Virtual Googles

One of the earliest players in the social virtual reality space, vTime, has just landed $7.6 million in new funding, which the company says is partially earmarked for developing and releasing an augmented reality version of its platform later this year. "Bootstrapped from lau ...more

Just weeks after officially launching its mobile augmented reality toolkit, Google can now claim one of its first Android and ARCore app exclusives with the Curate app from Sotheby's International Realty. Available now in the Play Store, Curate operates similarly to furniture ...more

It's been a long time coming, but Tamagotchi has finally ditched its iconic toy egg and arrived as a mobile game. The new iteration is called My Tamagotchi Forever, and though it's currently only available in Canada, you can actually download the game anywhere and care for you ...more

Most of the animated characters and animals we've seen in augmented reality are still fairly basic in terms of visual fidelity. And because many are still impressed by simply seeing 3D figures properly scaled and tracked alongside real-world objects, this approach has worked . ...more

From media insiders to the halls of politics, news travels fast on Twitter, making it one of the most powerful social media channels for disseminating or collecting information. Now, for better or for worse, you can immerse yourself in the data firehose of Twitter in augmented ...more

It appears that the new AR app from LEGO is inching closer to release. LEGO had the unique distinction of being featured on-stage by both Apple and Google to show-off the capabilities ARKit and ARCore, respectively. While the latter is still in a preview and available to only ...more

With the advent of ARKit, apps that can place virtual furniture in a real room have become nearly a universal practice for furniture retailers, with Pottery Barn being the latest to join the fray. While it might seem as though Pottery Barn is playing catch-up with the likes o ...more

A weak password is one that is short, common, or easy to guess. Equally bad are secure but reused passwords that have been lost by negligent third-party companies like Equifax and Yahoo. Today, we will use Airgeddon, a wireless auditing framework, to show how anyone can crack ...more

While most of Hollywood and its celebrity class are enthralled by virtual reality, a new augmented reality experience featuring some of the music and film world's top talent is preparing for virtual liftoff. Masters of the Sun is a graphic novel that was released this summer ...more

ARKit and ARCore generate excitement among various segments of the tech industry for spurring adoption of augmented reality with consumers via mobile devices. The consensus among many experts, though, is that the future lies within augmented reality headsets, and that the ent ...more

At IFA in Berlin today, Sony introduced the latest models of the Xperia line, with new features in tow that should appeal to creators of augmented and virtual reality content. The Xperia XZ1 and XZ1 Compact both carry the Motion-Eye camera that can capture video at 960 frames ...more

Though the Golden State Warriors won the crown as the NBA's best team again this season, the Sacramento Kings continue their rule as the sport's technology leader, debuting their new uniforms from Nike through augmented reality today. With an assist from Zappar's augmented re ...more

The new Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ phones were announced on March 29 at the Samsung UNPACKED 2017 event. Preorders start on March 30 for the Korean tech giant's latest flagships, and sales officially begin in the US on April 21. Samsung will need a smooth release to win ...more

After many months of endless speculation over the mysterious augmented reality platform Magic Leap, software engineers worldwide have been waiting for any news of what development environment this amazing technology might use. Thanks to Paul Reynolds, the former Magic Leap Sen ...more

Microsoft has the HoloLens and Google has their money on Magic Leap (as well as their own Tango and Cardboard, among others), but we've heard next to nothing about how Apple plans to enter the virtual/augmented/mixed reality space. A new patent offers some clues. Apple could ...more

Mixed reality (MR) feels like an amazing, almost mind-blowing futuristic technology—but only once you've experienced it for yourself. Words, images, and even videos simply cannot describe the experience in full. If you want to really peer into the future and experience MR for ...more

Virtual reality and horror were meant for each other. You'll get all the positive aspects of experiencing a terrifying situation such as excitement and an adrenaline rush, without any of the real-life consequences, like being ripped to shreds by a herd of flesh-eating monsters ...more

Logan's Run is one of my favorite movies of all time. The dialog is cheesy, the set design and special effects are wonky, and the main villain looks like he was conceived and built by an eighth grader in shop class—oh, and his name is Box. But there are plenty of things to li ...more

Android comprises an entire ecosystem of apps, games, functions, and features, so it would only make sense that it has its own lexicon. Words, phrases, and acronyms that didn't exist ten years ago are now used in an off-the-cuff style by developers and support technicians acro ...more

Mobile payment systems have been around for almost 5 years now, starting with Google Wallet. But when Apple got into the game last year with their new Apple Pay service, things really started to take off. Around this time, Samsung responded by acquiring an up-and-coming mobile ...more

Magic Leap, the virtual-reality software group backed by Google, just released a teaser video on their YouTube channel. In a word, it's amazing. Video: . But then you think about it, and other words come to mind, like ridiculous and, well, bullshit. I mean, how can this VR tec ...more

Google has a few hidden tools you might not have discovered yet, and they work in Google Search, in the Google app, and with Google Assistant — on both iPhone and Android phones. We all know smartphones do much more than make phone calls. They serve as cameras, GPS navigators ...more

Google and Snap held their annual conferences this week, and both companies managed to upstage their new AR software features with fantastic new AR hardware. After Snap unloaded a deluge of new AR capabilities and tools for creators and brands on Thursday, it dropped the mic ...more

The race for the future of AR wearables gained steam this week with several pivotal developments. First, Apple, the subject of numerous reports and rumors regarding its purported AR headset, is reportedly eyeing an in-person unveiling of the device for later this year, rather ...more

The 2021 season of Major League Baseball (MLB) is in full swing, and now that vaccines are widespread in the US, major baseball stadiums are allowing fans back in at full capacity. But for those either without the time to attend or still comfortable observing developments fro ...more

Snapchat may trail Facebook and Instagram in terms of daily active users, but a new partnership with Samsung may get those innovative AR Lenses onto the mobile devices of a lot more users. Non-fungible tokens, perhaps the hottest segment of the blockchain tech industry at the ...more

Apparently, we learned nothing from Jurassic Park, as scientists are still working on bringing extinct species back to life. Until that day comes, you can interact with long-lost animals through augmented reality...if you have a newer model iPhone. On Wednesday, Atlantic Prod ...more

The response to the COVID-19 pandemic means that social distancing has become the new normal. It also means that more Americans are using video conferencing to connect with colleagues working from home or friends and family in quarantine because of the new coronavirus. In gen ...more

After facing reports of financial troubles over the past month, Magic Leap came out swinging this week with a big push for the enterprise segment of AR, including a repackaged Magic Leap 1, a suite of enterprise apps, and updates to Lumin OS and its supporting development ecos ...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

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

With the announcement of ARKit 2.0 at WWDC 2018, Apple is bringing some powerful new capabilities to mobile augmented reality apps this fall. Shared experiences, persistent content, and 3D object recognition will enable more social, transcendent, and immersive experiences for ...more

While there are a variety of privacy-focused search engines available like StartPage and DuckDuckGo, nothing can offer the complete trust offered by creating one's own search engine. For complete trust and security, Searx can be used as free metasearch engine which can be host ...more

Apple's iOS 11 is finally here, and while they showed off several of the new features it brings to your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch back at WWDC 2017, they've only just touched the surface of what iOS 11 has to offer. There are a lot of cool new (and sometimes secret) feature ...more

Tony Parisi, the global head of VR/AR at Unity Technologies, has been passionately working with virtual and immersive spaces for a long time. And while the internet world we live in now is very different than when Parisi was co-authoring VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language ...more

There are many impressive features in the new iOS 11 for iPhones, and the Maps app got a lot of love from Apple. This means it's finally about time you stop relying on Google Maps for all of your navigation needs, since Apple Maps is not only more accurate than it used to be, ...more

A great many S8 and S8+ users have undoubtedly spent quite a bit of time figuring out ways to unlock their new Galaxy in as few steps as possible. One of the most endearing features of previous Galaxy models was the ability to unlock the phone by pressing the home button and m ...more

The coming year promises to be a good one for those of us watching the augmented and mixed reality world. And the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), starting Jan. 5 in Las Vegas, Nevada, for its 50th year, is bringing 2017 in with a bang—we're expecting a ton of great announceme ...more

So, you've finally scored the coveted upgrade to chocolaty KitKat deliciousness, or you've managed to get your hands on a Nexus 5, the freshest thing from LG and El Goog. Satisfied with your new lease on life, you direct your phone's web browser to catch up on your Amazon Inst ...more

If you can't find the remote for your Android TV or Google TV, don't like using its voice control feature, are sick of using the directional pad to type, or can't get it to work at all, use your smartphone instead. Using your iPhone or Android phone as a virtual remote control ...more

In these times of social distancing, video calling is becoming the technological substitute for face-to-face connections. For those who carry an iPhone, the art of video calling defaults to FaceTime, the native app on iOS that is exclusive to Apple devices. But what do you do ...more

Museum curators typically frown upon visitors touching paintings, sculptures, and artifacts, but not when those exhibits are displayed in augmented reality. The latest AR exhibit from Google Arts & Culture not only lets you virtually touch the displays but also make your own ...more

Now that iOS 13 is in the wild, developers are starting to show off the magical augmented reality powers ARKit 3 can deliver. One shining example comes via the new Meisai AR Filter app, developed by Japan's Kitasenju Design, which is capable of producing visual illusions that ...more

There have been enough music artists releasing Snapchat AR experiences over the past week to fill a small festival. Count them with me: Bruno Mars. Gucci Mane. Kodak Black. Missy Elliot. Imagine Dragons. Panic! At the Disco. The barrage of AR camera effects come courtesy of L ...more

Wearables startup North has made a smart move to get its Focals smartglasses into the hands of more consumers. On Wednesday, the company launched a new Focals Showroom iOS app that leverages the TrueDepth FaceID camera on iPhone X, XR, XS, XS Max, 11, 11 Pro, and 11 Pro Max s ...more

While modern browsers are robust and provide a lot of functionality, they can be unlocked to do some pretty spectacular things with browser extensions. For hackers and OSINT researchers, these tools can be used to defeat online tracking, log in to SSH devices, and search the i ...more

Can lightning strike twice? Niantic is betting that it can with its latest augmented reality game based on the best-selling multimedia franchise Harry Potter. If the developer's name is unfamiliar, then perhaps Ingress, the company's first mobile game, which not only earned a ...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

London-based developer Andrew Hart has been working on AR navigation since Apple's original ARKit tool was still in beta preview. Now, he's ready to unleash his technology on the world. On Thursday, his startup, Dent Reality, released a new software development kit (SDK) that ...more

We've seen a variety of AR experiences related to athletic footwear over the years, but Puma is betting sneakerheads will buy into a version of interactive design where sneakers are the augmented reality experience The shoemaker launched the LQD Cell (pronounced "liquid cell" ...more

While painting in augmented reality is not a groundbreaking pursuit, the ability for Magic Leap One, iPhone and iPad, and Android users to collaborate remotely on virtual artwork would be. That is what Across Realities is aiming to do with Spatiate, an app that launched on Th ...more

The augmented reality walking navigation mode for Google Maps appears to be closer to an upcoming release for the general public. Google recently granted the Wall Street Journal (paywall) a sneak peek at the navigation mode via a preview build, and the newspaper published its ...more

Browsing the web can be dangerous. With all of the various threats out there, it isn't enough to just avoid bad links and visit only HTTPS websites. You need to take advantage of the tools available to you so you don't end up the victim of some scam. Fortunately, Opera is maki ...more

Ingress, the godfather of location based-AR games developed by Pokémon GO creator Niantic Labs, is getting a new lease on life via Ingress Prime, a reboot of the game built on the Niantic Real World Platform. After teasing the reboot late last year, Niantic launched the new g ...more

One of the leading chipmakers for smartphones is getting ready to announce a new processor made specifically for augmented and virtual reality headsets. According to a report from Bloomberg, Qualcomm is likely to announce the Snapdragon XR1 around the same time as the Augment ...more

Location services company Mapbox has added new capabilities to its location-based gaming tool to fend off Google's challenge for the same mobile app category. With version 1.4.2 of its Maps SDK for Unity, Mapbox has made it easier for developers to target real-world points of ...more

Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting and prayer, is underway, and Google has rolled out several tools to help Muslims commemorate the event, including an augmented reality app. Last year, Google launched Qibla Finder, an augmented reality web app that points users in th ...more

If the end of every year is focused on new iPhones, then February, which coincides with Mobile World Congress, is often when we get new Android news, and this month is no different. On Monday, Amazon released a new video demonstrating how its AR View tool in the Amazon app wo ...more

A very low-key update to the ARCore developer's site has expanded the universe of officially-supported devices for Google's augmented reality toolkit to include the Samsung Galaxy S7, S8+, and Note 8 handsets. The expansion itself isn't a surprise with regard to the S8+ and N ...more

While Apple launched ARKit to enable developers to build augmented into mobile apps, Mozilla, the company behind the Firefox browser, is taking advantage of the platform to advocate for browser-based AR experiences. On Friday, the software maker made the WebXR Viewer app avai ...more