayed, don't cast away FaceTime just yet — you can always pick up your iPhone and start a call with any single c ...more

As we predicted earlier this week, the focus has already begun to move from Magic Leap back onto Apple's rumored augmented reality smartglasses. The latest credible whispers come from none other than longtime Apple-focused analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Boasting a long track record of ...more

The NBA Finals is underway, and now basketball fans with iPhones and Android devices can get closer to the action for free than they ever could with expensive courtside tickets. Now available on the Google Play Store after debuting on the iOS App Store last year, the latest v ...more

There's always been a clear divide between flagship and midrange phones. Flagships will run you at least $700, while midrange typically falls between $250 and $550. The main difference is the processor, with midrange phones sporting a 600-series Snapdragon and flagships rockin ...more

If you have yet to receive your invitation to next weekend's royal wedding in the UK, then you can still experience part of the pomp and circumstance in augmented reality courtesy of ABC News. A new update to the ABC News iOS app brings a blue-blooded augmented reality experi ...more

On Tuesday, at Google's I/O developer conference, the company announced a huge update to its ARCore augmented reality toolkit that matches the latest features of ARKit, and surpasses Apple's AR platform via support for shared experiences. Cloud Anchors is the name Google's ne ...more

A few long-awaited iOS 11 features that Apple had promised way back in June 2017 have finally made their way to iPhones with the iOS 11.4 update. Aside from finally delivering on those, there's not a whole lot new in iOS 11.4 as a whole, though, there are a few things you'll d ...more

At its F8 developers conference on Tuesday, Facebook announced new tools and features coming in a new version of AR Studio, including the integration of 3D content aggregator Sketchfab's Download API. Launched last month, the Download API enables developers to add 3D models d ...more

In July 2017, LG announced a new smartphone lineup, the Q series. These devices focus on providing some flagship features at a more affordable cost — features such as an 18:9 1080p display. LG's goal here seems to be adding value for the more budget-conscious users, and in 201 ...more

Super Bowl LII will bring millions of football and non-football fans together to watch the big game on the big screen. But without a cable subscription, this process can be a little daunting. Luckily, the Google Play Store and the iOS App Store offer a few ways to accomplish t ...more

Apple Music offers a cheaper subscription option to those of you who look for it — only $99 for a year. If you are already an Apple Music user, you can access the option right now. Otherwise, you have to sign up for a normal monthly plan first, then switch to this plan to get ...more

There is a reason the Amanita phalloides mushroom is called the "Death Cap." It can kill you. Mushrooms are a type of fungi, an organism that produces thread-like mycelia that often produce spores. Spores allow the fungi to reproduce. Molds, lichens, and yeast are all fungi, ...more

One thing that annoys the hell out of me is when a popup appears on my iPhone in an app I'm using asking me for a rating or review on the iOS App Store. I like to share my opinion on applications just as much as the next person, but I want to give stars when I'm good and ready ...more

Welcome to the maiden voyage of our new Market Reality column. Each Friday, NextReality will give you a roundup of news briefs from the financial end of the augmented and mixed reality industry. We'll cover funding news, market analysis, and more. Boeing Forms Technology Inve ...more

Google released its "Android Security: 2016 Year in Review" report last month, and to no one's surprise, included its own flagship phones. However, one surprise on the list was the BlackBerry PRIV, which Google named one of the best Android devices for privacy. The PRIV was B ...more

Apple unveiled huge improvements for Messages in iOS 10 at WWDC '16, and my favorite new feature is that searching for emojis will be much, much easier. But there's a lot more to this update besides emojis. Tap to Replace In iOS 10, you'll be able to swap in emojis for alrea ...more

The notification light on phones and tablets is slowly disappearing. The once staple feature is now only found on a few devices, and a bevy of other notification systems have sought to fill the gap. The most popular of these systems is Ambient Display, which has grown in popul ...more

Google I/O is like Christmas for Android enthusiasts. Every year, this conference showcases new and upcoming features for the world's leading mobile operating system, and this year's was no different. Shortly after announcing Android M, Google released a preview version of the ...more