When will the drama end? The lawsuit between Waymo and Uber is back in the news with no signs of stopping. Today the court denied yet another request from Uber to shield itself with the fifth amendemnent, securing a small victory for Waymo.
As the demand for realistic volumetric video for AR experiences begins to grow (along with the available facilities and services for capturing it), researchers at Google have figured out how to improve upon the format.
Years ago, in 2013, Occipital introduced its original Structure Sensor for iOS, a mobile 3D scanning device for measuring three-dimensional objects. Soon after, in an unrelated deal, Apple acquired PrimeSense, the company that made one of the components for Occipital's scanning device.
Noted poet T.S. Elliot once wrote that "April is the cruelest month." But Magic Leap might argue that March is the most miserable, as the Ides of March brought more legal woes to augmented reality startup. Elsewhere, its closely-held branding secrets have been spilled by way of the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
When the Super Bowl airs, every other TV network puts on reruns because no one wants to face that juggernaut for ratings. The launch of a new iPhone is the Super Bowl of the tech world, with the launch of the iPhone X being the biggest one yet.
The close of the second quarter of 2021 brought about a flurry of merger and acquisition and financing activity in the augmented reality industry, headlined by the acquisition of Ubiquity6 and JigSpace's new multimillion-dollar funding round.
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.
Augmented reality plays a key role in the evolution of adjacent technologies, such as 5G connectivity and brain-control interfaces (BCI), and the business news of the week serves up proof points for both examples.
In recent months, the Magic Leap One has frequently tied promotions to groundbreaking entertainment properties, but the latest may be the startup's biggest coup yet.
Augmented reality and computer vision company Blippar has a new lease on life, as previous investor Candy Ventures has completed a successful bid to acquire the assets of the beleaguered company.
This week, we continued our NR30 series highlighting the leaders of augmented reality space by profiling the venture capitalists and strategic corporate investors that sustain the industry.
For the augmented reality hardware industry to progress towards the consumer segment, display technology needs to get better. Investors recognize that, and they are showing AR display makers the money.
This week's Market Reality covers a variety of business news from acquisitions and partnerships to competitive and technology assessments to quarterly financial results.
The big day for Snap that resulted in the debut of brand new augmented reality Spectacles smartglasses is turning into a big week.
Next to Apple, Snap is currently one of the most important companies on the planet in terms of delivering products that are moving augmented reality into the mainstream. That's why it's no surprise that Facebook, which is also focused on AR and tried to acquire the company for $3 billion several years ago, duplicates many of the smaller company's features.
It appears that the Project Aero 3D content development tool isn't the only augmented reality project that Adobe has in the works.
Augmented reality is often likened to granting superpowers to mere mortals, but what about mutant powers?
The recent pitfalls and media fallout hitting Facebook hasn't stopped the social media giant from looking to the future.
As if its users weren't already having enough fun with dancing hot dogs and face effects, Snapchat is upping the ante with a new kind of shared augmented reality content.
Less than a week after ARKit 1.5 became available to the public through the iOS 11.3 update, the App Store has its first app with AR features (Artsy) to leverage Apple's AR toolkit update.
The augmented reality cloud and multi-user experiences are shaping up to be one of the hotter areas of augmented reality, and now Google is the latest entity to back these emerging branches of AR.
Apple is no stranger to lawsuits. They were in a decade-long battle with Samsung that finally came to an end last month, and they've been duking it out in the courtroom with Qualcomm since last year. The more recent case has seen both companies file suits and counter-suits, but now, Qualcomm is claiming that Apple's new iPhone X infringes on patents from a long-deceased mobile operating system.
At their event in San Francisco today, Microsoft announced that they have begun accepting pre-orders for Windows Mixed Reality headsets from Acer, Dell, Lenovo, and HP, with the devices arriving on Oct. 17 along with the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update.
Last month, AT&T made headlines with its disastrous launch of its 5G Evolution network (spoiler alert: it wasn't actually 5G). T-Mobile responded to the embarrassing news by saying the company would be working on its own 5G network, and would take its time rolling it out. Well, T-Mobile may have just pulled an AT&T — T-Mobile is launching LTE-U in the US, and things seem pretty similar to the 5G Evolution's introduction.
The rumors have been confirmed by Samsung themselves: Samsung has developed a virtual assistant of their own, named Bixby.
As we get closer to the release of the iPhone 7 this September, more and more details are emerging about the features the new smartphone could have. The well-regarded analyst Ming Chi-Kuo of KGI Securities, who has an uncanny ability to predict new Apple features, has reported another detail involving a dual-lens camera on the upcoming iPhone 7 Plus model.
For $100 each year (unless you used Faisal's workaround to save yourself twenty bucks), Amazon Prime membership gives you access to all the best that Amazon has to offer. From free 2-day shipping to Prime Instant Video, there's a lot to like about the service.
If we were to assign a theme for the 2019 edition of the Next Reality 30 (NR30), it might be something along the lines of, "What have you done for me lately?"
The march of Amazon to insert itself into nearly every retail arena continues with the e-commerce giant's latest move to launch its own brick-and-mortar beauty salons.
Just as the augmented reality industry grows, so too does the segment dedicated to creating experiences for the tools becoming available.
It's safe to say that we can call the annual ranking of AR investments a holiday tradition at Next Reality.
Influencers of augmented reality demonstrate expertise in their fields and outline a strong vision for the future that they evangelize to others. They help define the direction of the industry and identify others who foster and create innovation in the field.
The makers of arguably the two most important mobile AR apps, Niantic and Snap, both had good news this week, with the former preparing to replicate its success with Pokémon GO for another franchise and the latter notching another popular augmented reality Lens for Snapchat.
Most augmented reality experiences are purely visual, with spatial audio gaining in popularity to make visual experiences more realistic. However, leveraging the sense of touch may be the next frontier for AR experiences.
With Snapchat making the leap into the smartglasses realm, Facebook had to find a way to try and steal its competitor's augmented reality thunder.
After showing off a prototype of the Grordbattle multiplayer first-person shooter at the Game Developer Conference, Magic Leap has added a new Shared World feature in version 0.95.0 of the Lumin OS update released this week.
Apple's in-house music identification app Shazam has been quiet on the augmented reality front since officially joining Cupertino's finest last year, but a new promotion gives AR enthusiasts an occasion to raise a toast.
After entering the UK's version of bankruptcy last month, Blippar's assets are up for sale, and bidding ended today.
First, there was SnapCat. Now, we have DogChat! Or SnapBark? In October, Snapchat took social media by storm with its Lenses for cats. But the latest addition to the camera app has given dog lovers an augmented reality Christmas gift they won't want to return.
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's fingers in real time.
