Augmented Reality News Features
HoloLens Dev 101 : How to Build a Basic HoloLens App in Minutes
Now that we've got all of our software installed, we're going to proceed with the next step in our HoloLens Dev 101 series—starting a fresh project and building it into a Holographic application. Then we will output the application to the HoloLens Emulator so we can see it in action.
News: Medical Software Maker Medivis Closes $2.3 Million in Funding to Bring HoloLens to Surgical Platform
The HoloLens has made enough of an impact on the healthcare industry for Microsoft technology partner Medivis to convince investors to pledge $2.3 million in funding for its surgical platform.
News: Google Update Adds Real-World Occlusion to ARCore with Depth API
Apple's ARKit has built a considerable lead in terms of features over Google's ARCore, but Google's latest update to ARCore adds a capability that makes the platform a bit more competitive with ARKit.
How To: View Art from Your Chromecast in Augmented Reality
The Chromecast TV streaming lineup from Google is one of the more popular products in the category, primarily due to its low price tag and broad app support.
News: Lego's Newest Playsets Transform Normal Toys into Augmented Reality Experiences Across Platforms
Beloved toy maker Lego is returning to the realm of augmented reality, this time with an experience that explores supernatural fun.
News: How to Use the Magic Leap One in Outdoor Settings, It's Not Perfect, but It's Possible
From day one, my favorite thing about the Magic Leap One has been its portability. It's so well designed that it just screams to be taken out for a walk through the city. Alas, Magic Leap says the device is (currently) designed to be used indoors, preferably in settings containing few windows or black surfaces.
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?
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: 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: 360world's Windows Mixed Reality Tools Will Help Air Traffic Controllers See in New Ways
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 traffic controllers, via Windows Mixed Reality, to greatly improve their workflow over tools already in use.
Have You Seen This?: New 'Crayon' HoloLens App Brings Back the Fun of Drawing on Walls
Crayon, a free 3D drawing application by the mysteriously named arkalian, showed up in the Windows Store recently, so I gave it a try like I do all new apps for Windows Holographic. Truthfully, I loaded it up not expecting much, but wow, was I wrong. It's a simple idea, but it's executed well enough to make it a truly great experience on the HoloLens.
News: This Billie Eilish Oculus Quest 2 Video Inadvertently Offers a Peek at AR Gaming on the VR Headset
It's always fun to get an unexpected glimpse of the future, especially when that peek is so close you can actually feel the excitement of the new emerging dynamic.
News: Niantic Promises More AR in Pokémon GO on the iPhone with ARKit
Pokémon GO's augmented reality journey is continuing with Apple's newly announced ARKit. It's no surprise considering Pokémon GO is the largest mainstream augmented reality game, with 500 million downloads.
News: The Macallan Showcases Art of Making Scotch Through HoloLens Gallery & ARKit App
For those who enjoy the finer things in life, premium Scottish distillery The Macallan is bringing an augmented reality art gallery, viewable through the high-priced Microsoft HoloLens, to select cities in celebration of whisky season.
News: The Magic of Microsoft's HoloLens 2 Hand Interaction on Display in Mixed Reality Toolkit v2 Demo Video
Describing how and why the HoloLens 2 is so much better than the original is helpful, but seeing it is even better.
News: Airbus Previews Military Sandbox App for HoloLens
As Microsoft works toward fulfilling its $480 million contract to supply modified HoloLens 2 headsets to the US Army, Airbus is preparing to supply advanced augmented reality apps for the device.
Hands-On: Magic Leap One First Hands-On Impressions for HoloLens Developers
In a surprising twist of expectation management, Magic Leap managed to not only ship but deliver the Magic Leap One I ordered on Wednesday by 4 p.m. PT on the same day.
News: Lego Harnesses Apple's Latest Augmented Reality Abilities in Playgrounds App
The app that Lego demoed at this year's iPhone launch event is now available in the App Store, and it showcases several new capabilities available in ARKit 2.0.
How To: Use Augmented Reality to Try on the Apple Watch with Your iPhone
Starting April 10th, you'll will be able to book 15-minute appointments online to try on an Apple Watch in person at Apple Stores across the world. With the April 24th release date just around the corner, making an appointment is a great idea for those who are unsure about which color and size to purchase—or if they'll even want one.
News: Here's Your First Look at the US Army's Combat-Ready HoloLens 2 in Action
Though Microsoft has had trouble keeping up with the demand for HoloLens 2, the company has been able to supply modified headsets to the US Army.
News: Instagram Swipes Snapchat Lenses with Furry AR Koala Ears & Icy 3D Crowns
Instagram just added another nail in the coffin for Snapchat. It looks like it's the AR platforms final hurrah as IG has snapped up the app's last good feature: its AR selfie filters.
How To: Use Your Smartphone's Camera to Instantly Translate Anything
If you're standing in a foreign city, surrounded by signage in a language you don't understand, you won't suddenly be able to read it. But with a clever feature in Google's Translate app, your smartphone can.
HoloLens Dev 102: How to Create an ImageTarget with Vuforia & Set Up the Camera System
Now that we've set up Vuforia in Unity, we can work on the more exciting aspects of making physical objects come to life on the HoloLens. In this guide, we will choose an image (something that you physically have in your home), build our ImageTarget database, and then set up our Unity camera to be able to recognize the chosen image so that it can overlay the 3D holographic effect on top of it.
News: Magic Leap Acquires Augmented Reality Telepresence Startup Mimesys
Just months after we previewed the augmented reality, volumetric video conferencing powers of Mimesys, the company has undergone a major change — it's now a part of Magic Leap.
How To: Share Photos & Videos with the Microsoft HoloLens
Microsoft's HoloLens comes with helpful features for capturing video and photos, but sharing whatever you record isn't as straightforward as you might expect. So here are the many ways to get your media off the device to share with the world.
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.
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: 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.
News: Google Adding Stereo Depth Support for Dual Cameras to ARCore Starting with Pixel 4 & 4XL
In response to Apple's implementation of LiDAR sensors in iPad Pro and iPhone 12 Pro models, Google is looking to leverage the dual-camera setups in recent flagship devices as depth-sensing components.
Exclusive: Inside Magic Leap's Secret Headquarters
The long guarded veil of mystery surrounding Magic Leap for years was finally lifted last year when the company revealed its Magic Leap One device.
News: Tale of the Tape — How Does Apple's Measure App Measure Up Against Google's Version?
Earlier this month, when Apple announced at WWDC that iOS 12 would include an augmented reality tape measure called Measure, iPhone watchers seemed impressed by the new addition to the company's AR arsenal. Well, just a couple of weeks later, on June 19, it appears that Google remembered it had its own Measure app as well.
Apple AR: Star Wars Holograms Are Now a Real Thing on iPhone X via Clips App
Augmented reality is making many of our childhood dreams from Star Wars come true. A week after Lenovo gave us the ability to actually play Holochess, Apple has now made it possible to take live video of ourselves and layer on a (non-3D) hologram-like effect, closely resembling the famous Star Wars hologram scene featuring Princess Leia decades ago.
News: Free & Open-Source JavaScript Solution for Augmented Reality Comes to Life on Mobile
AR.js is a new JavaScript solution that offers highly efficient augmented reality features to mobile developers. With HoloJS released back in December, there is a potential that the free AR.js, developed by Jerome Etienne, one of Next Reality's 50 people to watch in augmented and mixed reality, could work with the Microsoft HoloLens as well.
News: 'Land of Dinosaurs' HoloLens App Brings Jurassic Park to Life with Holograms
Jurassic Park makes a great (and sometimes mediocre) action movie, but hopefully isn't the sort of thing we're dumb enough to actually make. Fortunately, on the HoloLens, you can now walk with the dinosaurs with no risk to your life and limbs.
Hands-On: Hands-On with Spatial's Remote Meeting App on Microsoft HoloLens
In recent years, many software publishers have tried to sell the business community on remote meetings via VR, but if social media chatter is any indication, it hasn't taken off in a big way just yet. However, for some, the notion of holding remote meetings using augmented reality, a medium in which you're still directly tied to the real world and not closed off in a blindfold-style VR headset, might be the better solution.
ARKit 101: How to Measure the Ground Using ARKit
Have you noticed the many utility ARKit apps on the App Store that allow you to measure the sizes of horizontal planes in the world? Guess what? After this tutorial, you'll be able to do this yourself!
Hands-On: Hands-On with Magic Leap's Undersea, an AR Experience That Transports You to Another World
The latest immersive production from Magic Leap Studios finally got its debut on Monday at Siggraph, during which the company also released the app to the general public, so we took it for a spin.
Apple AR: The Universe Is in Your Floor with New ARKit Portal Demo
You'd better start watching where you're stepping because there are portals opening up everywhere thanks to Apple's ARKit.
News: Create Your Own Holograms at Home with the Volu iPhone App
With the release of Object Capture this fall, Apple is giving everyone with a Mac and a camera the means to create their own 3D objects.
News: Resolution Games Ports Popular Fishing Game from VR to Augmented Reality
Having pushed more than two million downloads of its Bait! game for the Gear VR and Daydream platforms, VR developer Resolution Games is bringing the virtual fishing fun to augmented reality.