Virtual Reality

After parting ways with Papa John's, the National Football League has drafted Pizza Hut as its official pizza purveyor, and the company has hit the field with an augmented reality game to entertain hungry football fans. After scanning specially marked pizza boxes using the Be ...more

Fans attending the US Open Tennis Championships in Queens, New York, which kicks off on Monday, will have the opportunity to meet tennis star Venus Williams in an augmented reality game sponsored by American Express. Fittingly, Williams' younger sister Serena was recently fea ...more

The fortunes of ARKit and ARCore are still in the hands of developers, who have been increasing the number of mobile augmented reality apps on the market, but perhaps not as fast as companies like Apple might have expected. But one new product is looking to literally kickstart ...more

In the wake of the smoke from the meticulously orchestrated launch of Magic Leap One, the company has revealed what "leapers" can expect to experience via Lumin OS when their devices arrive between now and the end of the year. Among the core applications of the Lumin OS are t ...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

As if riding roller coasters and meeting your favorite childhood cartoon characters weren't amusing enough, Snapchat is amping up the fun with augmented reality at the world's leading amusements parks in the this summer. According to a company spokesperson, Snapchat now offer ...more

Magic Leap just did something it didn't do during its recent Twitch hardware demo: show us some new demo footage of what augmented reality really looks like through the Magic Leap One. During this week's Unite Berlin conference, an event dedicated to Unity developers, Magic L ...more

If touring the scenic vistas behind the Lord of the Rings film franchise doesn't persuade tourists to visit New Zealand, perhaps immersive content viewed through Magic Leap One will do the trick. On Thursday, Air New Zealand announced a strategic partnership with Magic Leap, ...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

Although retailers like Mac Cosmetics and Zara have been celebrated for deploying innovative in-store augmented reality experiences in their brick-and-mortar locations, a new report throws cold water on the practice. In a report titled "Augmented Reality in Retail," market re ...more

Department store chain Target is the latest retailer to offer an augmented reality cosmetics app for customers to virtually try on lipstick. For its Beauty Studio web app, Target uses the YouCam platform offered by Perfect Corp. Available through Target.com via any desktop we ...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

At Google's I/O developer conference keynote on Tuesday, ARCore may have been absent, but Google did preview a potentially trailblazing augmented reality feature for Google Maps. Google's vice president of product for AR, VR, and vision-based products, Aparna Chennapragada, p ...more

The crime procedural show is the perhaps the most direct path to the average TV viewer's heart. Could the same hold true for augmented reality games? Exhibit A: Forensic Detective: Inside the Crime Scene, a new, iOS-only mobile game for iPhones and iPads, that will be availab ...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

The annual Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is one of those events that everyone talks about, so an augmented reality experience in the festival's mobile app and from one of its headlining acts, Eminem, basically means the technology is officially cool. The iOS versio ...more

One of the most popular mobile games out there for kids has added an augmented reality mode that brings the titular character into the real world. An update of Nickelodeon's Sky Whale, available now on the App Store and Google Play renders the game's oceanic environment and i ...more

The future of augmented reality isn't on your smartphone or face, it's in the everyday items all around us. At least that's the belief of Gordon Meyer, the vice president of marketing at New York-based startup Lampix. Meyer joined me recently in New York to talk about why he ...more

The augmented reality and VR arm of Verizon, Envrmnt, wants to make it really easy for anyone to create AR apps. AR Designer is a web-based tool with a drag-and-drop interface that enables non-developers to import 3D assets, build ARKit and ARCore apps, and publish them to th ...more

Snapchat has released three new augmented reality Lenses that boast uber-accurate face tracking courtesy of the TrueDepth camera on the iPhone X and ARKit. Starting on Friday, professional wrestler-style face paint, a Day of the Dead-inspired mask with gold roses, and a golde ...more

What's black and white, sounds like actress Kristen Bell, and is standing in your living room talking to your kids right now? Don't worry, that's just Genius the Panda, an augmented reality character from the Yakables app for iPhones and iPads. Using ARKit to place the animat ...more

A report from app data firm Sensor Tower reveals that more than 13 million ARKit apps have been installed on iPhones and iPads within the first six months since the toolkit launched with iOS 11. Among the apps built expressly for ARKit, San Francisco-based Sensor Tower ranks ...more

At Apple's education event in Chicago on Tuesday, augmented reality stood at the head of the class among the tech giant's new offerings for the classroom. The company showcased a number of ARKit-enabled apps that promise to make learning more immersive. For example, the AR mo ...more

If you're playing word association with the terms "augmented reality" and "automobiles," your first thoughts probably center on navigation displays in cars or virtual models of exotic vehicles. Capital One plans to shift its customers' preconceptions of AR in cars to the purc ...more

If you're a golf fan who can't attend the Arnold Palmer Invitational in person, you can still follow the next stop on the apparent Tiger Woods comeback tour in augmented reality with an iPhone or iPad. The PGA Tour AR, available now on the App Store for ARKit-compatible devic ...more

Whenever Japan does something new in tech, the cute factor is almost always taken into account. The same holds true for augmented reality, as Yahoo! Japan has just revealed its take on AR map navigation with a new AR Mode. Like other versions of AR mapping that we've seen bef ...more

It's been months since Leap Motion, the hand-tracking interface startup, announced the hiring of Keiichi Matsuda as the VP of design and global creative director based in London. Since then, Matsuda's normally active social media stream has been fairly quiet — until now. Hard ...more

On Tuesday, at the Geneva International Motor Show, Volkswagen gave the world an early peek at a futuristic autonomous concept car that includes a virtual AI host embodied in an augmented reality interface. For its I.D. Vizzion concept car, Volkswagen has endeavored to create ...more

As part of its ARCore release announcement, Google also revealed a forthcoming app that's sure to excite those who celebrate '80s pop culture. That app is Ghostbusters World, which is coming later this year from Sony Pictures Entertainment Consumer Products, Ghost Corps (the ...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

Although The New York Times may have won the race in terms of presenting coverage of the 2018 Winter Olympics through augmented reality first, The Washington Post is nevertheless working to compete in AR in a different way—via gaming. This week, the newspaper published an AR ...more

Augmented reality headsets with depth sensors, like the HoloLens, offer a much more immersive experience than the average smartphone at present, and one app demonstrates that in a uniquely entertaining fashion. ZOOO, currently available on the Microsoft Store for $4.99, uses ...more

Thanks to Face Maker, a new app for the iPhone X, children everywhere can now avoid the trauma of face painting. Okay, maybe that needs some context. When I was in kindergarten, I had my face painted as part of an arts and crafts day at school. When my dad saw the results, he ...more

If you want your own lightsaber, you don't need to be a Jedi or have kyber crystals in your possession; now, thanks to augmented reality, all you need is an iPhone and a rolled up piece of paper. On Wednesday, app developer 2020CV released InstaSaber on the iOS App Store. The ...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

Continuing its unrelenting (and mostly successful) campaign against Snapchat, on Tuesday, Facebook announced the addition of "World Effects" to its Messenger app. If that sounds familiar, it's because the name and general execution mirror Snapchat's popular "World Lens" featu ...more

To promote Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Disney and Lucasfilm released virtual porgs into the wilds of Snapchat via a Sponsored Lens on Sunday. The Lens placed a porg in your personal space via the rear-facing camera. Using the front-facing camera, the Lens also equipped users wi ...more

After years of tantalizing drone video, and then brief glimpses from special guests sharing photos on social media, the Apple Park Visitor Center finally opened to the public on Friday, Nov. 17. Anchored by a $427 million main building that is often referred to as the "spaces ...more

Apple CEO Tim Cook told us that augmented reality would change everything, and now we have a better idea of exactly what he meant. A new report reveals that Apple is already hard at work on a rear-facing 3D sensor for the iPhone that would vastly expand the iPhone's AR capabi ...more

Ever since the planet went crazy trying to find augmented reality creatures in Pokémon GO, we've been waiting for the next virtual object game capable of delivering a similar hit. And now, we might finally have one coming, direct from the magical world of Harry Potter. The ne ...more

With a pair of new APIs and low-latency media servers, Twilio's Programmable Video platform could soon help ARKit and ARCore app developers build shared AR experiences between multiple users. By synchronizing AR content with audio and video communications in real time, Twilio ...more

At the Augmented World Expo Europe press conference in Munich today, RE'FLEKT will unveil the addition of remote video calling to their RE'FLEKT One enterprise augmented reality platform, in addition to ARKit and ARCore apps that demonstrate the platform's capabilities. Like ...more

Today, anyone with a compatible PC can download the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update and experience Windows Mixed Reality. Also arriving today are Windows Mixed Reality headsets from Acer, Dell, HP, and Lenovo, which are all available through Microsoft Stores. Best Buy also se ...more

Avegant Corporation has begun shipping display development kits based on its light field technology that other companies can use in their augmented and mixed reality devices. The light field displays are capable of multiple focal planes, which give virtual objects a realistic ...more

The promise of augmented reality when it comes to gaming is the conversion of the player's real-world environment into a virtual playground. Army of Robots, available for $1.99 in the App Store for ARKit-compatible devices, gives us a tangible example on how the promise could ...more

The total solar eclipse is just a few days a way and everyone is buzzing about it. It will be visible in the US from Oregon to South Carolina with 16.5 million people able to view it. However, the other 306 million people in the US are out of luck when it comes to viewing the ...more

Another day brings another Apple ARKit demo, this time for a first-person role playing game that inserts villagers, vendors, and villains into real world locations. Finnish developer Lauri Rustanius shared a series of videos via Twitter for a game called Genereal World that i ...more

Augmented reality developer Blippar has created a new visual positioning service based on computer vision that is two times more accurate than GPS in urban locales. Positional accuracy has significant implications for location-based augmented reality experiences. With less ma ...more

You know the drill. It's time to d-d-d-duel! This time you're a part of the Shadow Games in a way you've never been before, thanks to Micorsoft's HoloLens. YouTube user MicrowaveSam posted a taste of what fans will one day be getting in terms of an augmented reality Yu-Gi-Oh ...more

The app SketchAR is an easy, innovative way to trace what you want to draw onto the canvas of your choice. It was first released on iOS and Android Tango phones, but now, finally, it has been released on Microsoft's HoloLens. SketchAR uses computer vision to scan the environm ...more

Wise Snacks wants baseball fans to reach for potato chips instead of peanuts and Cracker Jacks, and it's calling augmented reality out of the bullpen to close the deal. The snack maker has partnered with two Major League Baseball teams, the Atlanta Braves and the New York Met ...more

Hutch Interiors, Inc., makers of an eponymous augmented reality home design app for iOS and Android, has closed a series A round of funding, led by online real estate company Zillow Group, totaling $10 million. Hutch shares the approach of similar augmented reality apps from ...more

German tech store Saturn is experimenting with an AR alien called Paula to push their products ... That's a sentence I never thought I'd write. The retailer is testing their augmented reality salesperson with customers in 20 select stores via a Microsoft HoloLens. 'Paula' wil ...more

Snapchat is attempting to take over the world via augmented reality technology. Well, it's more of a virtual makeover than a takeover, but still ... The patent application, which was filed by the company in 2015 and published on May 4, 2017, indicates that Snap, Inc. plans to ...more

Despite a round of updates to Pokémon GO that patched and eliminated location spoofing, the game still has a difficult time dealing with the most hardcore cheaters. Like weeds on a grassy lawn, third-party bot makers still remain the biggest thorn in Niantic's side and continu ...more

The Broadway musical War Paint is teaming with augmented reality cosmetics app YouCam Makeup to promote the show on iOS and Android devices. The musical, which centers on the famous rivalry between Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein, two cosmetics industry pioneers, has bee ...more

360world, a Hungary-based tech company involved in motion control and augmented reality, released information today about their latest products, the CLAIRITY HoloTower and CLAIRITY SmartBinocular. These tools are designed to bring augmented reality into the hands of air traffi ...more

If you're part of the Windows 10 Insider Program, build 15048 launched this morning, and included a nice big unannounced surprise. You can now launch the Mixed Reality Portal and enable the simulation to try out mixed reality right from your PC, even if you don't have one of t ...more

In addition to trying to give Pokémon a life on the HoloLens, Sky Zhou, a founding member of mixed reality studio Matrix Inception, won Microsoft's Actiongram Fantasy Contest Quest last month for his video concept on slaying dragons. But fantastical creatures aren't the only t ...more

We've highlighted the projects of Wavelength Studios a few times over recent months for their work in the augmented and mixed reality space. Since receiving their HoloLens headsets, they've been hard at work on both development community projects as well as efforts for clients ...more