Virtual Googles

Because timing is everything, the latest entry in the location-based augmented reality gaming sweepstakes, Ghostbusters World, has arrived just in time for Halloween. Launched Monday on the App Store and the Google Play Store, Ghostbusters World shares its perfect timing with ...more

This week, Snapchat parent Snap came closer to fulfilling its smartglasses destiny by adding new 3D content capabilities to its third-generation Spectacles. At the same time, the now defunct Meta Company continued its fall from grace, as a judge ruled in favor of the plaintiff ...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

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

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

Alongside the usual collection of holiday-themed Lenses, Snapchatters received an extra-special treat from Snapchat over the weekend—a world-spanning Easter egg hunt. Like a highly-simplified version of Pokémon GO, The Great Snapchat Egg Hunt challenged Snapchat users to retr ...more

The iPhone has a handy feature called AssistiveTouch that lets you quickly adjust volume, lock your screen, rotate your display, and even navigate through the phone's interface using a virtual home button. In a way, it's a lot like the on-screen navigation bar that you'll find ...more

When you think about consumer VR headsets, you either imagine a computer-tethered powerhouse like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, or something portable yet limited that utilizes your smartphone like Google Cardboard. Somehow, we haven't seen much in-between, but the Idealens aim ...more

Augmented and mixed reality experiences attempt to break us out of windowed computing experiences and allow us to place software anywhere in the room. But that software doesn't have to take a rectangular form—theoretically, the web doesn't have to restrict itself to a page in ...more

The year is still off to a roaring start, with augmented reality at the center of nearly everything, from enterprise solutions, to entertainment, to safety. In the realm of streaming, the Marvel universe got another dose of augmented reality marketing help thanks to Disney Pl ...more

While the world is only recently becoming aware of its existence, augmented reality has been around in some form or another since the '90s. In the last decade, with the advancement and miniaturization of computer technology — specifically smartphones and tablets — AR has becom ...more

Today's smartphones and tablets offer a great way for children to learn through interactive sight, sound, and touch, but they can also provide hours of genuine fun. If you have a spare tablet laying around—or at least a nice, durable case—the only thing you need to get your ch ...more

Some of the leading big tech companies are still working in the lab on actual products, but at least some of their leadership did have some thoughts to share on the future direction of the technology this week. Meanwhile, we had the opportunity to check out two newish AR offe ...more

In his famous 1996 "Content is King" essay, Bill Gates predicted that content is where tech companies will make money on the Internet. The adage clearly holds true in the current phase of augmented reality experience. For example, Magic Leap, Snapchat, Facebook, Google, 8th W ...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

Gboard has come a long way from its roots as the "Google Keyboard" in the earlier days of Android. It's now the most popular, feature-rich, and useful keyboard app on the market. Google even includes quite a few themes right out of the box for Gboard — but what if you could ha ...more

Magic Leap has already entered the realm of entertainment and enterprise, but on now it has blazed its way into a new augmented reality frontier: fashion. On Wednesday, Moschino and H&M held a fashion show in New York City that, in addition to the traditional runway model vam ...more

For anyone using open source information to conduct an investigation, a balance between powerful tools and privacy controls are a must. Buscador is a virtual machine packed full of useful OSINT tools and streamlined for online research. This program can easily be set up in Vir ...more

Among a treasure trove of new developer information on the Lumin OS that Magic Leap recently published on its Creator Portal appears to be the official confirmation of the Magic Leap Mobile Companion App. The app was alluded to in job postings previously reported by Next Real ...more

The premise of Jurassic World revolves around splicing genes to create new dinosaurs, so it is fitting that the location-based AR game is a clone of Pokémon GO merged with the DNA of the Jurassic Park franchise. Hatching now in the App Store and Google Play, Jurassic World Al ...more

HTC is entering the augmented reality market through the back door by giving developers access to the stereo front-facing cameras on the Vive and Vive Pro VR headsets. The company announced on Wednesday, April 11, an update to the OpenVR camera API that will enable developers ...more

Before Google Chrome entered the scene and subsequently dominated the market, Firefox trailed only Internet Explorer as the most popular web browser. Now, Mozilla has its sights set on a new opportunity to revive its browser for immersive experiences. In a blog post on Tuesda ...more

It would be difficult to discuss the business of augmented reality without acknowledging the annual tech meat market of CES. The biggest stories of CES came courtesy of Vuzix, which debuted its consumer-centric Blade smartglasses, and Meta Company, which struck a deal with De ...more

Last month, BMW rolled out its playful take on augmented reality with Snapchat, and now the automaker is bringing that same immersive computing whimsy to iOS directly. Using Apple's ARKit, the BMW i Visualizer app allows you to select and customize a life-sized version of the ...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

The Galaxy S8's Always On Display is a fantastic feature that gives you a brief overview without having to wake up your phone. But AOD now has a virtual home button, which kinda ruins the sleek look and can even cause screen burn-in. Regardless of your reason, if you're not a ...more

It looks like Samsung's Bixby finally got one up on Apple's Siri — when it comes to which virtual assistant can spit better rhymes, that is. Mhm, that's right. It's a rap battle between one AI and another, and Siri just can't spit. But Bixby, well ... Bixby's got some super d ...more

Asobo Studios, one of the first companies to partner with Microsoft on HoloLens development, is applying their expertise towards building applications for various business verticals through their internal HoloForge Interactive team. Their latest proof of concept is a holograp ...more

Jeep has now jumped on the AR-retail trend with their introduction of the Jeep Compass Visualizer. Customers can now view and customize a Jeep Compass to their liking, all without a real Jeep even present. Customers will be able to use the smartphone to go in depth with a vir ...more

Google and Samsung have been leaving Apple in the dust when it comes to virtual reality gear. However, as the market grows and becomes more impossible to ignore within the tech world, Apple may be forced to play catch up. This could account for the new Apple patent that was gr ...more

If you're an Apple user and want an untethered virtual reality system, you're currently stuck with Google Cardboard, which doesn't hold a candle to the room scale VR provided by the HTC Vive (a headset not compatible with Macs, by the way). But spatial computing company Occipi ...more

People fear virtual reality will isolate us, but the right experience can prove it does the opposite. AltspaceVR is a virtual world you can utilize to chat with others around the world, but that's not all. You can also play card and board games, a game of laser tag, or a song ...more

Many midrange phones are being manufactured without a gyroscope sensor—the Moto X Play, third-generation Moto G, and several of Samsung's Galaxy Grand models, among others. It's not exactly an essential smartphone sensor, and leaving this out keeps the phone's price point down ...more

Augmented reality (AR) generally exists through the lens of our smartphones as information layered on top of what the camera sees, but it doesn't have to. Developer Jon Cheng worked with an indoor climbing facility in Somerville, Massachussetts, called Brooklyn Boulders, to tu ...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

On the new Moto X smartphone, the only thing you have to do to activate the virtual assistant is say "Okay, Google Now." That's it. You don't have to press a button or tap on the display at all. It's always ready for your voice commands via its "Active Listening" feature, maki ...more

It seems like all tech companies want to know where we are. Even Apple and Google have been caught abusing their location access on iOS and Android. Luckily, there are apps that can trick your phone into thinking it's somewhere it's not. As The New York Times recently detaile ...more

Magic Leap's legal battle against Nreal has taken an intriguing turn this week, as Magic Leap set a date to discuss the matter with Nreal. But a new partnership struck by Nreal adds another wrinkle to the duel between the two AR wearable makers. Meanwhile, Magic Leap, YouTube ...more

Being able to write your own hacking tools is what separates the script kiddies from the legendary hackers. While this can take many forms, one of the most coveted skills in hacking is the ability to dig through the binary files of a program and identify vulnerabilities at the ...more

Every time you make a call or send a text, you're giving the recipient your phone number. This can be quite the security vulnerability, opening yourself up to scammers, spammers, and the feds. In this how-to, we'll look at what a burner phone is, why you might want one, and ho ...more

Over the past week, practically every major tech company working on augmented reality has held their quarterly earnings calls with investors, and each addressed or at least mentioned the role of AR during their prepared remarks. However, Facebook's earnings call had some of th ...more

Amid the coronavirus chaos, two companies at the forefront of augmented reality technology took starkly different approaches to their upcoming developers conferences, as Facebook has canceled its annual F8 conference and Magic Leap plans to invite a limited number of attendees ...more

We may or may not see Apple's long-awaited take on AR smartglasses this year, but the company is more than getting its practice swings in with its current wearables business, which hit record revenue in 2019 according to financial results released this week. Aside from Apple' ...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

When it comes to the business of augmented reality, companies that aren't already introducing new products or apps are focused on producing the AR technology of the future. But in the realm of real products and apps, Magic Leap continues to show off what its headset can do, th ...more

Google Assistant was just released for iOS today. You may know it as the AI-powered assistant that makes Google Home tick, or perhaps you've heard from one of many review sites about how much better it is than Siri. Well, before you run off to the App Store to install Google A ...more

The Snapdragon 820 and 821 were met with praise last year, receiving almost no complaints compared to their overheating predecessor, the Snapdragon 810. But now, all eyes are on Qualcomm to see what goodies they have in store for us this year, as their new SoC, the Snapdragon ...more

While visiting the Made by Google pop-up shop in New York City this morning, I had a chance to try out the new Daydream View virtual reality headset. First impressions are important, and Google's new mobile VR product makes a good one. The headset is made of a soft fabric that ...more

At an event in Mountain View, CA, and watched by fans via live stream on YouTube, Google announced a slew of new products today. Over the last few weeks, there was no shortage of rumors and leaks about what might be unveiled, but now the secrets are out. As expected, Google h ...more

Not many people use their phone exclusively for making calls or sending messages today. If you're an Android user, the chances are high that you're using your phone or tablet for work-related activities. However, the basic set of apps and services your device was shipped with ...more

The year leading into fall is turning out to be packed with a flurry of augmented reality activity. Most notably, TikTok is adding another major weapon to its AR arsenal. Also on deck are the powers of Hollywood horror in the form of an innovative approach to AR marketing that ...more

As a company, Facebook is not shy about talking up its AR smartglasses plans. The latest missive comes from two executives in charge of developing AR software and hardware. As far as we know, Amazon doesn't have plans to make AR smartglasses yet (and audio-only smartglasses d ...more

Most of today's mobile augmented reality apps focus on individual experiences, but a new entrant into the space wants to make things a bit more social. Battle tested for years in the realm of virtual reality, vTime is finally bringing its immersive social chat experience into ...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

Electronic Arts is inviting players of The Sims Freeplay and their friends to visit the homes of their Sims in augmented reality with a new AR mode that supports multiplayer and persistent content using ARKit 2.0. Available in the Brilliant Backyards update for ARKit-compatib ...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

If you aren't convinced that mobile augmented reality apps need occlusion (or you don't know what the word even means), you really need to watch the latest video from AR cloud startup 6D.ai. The 6D.ai video is titled "What is Occlusion in AR, and Why Does it Matter?" For the ...more

New York-based startup CTRL-Labs has closed a $28 million Series A round of funding from Google parent Alphabet's GV and Amazon's Alexa Fund, among others, for its next-generation neural interface technology for AR/VR and robotics. CTRL-labs offers a twist on the brain contro ...more

One of the primary factors that separates an augmented reality device from a standard heads-up display such as Google Glass is dimensional depth perception. This can be created by either RGB cameras, infrared depth cameras, or both, depending on the level of accuracy you're ai ...more

For social media platforms like Facebook, augmented reality represents a whole new art form with which users can express themselves online. Now, Facebook is giving those users a new brush. A new AR painting tool for Facebook Camera, which began rolling out to users on Monday, ...more