Real Stories Real People

Apple has changed how home screen shortcuts work on iOS, which makes one of the most enjoyable customization features even better than before. Since iOS 13, you could use the Shortcuts app to customize your iPhone's home screen app icons to pretty much anything. The feature r ...more

This week, developer Niantic began rolling out a new feature called AR Mapping to Pokémon GO that has bigger implications on the realism of augmented reality in mobile gaming and beyond. AR Mapping is a Field Research task type that players unlock by spinning PokéStops that c ...more

Apple has Siri, Google has its Now service, and Microsoft has Cortana. All of these voice-activated services can bring you information quickly and easily without having to type anything into your smartphone. Speak and within seconds you're provided with either an answer or som ...more

Rooting a mobile device may not be a big deal these days, but not being able to root definitely is. Even the Library of Congress, National Telecommunications and Information Administration, and White House can agree on that. Since the release of the Samsung Galaxy S3, the int ...more

Welcome to the first annual Next Reality 30, our list of people who've made the biggest impact on the augmented reality space in the last 12 months — and what a 12-month roller-coaster ride it's been. Apple introduced ARKit-powered apps last fall, Google launched ARCore for An ...more

If we were to assign a theme for the 2019 edition of the Next Reality 30 (NR30), it might be something along the lines of, "What have you done for me lately?" Many of the top names in the industry from the 2018 edition remain the same, but their positions have shuffled. The p ...more

The worlds of augmented reality and virtual reality are closely linked in many ways. That means it's smart for AR insiders to keep a close on new developments in VR. If you have been paying attention, you know that Oculus CTO John Carmack is one one of the most important think ...more

Everything you post on social media lives there forever — even if you delete it. Just ask anyone that's ever posted something stupid. Instagram does not provide built-in tools to save or download images and videos from other users, but there are workarounds. Third-party tools ...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 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

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

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

Can you trust every user you come across on TikTok? The answer to that may depend on how use the service, but the real question is — can you trust every user that sees your content? Not everyone on TikTok is someone you want viewing or interacting with your content, and there' ...more

Shorts, learning from your audience and the fundamental plausibility of being hustled in the desert Mike Clattenburg, creator of Trailer Park Boys and Afghan Luke, was kind enough to talk to us from Nova Scotia, where he was hard at work in preproduction, about Crackin’ Down H ...more

Despite the fact that over 600,000 Snap Lens filters have been created since Lens Studio debuted in 2017, and Facebook is reporting that more than a billion users have interacted with its Spark AR filters across Facebook properties, social augmented reality filters get a bad r ...more

My autistic son loves music. One afternoon, when he was nine, I downloaded GarageBand to his iPhone to help with the boredom of a long wait at a doctor's office. Instead of pacing or escalating into a meltdown, he spent the entire hour and a half practicing, learning, and comp ...more

Are you interested in beginning research of your family's history? I began this journey about 3 or 4 years ago and here is what I found. I've done almost ALL of my research online, and gotten farther, faster and more comprehensively than anyone else who has researched my famil ...more

It seems we've come full circle in alternative dating routes. Just like a long time ago when people were able to go to matchmakers and watch videos of potential matches, the dating app 'Hinge' is now allowing you to add videos to your profile. In fact, many dating apps are st ...more

As Google+ is still in its Limited Field Trial phase, joining can feel quite lonely. You can't exactly get all your friends and family in during the brief periods when the invitation system opens up. You can, however, add several interesting people to your "Following" Circle t ...more

The mainstreaming of augmented reality won't happen overnight, but it's becoming increasingly clear that traditional media is leading the charge in the effort to introduce the public to immersive computing. A recent example came from none other than USA Today via its 321 Launc ...more

The landscape of the augmented reality space is broad, diverse, and constantly shifting, perhaps more so than any other vertical in technology. At the same time, major players are attempting to standardize various hardware designs and delivery methods, while still others are r ...more

On Friday, audio giant Bose emerged as the latest, and perhaps the most surprising company to announce that it's planning to release augmented reality smartglasses. There's just one problem: these smartglasses don't present any visual content whatsoever. The wearable is asso ...more

First of all, I hope the title makes sense. :D Well, this is basically creating a program that can help with dictionary attacks. Generate possible passwords. It pretty much lies in you knowing the person you want to hack. Story Time I just like stories :D Well, I heard abou ...more

ARGs have taken the concept of video games to some odd and wonderful real-world places. Socks, Inc. might not be the first ARG, and LittleBigPlanet might have defined the sock-puppet-based game archetype, but it is the first game to combine ARG and sock puppet elements into on ...more

Dreams are like an internal human holodeck. Inside your mind, anything is possible, from your grandest wishes to your worst nightmares. This is all well and good, but what if you could control your dreams and become the omniscient god of a handpicked reality whenever you go to ...more

With this article, I'll be continuing the series I started with my recent plague doctor article. That is, examining tropes that may at first appear to not fit into Steampunk. Obviously the airship pirate never existed in real life, as we never really experienced the age of ai ...more

Culinary collective Studiofeast is known for thinking outside the box, especially when it comes to food. They've hosted inventive and spectacular events like the L Train Lunch, where a high-end meal was served to guests on a moving train, and the Datalicious Last Supper, where ...more

The year in augmented reality 2019 started with the kind of doom and gloom that usually signals the end of something. Driven in large part by the story we broke in January about the fall of Meta, along with similar flameouts by ODG and Blippar, the virtual shrapnel of AR ventu ...more

So while it is the weekend of San Diego Comic-Con, and it should not be a complete surprise — without a word of warning hitting my feed — the trailer for the upcoming film, Ready Player One was released today. And wow it looks amazing. So, you have no idea what I am talking a ...more

The vast majority of people involved in Steampunk are interested in history but, like with science, there's something about history that we don't talk about very often: The holes. That is, the gaps in our knowledge, not physical holes like that pictured above. That's a real h ...more

You may or may not have heard of alt-rock band Panic! at the Disco, but a year and a half ago they released a single called "The Ballad of Mona Lisa", which had an accompanying music video that was Steampunk-themed. In fact, here's the video: Video: . Well, I'm going to give y ...more

By now, you've probably already seen Andy Serkis and his performance capture demo for Magic Leap. And sure, marrying motion capture acting and augmented reality sounds compelling, but how does it really work as an experience? A few days ago, I had a chance to find out, thanks ...more

The next big iOS version for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch was revealed by Apple at WWDC 2018 and dropped for everyone on Sept. 17, 2018, less than a week after Apple revealed the new iPhone lineup. We've rounded up all the big picture items and secret features and changes we c ...more

Spam calls are one of the most annoying things to happen in the world of smartphones for more than one reason. Not only are they bothersome, but they can also be dangerous to people who don't know any better. Google has come up with a crafty solution known as "Call Screen" to ...more

Smartphones are now indispensable when traveling. Domestic and overseas travel alike require food, navigation, translation, and so much more to make work or vacation successful. Gone are the days of lugging multiple tourist books around with you everywhere you go — you need to ...more

Snapchat users have clamored for the ability to share their Stories since the app's inception, and we're finally going to be able to with "Stories Everywhere." Similar to how Twitter gave people the ability to embed tweets in 2011, Snap, Inc. aims to make Stories even more acc ...more

Usually paper beats rock. With augmented reality, The Rock beats paper. Using the Life VR app for iOS or Android, Entertainment Weekly readers can point their smartphones at the cover of the Dec. 8 edition to view a holiday greeting from Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, star of the ...more

One of the biggest problems in data security is authentication of data and its source. How can Alice be certain that the executable in her inbox is from the venerable Bob, and not from the not-so-venerable Oscar? Clearly Alice wants to know because if this file is actually sen ...more

BioShock is one of the best games of all time. It combines FPS gameplay with RPG storytelling and supports multiple systems better than any other game, that much is for sure. And the setting of its amazing story is a place called Rapture, a high-tech libertarian colony at the ...more

The year 2018 was a rough one for Snap, the company behind the Snapchat app and the Spectacles wearable camera device. From executive departures to reports of slowed user growth, the company that once spurned Facebook's multibillion-dollar advances is now facing a moment of tr ...more

Influencers of augmented reality demonstrate expertise in their fields and outline a strong vision for the future that they evangelize to others. They help define the direction of the industry and identify others who foster and create innovation in the field. The idea of the ...more

Apple's latest mobile operating system for iPhones, iOS 12, was released to everyone Monday, Sept. 17, and it's the same exact build that developers and public beta testers received as the "golden master" on Sept. 12, the day of Apple's 2018 special event. Install it to start ...more

Learning the basics of SEO In this tutorial I will go over the basics of Search Engine Optimisation. The "white-hat-way" ("black-hat" SEO is tricking Google and other search engine providers, this will get you into trouble quick!). To watch the free SEO video tutorial click ...more

University video game design programs have been spreading like wildfire around the world over the last ten years. They allow students, researchers and game developers to work on their craft in an academic environment away from the harsh realities of the market, and have led to ...more

The used video game market represents a huge portion of retail game sales. It's the only avenue in which most people can afford to buy AAA games. But game publishers aren't exactly big fans of used game sales, since they only benefit from gamers buying new ones. GameStop and B ...more

I have been writing since I was a little boy. I remember watching South Park at age 9 and writing my own episodes. Aside from some curse words and sexual humor that you don't expect from a nine year old, there really was not much there. In middle school I used to write short s ...more

Russian cyber disinformation campaigns have many missions, but one of particular interest is using technology to monitor, influence, and disrupt online communications surrounding culturally sensitive topics or protests. The ability to watch these events, and even filter positi ...more

Augmented reality gaming developer Niantic has decided to give its players the opportunity to make their mark on Pokémon GO with a PokéStop nomination system. While an international launch date has not been revealed, the company announced on Tuesday that it plans to start a l ...more

Give an 18-month-old a shoe, check back 10 minutes later, and it's a very big maybe he will have it on his foot. But give him your smartphone, and in a mere five minutes, he can take 100 pictures of the carpet, send weird messages, and delete essential apps. Imagine what your ...more

San Francisco-based 6D.ai is preparing to launch a beta of its AR cloud platform that's capable of constructing a real-time dense mesh from crowdsourced data for use in 3D mapping and multi-user AR experiences. The technology captures environmental data from a smartphone's ca ...more

The UK has officially exited the European Union, completing the long and tumultuous Brexit story and putting the storied nation once again on its own on the international stage. And while some are wondering what the future holds for the EU-less UK, the country is kicking off ...more

As one of the household brands in creative software, Adobe is now ready to lay its claim to the artistic side of augmented reality. On Monday, concurrent with the kickoff its annual Adobe Max conference, Adobe's Project Aero officially graduated to public release, but Adobe a ...more

Ever since Facebook announced Spark AR at the 2017 F8 Developer's Conference, the social media giant has been looking for ways to implement its mobile augmented reality camera platform in the lives of everyday users. But aside from Facebook-centric pursuits, the company has a ...more

The last six months have been filled with ups and downs for international music superstar Ariana Grande, but she's starting 2019 on a new, virtual foot, powered by Apple's iPhone TrueDepth camera. On Friday, a new Apple commercial showcased Grande's "7 Rings" single in the fo ...more

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but augmented reality is giving the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum the ability to add a few more poignant real words to its exhibits. The museum is testing a mobile app that will enable visitors to see more information ab ...more

Next to things like natural disasters and disease, the specter of war is one of the only things that threatens to derail the 21st century's long stretch of technological innovation. Now a new app is using augmented reality to remind us of that by focusing on those most impacte ...more

The knee-jerk reactions to Magic Leap's long-awaited augmented reality device, the Magic Leap One: Creator Edition, range from pent-up joy to side-eyed skepticism. That's what happens when you launch the hype train several years before even delivering even a tiny peek at the p ...more

Having control of your basic motor functions is something most people take for granted, but for individuals with Parkinson's disease, that is not the case. Emma Lawton is a 33-year-old British graphic designer who has been living with Parkinson's for the last four years. Park ...more