Virtual Reality

Escape rooms, those real world puzzle games that challenge teams to solve a mystery and gain their freedom from a locked room, are all the rage right now. But augmented reality games such as The Lockdown could make them obsolete. Available now via the App Store and Google Pla ...more

On Wednesday, June 6, the people at Magic Leap finally (FINALLY) decided to give the public a dedicated, slow, feature-by-feature walkthrough of the Magic Leap One: Creator Edition. How was it? About as good as it gets without actually getting to see what images look like thro ...more

As expected, Apple revealed today at the WWDC keynote that ARKit 2.0 will support multiplayer gaming support and persistent content, which will arrive this fall with iOS 12. In addition to persistent and shared experiences, ARKit 2.0 will bring improved face tracking, more re ...more

With all the recent activity around augmented reality, the possibilities involving immersive computing and commerce are quickly becoming obvious, and digital payments giant PayPal has no plans to sit on the sidelines The company has been granted an augmented reality patent, w ...more

While you were busy browsing Instagram, composing tweets, or chasing Snapchat updates, an eight-year-old ARKit developer was hard at work on her first step toward taking over the tech world via augmented reality. A new app called A.R.tist, created by Nova Fleming, allows user ...more

As the week of the Game Developer's Conference hits the mid-point, we've already had some major announcements hit the AR space. The specific timing of these announcements are thanks in part to a conference within a conference called VRDC, aimed at VR, AR, and MR developers. An ...more

Following the surprise release of Magic Leap's SDK on Monday, March 19, Unity, Unreal Engine, and Mozilla followed up by announcing official partnerships with the company. "We are proud to partner with Magic Leap to integrate the Magic Leap platform with Unity," Unity announc ...more

The cosmetics industry faced a rude awakening on Friday as beauty behemoth L'Oréal gobbled up ModiFace, one of the leading providers of augmented reality technology to the cosmetics industry (price details for the acquisition were not disclosed). As part of the company's ongo ...more

The latest cosmetics brand to launch its own augmented reality try-on tool is Cover Girl, which introduced its browser-based experience this week. The premise should be familiar to anyone who has followed augmented reality over the past year, and likely old hat to those who t ...more

Among consumer brands, cosmetics companies rival furniture retailers as the quickest to adopt augmented reality as a means to help customers visualize how products will look before they buy them. One cosmetics brand called Benefit has moved beyond lipstick and rouge to let cu ...more

It finally happened. Magic Leap has given the world its first glimpse at its debut device, the Magic Leap One Creator Edition. At 9 a.m. ET, the company flipped the switch on a huge website update that splashed the homepage with images of what is now confirmed to be an augmen ...more

On Wednesday, Scope AR, makers of Remote AR, the augmented reality video conference calling and remote assistance solution, announced that the app is finally available for HoloLens. Next Reality had a chance to talk with the founder and CEO/CTO of Scope AR, Scott Montgomerie, ...more

Thanks to Metaverse, it has never been this easy to create your own AR game. The platform gives users a web-based tool for building interactive AR experiences, with no coding knowledge necessary. Via a link or QR code, users can then share their project with others, who can v ...more

Considered by many (perhaps unfairly) to be a very public failure, Google Glass can add another plot point to its comeback story, this time as a tool to teach social skills to children and adults with autism. Enter Brain Power, a company that has combined neuroscience and aug ...more

Since the very first moment I saw the iPhone X track a human face and display the results in real-time on an Animoji character, I've been waiting for the first great hack of this new iPhone feature. Not only do we now have that first great demonstration, it's so impressive it ...more

As if Amazon didn't already make it easier to buy things from home than in a store, the company has now given shoppers yet another reason to avoid the holiday rush with an ARKit update to its iPhone app. While Amazon may have lagged behind IKEA in arriving to the ARKit party, ...more

So, it's Halloween time, and you feel like playing around with some augmented reality apps? Well, you've come to the right place — if you have an iOS device. Sure, you could load up some Halloween-themed filters on Snapchat (like the new lens sponsored by Stranger Things 2) a ...more

While VR promises to take gamers to another world, AR has the potential to bring the game elements into your own neighborhood or home. Just in time for Halloween, ARZombi places your living room into the epicenter of a zombie outbreak, with your ARKit-compatible iPhone or iPa ...more

Directive Games received the enviable honor of unveiling their ARKit game, The Machines, on stage as part of Apple's iPhone launch presentation. The developer gave us a taste of the "moba-inspired AR PVP game" in July. At the time, they were one of the first game makers to pr ...more

Back to the Future Part II missed wildly on many technological advances for the year 2015, such as flying cars and rehydration ovens. However, it connected on several predictions, such as video calling and biometric security, and it was in the ballpark (pun intended) on others ...more

Outside of early military applications, augmented reality is a relatively new technology. It stands to reason that the next company to make a splash in AR would be a startup, and Techstars wants to help. Nonetheless, there are also more established companies working in AR, an ...more

Sports gaming company ePlay Digital, Inc. is looking to capitalize on the fall launch of iOS 11 and ARKit with an augmented reality fantasy sports app. With ePlay GO, the company is borrowing a few pages out of Pokémon Go's playbook, with players finding virtual avatars of at ...more

Forget what you know about controlling augmented reality experiences. "Scroll" lets you interact with augmented reality using a much more subtle approach: A ring. It looks like an ordinary ring on your finger. It's black, sleek, and attractive, which is a huge plus. Scroll re ...more

The augmented reality productivity app market for is a crowded space, so differentiation can be an advantage. Atheer is doing just that this week with their AiR Enterprise application. Elsewhere in the augmented reality space, Merge begins selling their augmented reality toy, ...more

Verto Studio 3D is a 3D modeling package that has been in the works for a while now by Michael Farrell, the owner of Verto Studio LLC. Farrell has been working toward bridging the gap between XR 3D modeling and what we have become accustomed to with desktop 3D modeling package ...more

Aspiring engineers, your challenge, should you choose to accept it, has been issued by Jaguar Land Rover. Prove yourself and you can be the next in line for greatness. — Jaguar That is the challenge posed by Jaguar as they attempt to find the next generation of the best and ...more

Augmented reality software developer Edgybees has launched Drone Prix. The new mobile app immerses DJI drones and their pilots in more than 30 augmented reality obstacle courses. Available in the App Store and Play Store, Drone Prix enable pilots to hone their flight skills n ...more

UPDATED 5/4/17: SI has stated that they won't be augmenting its Swimsuit Edition. Although, this could be a sign that the company may do so in the future. If they already have all the tech set up for the latest feature, then they are already half way ready to augment other SI ...more

The Disney Research Lab is using projector-based illumination to paint actors' faces during live performances. You know what that means? Disney just took Halloween to a whole new level. Here's how they did it: The actors move on stage, sans makeup, while the AR light follows ...more

Samsung's new Galaxy S8 can turn into a PC with its DeX dock, but while that may sound like the future of mobile computing on the surface, there are definitely a few issues with the entire setup. The Samsung Desktop Experience (DeX) dock was debuted alongside the Galaxy S8 on ...more

Listen up ladies, there's no need to go to Sephora and model a hundred different shades of lipstick anymore. Now with Virtual Artist, Sephora's award-winning app, for iOS and Android, you can virtually test thousands of shades of single and palette eyeshadows, lip colors, and ...more

When the "Just another day in the office at Magic Leap" video was released last year, it was called a mind-blowing, stunning, and breathtaking take on mixed reality gaming. It was a great presentation of what the technology could be, but not for a second did I think it was any ...more

Fighting fires has always been a dangerous and noble venture, even with the proliferation of aerial firefighting. But things are looking to get a lot safer for firefighters with the help of the Boeing and mixed reality. Boeing, now with 100 years of experience under its belt ...more

Are there any benefits to watching a movie in a holographic mixed reality headset, or should you just stick with your TV? It's not as cut and dried as you might think. While TVs have some advantages, so does the virtual screen of a Microsoft HoloLens. As augmented reality tec ...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

Apple's augmented reality teases just keep on coming from the halls of its Cupertino labs. The latest comes in the form of an invitation to Apple's next public-facing event. • Don't Miss: A Brief History of Apple AR Smartglasses Rumors Slated for April 20, at 1 p.m. ET, the ...more

The year 2021 is already promising to yield a number of major shifts in the augmented reality landscape, and Snap is signaling that it has every intention of being an aggressive part of that narrative. On Tuesday, it was revealed that the company has acquired a London-based r ...more

The United States is poised to begin a new political era this week, but due to recent events in Washington, D.C., as well as the ongoing pandemic, the traditional inauguration crowds are absent. Nevertheless, thanks to the power of Snapchat, you can be there, virtually. • Do ...more

Just because 2020 has been rough for most of the planet, there's no reason you can't enjoy a bit of holiday cheer as you prepare to say goodbye to this year using the power of augmented reality. If you're living in an area that's warm, but you'd still like to experience "a wh ...more

Facebook Messenger is a messaging app first, but of its more than 1.3 billion monthly users, 32 percent use its video chat feature at least once every month. While it may seem pretty straightforward to video call with family and friends on Messenger, there are many tips and tr ...more

In 2018, Niantic unveiled its in-development augmented reality cloud platform for smartphones, the Niantic Real World Platform. A demo showed Pikachu and Eevee cavorting in a courtyard, darting in front of and behind potted plants and people's legs as they walked through the s ...more

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus has practically guaranteed that the virus, along with the phrases "social distancing" and "flattening the curve," will rank among the top search terms of 2020. USA Today combined the phrases in its latest augm ...more

Hey, you, still stuck at home? Cheer up, today is the first day of spring. Yes, really. And since you're probably locked in on TV, we're guessing you need a break from some of the less than sunshiney news reports rolling in. Well, no worries, because there's actually some good ...more

With many office workers in the US being asked to work from home if their job allows, Magic Leap's customary updates for the Lumin OS and Lumin SDK brings some help to keep distributed workforces connected. Chief among the new features arriving with Lumin OS version 0.98.10 a ...more

In years past, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) mostly dabbled in the future as far as the long-term vision for augmented reality was concerned. This year, however, objects in the future are much closer than they appear. While the outlook for truly mainstream AR smartglass ...more

As the year comes to a close, we've invited some of the leaders of the AR industry to take the time to look back at the progress the AR industry has made while looking forward to what's ahead in 2020. A report on the top apps of 2019 — and the decade — also offers some insight ...more

While its competitors are concentrating on building out AR cloud platforms to give advanced AR capabilities to mobile apps, Ubiquity6 is taking a step in a different direction. On Monday, the company opened its Display.land tool to the general public, following its "early acc ...more

The recent Oculus conference in California revealed just a bit more about Facebook's secretive plans to compete in the augmented reality space with its own wearable devices. But a new report has revealed that the company is thinking even further into the future of AR. Althoug ...more

As excitement looms for Apple's annual parade of pomp and circumstance for its latest lineup of iPhones, some hidden hints in an internal build of iOS 13 has Apple enthusiasts salivating for what Cupertino is testing in the AR wearables realm. While Apple has yet to even conf ...more

Augmented reality gaming startup Tilt Five is ready to reinvent old school Dungeons & Dragons-style games for the modern age with its augmented reality headset and tabletop game system. The company showed off the gaming headset, along with the wand controller and game mat tha ...more

Unless you've been hiding under a (moon) rock for the past month, you already know that Saturday, July 20 is the 50th anniversary of NASA's Apollo 11 lunar landing. And while it has been 50 years since man first visited the moon, no human has set foot on its surface since 197 ...more

While Apple's smartglasses development reportedly moves forward behind-the-scenes, the company continues to build on its AR software foundation in its mobile ecosystem with further iterations to its ARKit platform and the introduction of new AR development tools. On the other ...more

Over the past two years, the tech industry has formed a series of symbiotic relationships that are now converging in the augmented reality space. This week, we took a look at these interrelated technologies and how they are shaping the future of AR. Meanwhile, Marvel and HBO ...more

Just when we thought the AT&T partnership with Magic Leap wouldn't really take off until the latter launched a true consumer edition of the Magic Leap One, the dynamic duo jumped into action this week to offer the current generation headset to customers. Meanwhile, Apple cont ...more

To borrow from the canon of Game of Thrones, what is dead may never die. And while the Meta Company that we knew this time last year is no more, the patent infringement lawsuit filed against the company lives on. Elsewhere in the AR world, news was more optimistic for Snap In ...more

While Magic Leap turned heads at the Game Developers Conference with AR experiences at the Unity and Unreal Engine booths, news broke that the company was the winning bidder for ODG's patents. Speaking of GDC, Epic Games used its pulpit at the conference to announce a new fun ...more

As Microsoft continues to bask in the glow of its HoloLens 2 unveiling and begins ramping up the hype to launch, Nreal and Vuzix are carving out their own niches in the AR hardware landscape. Nreal continues to make waves with its forthcoming tethered smartglasses, and its fo ...more

The emerging narrative as CES begins is that consumer-grade smartglasses require a heavy compromise in functionality in order to arrive at a form factor and price point that appeal to mainstream customers. China-based startup Nreal is ready to subvert those expectations with ...more

All of the the tech industry giants, including Apple, Facebook, and Google, are working on new smartglasses and/or AR headsets, but this week, Google took a major step forward with gesture recognition technology that could make its way into AR wearables, posing a threat to Lea ...more

The augmented reality industry has a bright future built on innovation and growth, but that doesn't mean we can't look back at the close of the year to see what the industry has accomplished from a business perspective. Magic Leap and Niantic, the industry's startup unicorns, ...more