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.
Ever since Google CEO Sundar Pichai took the helms of the world's most valuable brand, he has made it his mission to bring smartphones to lower-income communities. Born in India, Mr. Pichai has created several programs to address the needs of the Indian market, particularly the lower income families.
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.
We may have to wait a few years before they arrive, but reports of Apple's headset taking shape in Cupertino gives the tech world hope that its white knight for consumer AR is on its way.
When Apple announced their ARKit platform in June, they immediately staked the claim to the largest augmented reality hardware platform, with millions of iPhones and iPads compatible with iOS 11 becoming AR devices this fall.
According The Venture Reality Fund, the introductions of Facebook's camera platform and Apple's ARKit catalyzed increased activity among companies developing consumer applications.
While many analysts predict that the market for augmented and virtual reality will continue to grow over the next five years, now is the time for investors to get in on the ground floor.
Single and living in NYC? Forget bars, the female-empowered dating app, Bumble, has just opened a place where you can meet up with your online lovers.
Welcome to the maiden voyage of our new Market Reality column. Each Friday, NextReality will give you a roundup of news briefs from the financial end of the augmented and mixed reality industry. We'll cover funding news, market analysis, and more.
As we first reported here on Gadget Hacks, Google's new Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones come with an unlockable bootloader, with the exception of models sold by Verizon.
The reviews for the Google Pixel phone have hit the web. There's a lot of praise, but not all are so positive. We've collected some of the best takes on the new devices from the top tech sites around.
Apple's plans for virtual, mixed, and augmented reality have remained a mystery for some time, but now we at least have some idea of what they're thinking about. UploadVR uncovered a patent showing a VR headset design that looks like a thick pair of sunglasses and utilizes an iPhone to provide an experience similar to the Samsung Gear VR.
Facebook announced at its F8 Developer's Conference on April 12th that, in addition to the VR-ready Oculus Rift we have today, it plans to bring Augmented Reality (AR) into the fold of their social machine.
Selling stuff at the local flea market sounds easy enough, but it isn't anything like having a yard sale. There's a lot more to it that just getting rid of your junk, and the biggest things are being licensed and having a sales tax number. Flea market vendor may not be your first career choice but, like many, you may find it’s a lucrative full-time job or a profitable and fun sideline.
Don't hide in a cave when the market is down. Find stocks that will pay off when the bull makes its return.
Confused by TikTok? Trying to grow your Instagram fanbase? Aiming to create the perfect Facebook ad? Growing an audience might be challenging, but with the right strategies, it is possible — and fun.
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 to its Florida headquarters for LEAP Developer Days.
Now that we've had our hands on the Magic Leap One for almost a year and early adopter developers have had the opportunity to publish apps for the AR headset, it's time to see how it stands up against the rigors of a day at the office. We did just that, and we wrote about it!
This week, while Apple was the subject of thinly sourced reports that it had canceled development of its oft-rumored smartglasses, the Cupertino was actually laying the foundation for its AR hardware future with a new initiative focused on mentoring Chinese developers in mobile AR development.
As much funding as Magic Leap has secured, another round of funding will still catch headlines. However, the latest funding solidifies the company's strategy for succeeding in the consumer segment of AR.
At its F8 developer's conference in 2016, Facebook went on record with a roadmap that called for augmented reality integration into Oculus within 10 years. Now, it appears as though Facebook is accelerating those plans.
On Tuesday, Unity released the latest version of its 3D engine, which brings improvements to the Scriptable Render Pipeline that the company introduced earlier this year.
Just days after announcing the launch of two new mixed reality studio facilities, Microsoft is extending its mixed reality reach even further with the announcement that the HoloLens will now be offered in 29 new markets.
Augmented and virtual reality continues to be a hot commodity among tech investors, with more than $800 million invested in AR/VR companies in the second quarter alone and global tech leaders like Samsung focusing their investment strategies on the emerging field.
A new survey shows that the majority of companies have an interest in using augmented reality, though adoption remains low. Meanwhile, two companies with support roles in the augmented reality industry are seeing positive financial results.
Over the past week, we are seeing more companies capitalizing on services leveraging augmented reality. One company secured funding to expand their service, while two other companies grow its own services through acquisition.
Every Friday, Next Reality reviews the latest headlines from the financial side of augmented and mixed reality. This Market Reality column covers funding announcements, mergers and acquisitions, market analysis, and the like. This week's column is led by two companies cashing in on visual inputs.
Vodafone India has merged with telecom company Idea Cellular to become India's largest mobile player this week.
In December of last year, UK-based Zappar successfully raise $84,356 for their ZapBox mixed reality headset—over $50,000 more than their goal. Well, they just blew that sum out of the water when they announced this morning that they've closed a Series A round of funding with $3.75 million.
For $35, there's hardly a better value in the online media player market than the Chromecast. Taking that sentiment a step further, if you factor in the promotions Google likes to offer with it, Chromecast practically pays for itself.
Just in case you weren't aware, Google has more money than you and I will probably ever see in our lifetime, and now it seems that the search giant will be spending that money sending satellites into space.
Computer vision is a key component in enabling augmented reality experiences, but now it can help give sight to the blind as well. In this case, that assistance comes from Envision, developers of mobile apps for iOS and Android that use optical character recognition (OCR) and object detection to provide an audio description of the user's surroundings.
It's time to make some more room at the augmented reality cosmetics counter. This week, social media giant Pinterest unveiled "Try On," a virtual make-up visualization tool running on its Lens visual search tool.
Sure, it's the giving season, but sometimes you've just got to treat yourself to some cosmetics. If you're shopping at Walmart, L'Oreal just made that a shade easier when shopping for Garnier hair color products with an assist from Google Lens and the Modiface AR platform.
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.
This time last year, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel and his company were faced with an erosion of its user base that cratered its stock price. This year, on the strength of Snapchat's AR camera effects, the company has reversed course. And that's why Spiegel tops the NR30, our annual list of the leaders in the AR industry.
Developers in the augmented reality industry got a lot of love this week.
Every year, fans of Irish culture, as well as those looking to celebrate their own culture, come together on St. Patrick's Day, March 17.
Christmas has arrived early for ARCore app developers, as Google just unwrapped a few iterative improvements to the augmented reality toolkit in version 1.6.
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.
