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Have you ever wondered what it would be like to try to survive The Purge as depicted in the popular movie series? Well, thanks to augmented reality, now you can. After four films, the dystopian horror The Purge is jumping to the small screen on USA Networks as a television se ...more

New documents reveal that electric car company Tesla has filed a surprising new patent that has nothing to do with batteries or autonomous driving and everything to do with augmented reality. Last week, the company's US Patent and Trademark Office patent application, titled " ...more

Magic Leap One owners, start your virtual engines, as automotive virtual reality developer RelayCars has published an app to Magic Leap World that lets users customize and test drive a 2019 Kia Stinger. The RelayCars app, which is available as a free download, enables Magic L ...more

Usually, the camera adds 10 pounds, but with a new augmented reality effect in Like's mobile app, the camera can actually make you look slimmer. Called "Shaping Magic," the body recognition effect uses artificial intelligence to modify the width of the user's body or selectiv ...more

A patent from Universal was filed today looking to improve the visual experience at Universal Studios Parks. Universal Studios is famous for attractions based around major pop culture hallmarks like Harry Potter, Jurassic Park, and Despicable Me. It was originally only 'Unive ...more

While Apple, Facebook, and Snapchat are still working on their first-generation AR wearables, startup North is already preparing to bring its second-generation smartglasses to the world in 2020. On Tuesday, North announced that Focals 2.0, which will feature a lighter, slimme ...more

Over the past few months, Google has prioritized the development of its video communications products as the demand for social distancing solutions continues to increase in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. After the well-publicized move of making Google Meet free for all ca ...more

Starting Nov. 1, 2018, Google got a lot tougher with Android app developers. New apps being uploaded to the Play Store already had to target Android 8.0 Oreo or higher as of August, but now, every update to existing apps has to do the same. It may seem like a simple rule, but ...more

A new augmented reality framework from Disney Research could make it possible for fans to take selfies with an augmented reality Mickey Mouse, Darth Vader, or Iron Man that mimic the user's poses. Called AR Poser, the prototype experience relies on image recognition to anchor ...more

One of the funniest scenes from the teaser trailer for the Wreck-It Ralph sequel is the basis for the new pre-show augmented reality experience via the Noovie ARCade app. Arriving in theaters on Nov. 21, Ralph Breaks the Internet finds the titular character expanding his digi ...more

It turns out that Dr. Grordbort's Invaders is not the only Magic Leap demo to become a reality for the Magic Leap One. ILMxLAB, the augmented and virtual reality arm of Lucasfilm, announced on Monday the Star Wars: Project Porg for Magic Leap One. The team didn't disclose whe ...more

Google dropped its opposition to T-Mobile's Binge On service due to some favorable policy changes at the magenta carrier. From now on, YouTube and Google Play Movies will happily work with the feature. Binge On rolled out late last year, allowing many customers to receive unli ...more

The research team at Google has found yet another way for machine learning to simplify time-intensive tasks, and this one could eventually facilitate Star Wars-like holographic video. In a recent blog post, Google researchers demonstrated how a neural network is able to separ ...more

While Snapchat had a head start in making augmented camera effects popular on smartphones, Facebook has spent the past few years in hot pursuit, with no less than three apps offering mobile AR experiences, plus its Portal hardware lineup of smart home devices. Facebook's late ...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

Snapchat made augmented reality selfie effects famous, with Facebook copying the feature across its mobile apps. Of course, others have followed, but their face tracking apps often pale in comparison to the original. Now, Google is giving Android developers the keys to adding ...more

During the last few months, WhatsApp's Google Play Store ratings have been tanking—all the way down to an average of 3.4 stars from the instant messenger's usual average of 4.1. Within the last week, though, WhatsApp has received thousands of seemingly fake 5-star reviews that ...more

After years of rumors, we got our Apple Watch, and we have our anniversary iPhone, so now everyone has moved on to a new Apple rumor obsession: Apple smartglasses. And, in keeping with Apple rumor tradition, we're getting some pretty imaginative ideas of what the next big Appl ...more

Facebook is preparing to make augmented reality experiences for brands more visible in its mobile app with Tuesday's introduction of augmented reality ads in its News Feed. News Feed AR ads will enable advertisers to insert AR camera effects, from virtual product try-ons to p ...more

Amazon Web Service's do-it-yourself tool for building augmented reality experiences and VR has graduated from beta and is now available to all interested users. Unveiled at the AWS re:Invent developer conference last year, Amazon Sumerian is billed as software that lets anyon ...more

Already among the first game makers to add augmented reality content to an existing game upon the launch of ARKit, Zynga is breaking new ground with mobile AR once again. On Wednesday, the game maker's Custom Street Racer 2 (CSR2) racing game, a free download for iOS and Andr ...more

Apple CEO Tim Cook's most recent tech prophecy is that "AR will change everything." And now, that includes Apple's own website. The company has published a new page highlighting its AR apps, specifically, AR content produced by developers using ARKit. "Imagine if the line be ...more

Download a popular, legit app from the Google Play Store. Decompile it. Add malicious code. Repackage the app. Distribute the now trojan-ized app through third-party Android app sites. This is how advertising malware Ewind, what Palo Alto Networks calls "adware in applications ...more

Since its release into the arms of waiting developers, Apple's new ARKit is already making waves in the augmented reality scene. Only a week out and there are already a hefty number of videos appearing on the web showing off various demos with iPhones and iPads. Generally, wi ...more

Stop me if you've heard this one before: scan an image with your iPhone's camera and augmented reality content shows up. This idea probably has you thinking about Snapchat and its Snapcodes. Or maybe you're thinking of Blippar, Zappar, or countless other marker-based AR exper ...more

Netflix is branching out into the comic book business, and it's summoning augmented reality via Facebook to make the first issue more magical. The debut issue of The Magic Order hit comic book store shelves today with four variant covers. Inside each issue is a QR code specif ...more

Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges! That is, unless they have augmented reality content embedded in them and give us full access to Facebook's annual F8 developers conference — in that case, yes, we'll take all the badges. The event kicked off on Tuesday, and continued ...more

Since getting our hands on the Magic Leap One last week, we've been methodically delving into each feature and reporting our findings step-by-step. Earlier this week, we took a look at the Screens app (a video viewer) and the Helio app (an AR web browser). This time around, we ...more

What is old is new again. In this case, a classic arcade game gets the augmented reality treatment. In a new promotion playing off its ad campaign featuring actor Craig Robinson (The Office, Hot Tub Time Machine), Pizza Hut has turned its pizza boxes into a virtual Pac-Man ga ...more

Apple's Animojis took the world by storm with their ease of use and fluidity. They added new life to your emojis by mapping your face with the technology that lives inside the iPhone X. Now, Samsung is also adding new life to emjojis with the introduction of AR Emojis in the G ...more

Just like Maxine in Stranger Things 2, Facebook didn't want to be left out of the cool kids group, which, in this case, is the mobile AR space. The Netflix original show has added a somewhat-spoilerish camera effect to the Facebook app for iPhone and Android that places a cre ...more

Nowadays, with the convenience of online shopping, brick-and-mortar retailers and malls have to work harder to draw shoppers to stores. This year, many of them are turning to augmented reality for assistance. Mall mainstay Swarovski has partnered with AR developer Perfect Cor ...more

In recent days we've covered the marriage of augmented reality and top-tier music artists. This time, though, the music stars are showing off the tech rather than integrating it into their act. On Tuesday, Lisa and Jisoo, two members of one of the biggest K-Pop groups on the ...more

Although some look to golf for some quick off-the-grid time, the scenic hills and blue skies of your local putting green are not immune from the ever-expanding reach of augmented reality. A new update to the Golfshot mobile app brings new AR features to iPhones and iPads desig ...more

As the COVID-19 virus continues to spread, counties, cities, and states are closing down businesses, events, and schools that aren't absolutely necessary. Some companies around the US are recommending or requiring employees to work from home during the coronavirus pandemic. If ...more

The tech world was taken by surprise this week with the unexpected unveiling of Snap's augmented reality Spectacles smartglasses. So far, the reaction has been incredibly positive, partly due to the fact that Snap has been underpromising the delivery of AR smartglasses for se ...more

While Apple introduced new AR features for iOS 15 and Object Capture for Reality Kit 2 during the WWDC 2021 keynote, updates for ARKit were curiously absent in the official presentation. That doesn't mean there isn't anything new coming to Apple's toolkit for mobile AR apps, ...more

Say goodbye to boring video chats over Messenger. Now the app is rolling out new features that can make any chat interesting and fun. There are a ton of them too, ranging from filters, to AR masks, to reactions. Reactions can be found by clicking on the 'thumbs up' icon at t ...more

After one of Britain's "Brothers Bling" bought Blippar out of bankruptcy, the mobile augmented reality company is getting back to business with the addition of web-based AR capabilities to its platform. On Thursday, Blippar revealed that an update of its Blippbuilder AR platf ...more

This time last year, we got our first taste of what mobile app developers could do in augmented reality with Apple's ARKit. Most people had never heard of Animojis. Google's AR platform was still Tango. Snapchat introduced its World Lens AR experiences. Most mobile AR experien ...more

So, you want to become anonymous? well let me give you everything I know (or at least most of it) to you. Introduction Part: So this is a serious only about being anonymous on the internet and while hacking. This series will cover: (further steps might be added if I decide ...more

It was a long time coming, but Android finally has built-in scrolling screenshots, and they come courtesy of Android 12. Now that extended screenshots are integrated into Android by default, you can delete those third-party apps you've been using in the meantime, which were n ...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

Less than 20 days after the launch of Magic Leap One, Mapbox has jumped at the chance to provide its map services to Magic Leap developers through its Maps SDK for Unity. Dubbed the Magic Maps SDK, the toolkit enables developers to pull 3D vector maps, satellite maps, and ele ...more

If you're looking into buying shoes from DSW on Black Friday, then you can save an extra 20% — but only if you smile more. An augmented reality mobile web ad campaign created for the retailer by PadSquad asks customers to smile for the camera. According to a PadSquad spokespe ...more

Where you lead, Gilmore Girls, I will follow. My lifelong dream to grow up Gilmore was to blame for how I ended up waiting in line outside a Williamsburg coffee shop at 6:30 a.m. on a random Wednesday morning. If I was going to start my day like a Lorelai, I needed to live my ...more

While holographic Whitney Houston is hitting the road, a new mobile app is bringing volumetric captures of up and coming performers directly to the iPhones and iPads of fans. On Wednesday, AR studio 1RIC launched Jadu, a video app that delivers virtual performances by music a ...more

French automaker Renault is tapping into the promotional machine for Solo: A Star Wars Movie by deploying an AR experience through Shazam that's triggered via synergistic advertising. To access the experience, users scan the Shazam code embedded on bus stop advertisements in ...more

In a world where augmented reality is becoming the hero of the movie marketing, Universal Studios has decided to use the technology to reinvent the traditional movie trailer, a time-tested tactic of film promotion, in support of the forthcoming Robert Zemeckis film, Welcome to ...more

In a world full of augmented reality camera effects apps, one app is going in a more social direction. On Tuesday, a rebooted version of Octi (which first debuted in 2018) dropped on the Apple App Store. Now, instead of merely adding AR effects to photos and videos, the app u ...more

Throughout Thursday's virtual Snap Partner Summit, Snapchat's parent company made a profound statement: If you use Snapchat, you're a creator. Of Snapchat's more than 500 million creators (aka daily active users), about 40% interact with AR daily to capture content. Don't Mi ...more

Snapchat isn't the only tech company transforming landmarks with augmented reality for Pride Month. About four miles southwest of New York's iconic Flatiron Building, which is getting its own Pride makeover via Snapchat's Landmarker AR, Stonewall National Monument is also rec ...more

Modern "mad men" are buying into augmented reality for marketing, with the two latest examples being trendy burger maker Bareburger and department store chain Zara. And one of the leading social VR platforms wants to diversify its business with AR as well, and it has convince ...more

Whether it's a short road trip or an 18-hour flight, our phones are now essential travel companions. No longer do we need a GPS unit, maps, cameras, camcorders, or even boarding passes. However, not all phones are created equal in this regard. Some are more suited for travelin ...more

CEO (and NR50 member) Tim Cook and Apple unveiled the long-awaited lineup of next-generation iPhones today on stage of the Steve Jobs Theater, packed with hardware improvements to facilitate AR experiences from ARKit, which will arrive with the iOS 11 on Sept. 19. The new iPh ...more

Smartglasses from Apple have become the holy grail of augmented reality, and 2020 has been the rumored time horizon for the product's arrival for the past two years. The latest analyst report sheds more light on its potential debut next year. In the present day, though, Sony ...more

After teasing what smartglasses powered by Snapchat might look like with two product cycles of camera glasses, Snap has now added augmented reality capabilities to its third take on Spectacles. On Tuesday, the company unveiled Spectacles 3, which packs a pair of temple-mounte ...more

Everyone has that one app they use more than any other. What if I told you there was a way to open these apps on newer Google Pixel devices with one quick gesture? I imagine you'd want to know how to do it. Similar to Back Tap for iOS, Quick Tap for Android 12 and newer trigg ...more

Who said brushing your teeth can't be fun? It certainly isn't Kolibree, a company that's introducing the world to the first augmented reality toothbrush for kids at this week's CES tech conference in Las Vegas. Not to be confused with the Marvel Comics character of the same n ...more

While we've seen Snapchat apply sky segmentation to AR content, the makers of the Blue Sky Paint app have applied similar capabilities to create and share airborne art. Published by AR developer Kevaid and available now on the App Store, Blue Sky Paint is similar to Similar t ...more