Hot Augmented Reality News Posts


News: You Can See to the Other Side of the World with Google's Latest Web-Based AR Experiment
Have you ever wondered where you'd come out if you drilled to the other side of the world? Now, if you have an Android device and Chrome web browser, you can find out.

News: Meet Revelio, Maxst's Stylish New Augmented Reality Smartglasses
Augmented reality software developer Maxst has made the move into hardware with Revelio, their new untethered AR smartglasses. These stereoscopic glasses feature an Octa-core processor, 2 GB of memory, a 40-degree field of view, and a 720p display, and they do not require being connected to a phone or computer.

News: Starbucks Uses Instagram AR to Promote Sustainability via Holiday Campaign
Starbucks is spicing things up ahead of this holiday season with a little augmented reality joy. This week the company launched its first Instagram filter, called Holijoy, delivered like an early Christmas gift and packing four seasonal lenses.

News: Google Adds Famous Monuments & Iconic Buildings to Augmented Reality Search Feature
Even with unlimited resources and a serious case of wanderlust, it's unlikely that you or I will be able to see all of the most famous structures in the world in person.

News: Google Extends AR Search Lead Over Apple with Landmark Recognition for Google Lens
This week, Apple unveiled its own version of Google Lens in the form of Live Text. In response, Google just hit back with a new feature for its visual search tool called Places, a new search category that can recognize landmarks and return information on them within the camera view, which Apple touted as a capability of Live Text during its WWDC keynote.

News: Microsoft's HoloLens Morphs Paris Museum Model of Mont-Saint-Michel into Masterpiece of AR
Amid the opulent and historic confines of Paris, Microsoft is now hosting an exhibit at a local museum that brings a historic map of a Normandy tourist destination to life in augmented reality.

ARKit 101: How to Place a Virtual Television & Play a Video on It in Augmented Reality
In a previous tutorial, we were able to place the Mona Lisa on vertical surfaces such as walls, books, and monitors using ARKit 1.5. By combining the power of Scene Kit and Sprite Kit (Apple's 2D graphics engine), we can play a video on a flat surface in ARKit.

Gallery: A Close-Up Look at the Magic Leap One's Optics
For the curious, here are a number of close-up shots of the Magic Leap One's optics and the magnetic attachment that can be swapped out for a version with lenses matching your glasses prescription in the near future.

News: You Can Now Try-On & Test Samsung Galaxy Smartwatches in AR via Snapchat
Now that Snapchat has extended its virtual try-on powers from the face and feet to the wrist, Samsung is leveraging the new capability, along with an interactive twist, to sell its smartwatches.

News: Budget Airline easyJet Packs Augmented Reality Luggage Checking Feature into Its Mobile App
Mobile app publishers are using augmented reality to solve everyday measurement problems from measuring the length or height of items to previewing furniture in the home.

ARKit 101: How to Place 2D Images, Like a Painting or Photo, on a Wall in Augmented Reality
In a previous tutorial, we were able to measure vertical surfaces such as walls, books, and monitors using ARKit 1.5. With the advent of vertical plane anchors, we can now also attach objects onto these vertical walls.

How To: Improve Your Pokémon's Stats in Pokémon GO
In Pokémon GO, having an in-depth understanding of your Pokémon's stats and abilities is crucially important to becoming a better player. Not all Pokémon are created equal; as such, it's critical that you look at each of your Pokémon—even duplicates—with a keen eye.

News: New App Lets Your Trace Drawings from Your Phone onto Paper
Get ready to draw like Leonardo da Vinci, or, at least, trace like him. A new augmented reality app, SketchAR, is the first mobile app that uses AR to allow users trace an image on real paper. The Lithuania-based company describes their product as "an application through which the user sees a virtual image on the surface of which they are planning to trace a sketch."

How To: Set Up the Meta 2 Head-Mounted Display
So after being teased last Christmas with an email promising that the Meta 2 was shipping, nearly a year later, we finally have one of the units that we ordered. Without a moment's hesitation, I tore the package open, set the device up, and started working with it.

How To: Perform the Air Tap Gesture Correctly on the HoloLens
Microsoft's HoloLens has two gestures: bloom and air tap. While the two might not seem like much to learn, some people struggle with the air tap because the headset can be a bit particular. The easiest way to learn the proper form is to look through someone else's eyes while they do it, so we've captured that for you.

News: Microsoft Emerges from the Trenches with More Details Behind the Army Edition of HoloLens 2
When we got our first look at US Army soldiers testing Microsoft's modified HoloLens 2 last year, it still looked very much like the commercial edition, with some additional sensors attached.

News: Apple's LiDAR Scanner on New iPad Pro Provides Possible Peek at How Its Smartglasses Will See the World
Just as predicted (but perhaps with less fanfare than usual), Apple has made the move of adding a depth sensor to the rear camera of its latest edition of the iPad Pro.

News: 7-Eleven Delivers Assist to BodyArmor Drink with Augmented Reality Promotion for NCAA Basketball Tournament
Now that the NCAA Basketball Tournament is underway, 7-Eleven has decided to launch an augmented reality experience to remind basketball fans where they can quench their thirst throughout March Madness.

News: ModiFace Applies Its Augmented Reality Tech to Nail Polish with Fingertip-Tracking Feature
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.

News: Children's Book Classic Peter Rabbit & Other Tales Come to AR via iOS App
The landscape for mobile augmented reality apps is still mostly filled with utility and gaming apps, but a new entrant into the space is looking to pull children into the mix.

News: Magic Leap One Teardown Reveals Sophisticated Hardware with Shortish Shelf Life & Low Repairability
One of the primary marketing tactics used by Magic Leap in promoting the Magic Leap One was selling early adopters on the "magic" contained within the device. On Thursday, some of that magic was uncovered as the Magic Leap One was completely disassembled by repair engineers, revealing the delicate innards of the device and detailing how it delivers its augmented reality experiences.

ARKit 101: How to Pilot Your 3D Plane to a Location Using 'hitTest' in ARKit
Hello, budding augmented reality developers! My name is Ambuj, and I'll be introducing all of you Next Reality readers to the world ARKit, as I'm developing an ARKit 101 series on using ARKit to create augmented reality apps for iPad and iPhone. My background is in software engineering, and I've been working on iOS apps for the past three years.

News: App from Japan Uses Apple's iPhone X to Transform Your Face & Voice into the Cutest Anime Character
Apple's iPhone X now has the power to turn anyone into a Japanese anime character, thanks to a new app that harnesses the device's TrueDepth camera.

News: Snapchat's Easter Egg Hunt Showcases Potential for Branded Augmented Reality Games
Alongside the usual collection of holiday-themed Lenses, Snapchatters received an extra-special treat from Snapchat over the weekend—a world-spanning Easter egg hunt.

News: Snapchat Channels Your Inner Coffee Junkie with Branded Bitmoji from McDonald's
With its new Sponsored Lens debuting on Snapchat on Friday, McDonald's is attempting to give potential customers a virtual pick-me-up.

News: BMW Invites You to Test Drive the X2 with Snapchat Lens
Snapchat has broken new ground in its augmented reality advertising efforts, as BMW has opted to show off its new X2 model in AR with the Augmented Trial Lens.

Apple AR: With New NBA App, H-O-R-S-E Becomes A-R-K-I-T
Just in time for a new season of professional basketball, the National Basketball Association (NBA) has released a new app for iPhones and iPads built on ARKit that turns your driveway into a basketball court.

News: Stimulant's HoloLens App Helps Navigate Inside Buildings
We've got Google Maps to help us out when we need to navigate outdoors, but Google can only map out so many indoor locations without getting creepy. And that's where Stimulant comes in. This "innovation studio" built a HoloLens app that lets you map out an area, define locations, and use the headset to get instant directions to any defined location.

News: Windows 10 Will Be a Free Upgrade with "Windows Holographic" on the Horizon
Microsoft dropped a couple of huge bombs at their Windows 10 event Wednesday afternoon. Free operating systems and holographic glasses? This must be a Sci-Fi novel or a Hollywood blockbuster, because it reeks of fiction.

News: Augmented Reality Cinema App Takes You to the Movies—in Real World Locations
The yet-to-be released Augmented Reality Cinema app is sure to make avid movie fans across the world drool. The concept is genius and appears to be quite seamless as well: Simply install the app on your iPhone, take a stroll through your city (supported cities have not yet been released, but the video below shows London), and aim your phone at various locations to view movie scenes that have been previously shot there.

News: Magic Leap Gives the World a Peek at Lumin OS
A fresh batch of developer info has been revealed on Magic Leap's Creator Portal. On Thursday evening, the normally secretive company gave the general public perhaps the closest look yet at Magic Leap One's Lumin operating system.

News: HoloLens 2, All the Specs — These Are the Technical Details Driving Microsoft's Next Foray into Augmented Reality
Now that we've officially seen the HoloLens 2 and Microsoft has shown off the improvements and new superpowers of the augmented reality headset, what about the specs?

How To: Fake Your GPS Location & Movement to Cheat at Pokémon GO on Android
A strange thing is happening: there are people, groups of people even, walking the streets day and night staring wide-eyed at their mobile phones and laughing like manic children. What are these people doing? Are they taking pictures? Are they participating in some new social media craze? Is their activity an omen that the zombie apocalypse is upon us?

News: Medivis App for Magic Leap One & HoloLens Lets You Study the Human Anatomy in Augmented Reality
Not content to merely assist surgeons via the HoloLens, Medivis has expanded its augmented reality suite to Magic Leap One with an app for medical students.

News: Snapchat Scores Viral Hit with Nike Augmented Reality Experience Starring Lebron James
Lebron James, or King James to his royal subjects, is extending the reach of his kingdom beyond basketball and into the realm of augmented reality.

News: This Android App Lets You Search for Specific Words in Books & Documents via Augmented Reality
One of the neatest tricks available in Google Lens, an app that can identify and interpret real world information, is the ability to copy text from the app's camera view and paste it into a digital document.

ARCore 101: How to Create a Mobile AR Application in Unity, Part 4 (Enabling Surface Detection)
One of the primary factors that separates an augmented reality device from a standard heads-up display such as Google Glass is dimensional depth perception. This can be created by either RGB cameras, infrared depth cameras, or both, depending on the level of accuracy you're aiming for.

News: This AR App Could Make Your Next Dentist Visit Less Frightening
For some, going to the dentist can be a terrifying experience, but a new use of augmented reality could go a long way toward making the trip feel more like it's worth the orthodontic angst.

News: Intel Takes Us Inside to Reveal How HoloLens 2 Is Transforming Computer Chip Production
The enterprise applications powering the adoption of the HoloLens 2 are only just ramping up as developers continue to work with the still relatively new hardware.

News: NR30 Innovator in Augmented Reality Spotlight: Aidan Wolf
This year, as part of the Next Reality 30, in partnership with Snap, we're spotlighting an up-and-coming innovator in augmented reality. Specifically, we were searching for an independent developer or creator who embodies the bleeding edge spirit of AR and its ability to leverage machine learning. This year's honoree is Aidan Wolf.