Augmented Reality News Features

News: Magic Leap Patent Details Spatial Audio That Changes Based on Users' Head Movements

Just days after Bose did its best to frame a pair of glasses frames with spatial audio as "augmented reality," a patent application from Magic Leap, surfaced on Thursday, March 15, offers a similar idea, but with real AR included.

News: Microsoft FCC Filing Hints That the Wait for HoloLens 2 Is Almost Over

We know that Microsoft's HoloLens 2 is due to start shipping later this year, but despite the trickle of news about the device, we still don't know when.

Apple AR: Step into A-ha's Classic 'Take On Me' Video with ARKit

Augmented reality has produced some incredible innovations that have revolutionized modern technology. From helping with live surgery to changing the game in marketing and businesses. But without a doubt, the most important thing that augmented reality and ARKit has ever brought us is an AR version of A-ha's iconic "Take On Me" video.

News: Mobile AR Won't Be Truly Amazing Until 5G Happens

We don't know exactly what form 5G cellular technology will take, but it intends to bring faster Wi-Fi-like performance to mobile devices. While that'll provide major advantages to lots of connected technology, PC Magazine notes that it could be what augmented and mixed reality needs to become widely adopted.

News: Pizza Hut Teams Up with NFL for Scannable Pizza Boxes & Augmented Reality Beanbag Game

After parting ways with Papa John's, the National Football League has drafted Pizza Hut as its official pizza purveyor, and the company has hit the field with an augmented reality game to entertain hungry football fans.

News: KLM Packs AR Suitcase into iPhone App to Help Passengers Check Luggage

Royal Dutch Airlines (KLM) is making it easier for its passengers to travel by employing an incredibly practical new augmented reality feature included an update to its iOS app.

News: Meta's Latest Mixed Reality Headset Sets a High Bar

Microsoft enjoyed a few months in the spotlight after releasing the developer version of the very first mixed reality (MR) headset, but now we're starting to see the competition jump in.

News: How to Try Out the Microsoft HoloLens (& Other Reality-Altering Headsets) Near You

Mixed reality (MR) feels like an amazing, almost mind-blowing futuristic technology—but only once you've experienced it for yourself. Words, images, and even videos simply cannot describe the experience in full. If you want to really peer into the future and experience MR for yourself, you can sign up and just go in many cities.

News: Magic Leap Has Been Making Big Deals Ahead of Highly Anticipated Launch

Magic Leap is no stranger to hype and speculative advancement—when their name pops up in the news, all focus turns to them. And the company is making news again this week, with the knowledge of an acquisition of a startup founded by former Apple employees, and by hiring animators from an Emmy and Oscar award-winning studio.

News: Star Wars Baby Yoda Unofficially Comes to Magic Leap via This Developer Experiment

The first season of Star Wars: The Mandalorian may be over, but the love for its biggest star, Baby Yoda, persists.

News: Lenovo's Newest Smartglasses Aimed at Enterprise Rather Than Consumers

Lost among the latest laptops, smart assistants, VR headsets, and Motorola-branded gadgets that it brought to CES 2018, Lenovo has also introduced a new pair of augmented reality smartglasses.

News: Snapchat Rings in the New Year with a Lens Studio Contest for AR Artists

Snap is turning to some light bribery to boost adoption of its new Lens Studio software. The January Jumpstart Challenge encourages artists to create and share a Lens that celebrates the New Year. One selected winner will take home a Lens Studio Swag Bag that includes an iPad Pro. In addition, the Lens could be featured in the Lens carousel for others to experience.

News: Magic Leap Opens Up Applications for Early-Access Beta Developers

Magic Leap has always been intensely secretive about its work on its augmented reality headset, so it's interesting that they're now publicly recruiting developers to build software for the device before its launch.

News: Microsoft Discontinuing Major OS Updates for HoloLens 1

With HoloLens 2 (hopefully) just around the corner, Microsoft has announced that it will no longer be providing any major operating system updates to the original HoloLens.

News: Magic Leap App SeeSignal Uses AR to Help You Find & Touch the Strongest Cellular, Wi-Fi, & Bluetooth Signals

While Magic Leap World gets its share of fun apps for playing with Porgs, watching TV, and exploring the ocean's depths, developers are making a strong business case for the Magic Leap One as well.

News: Snapchat AR Lenses Jump from Mobile to Desktop with Snap Camera App

For the entirety of its existence, Snapchat has lived on mobile, but in its quest to lead the augmented reality industry, the company is now bringing those mobile AR experiences to desktops.

News: Netflix Hit 'Stranger Things' Spreads Its Promotional Tentacles to Facebook

Just like Maxine in Stranger Things 2, Facebook didn't want to be left out of the cool kids group, which, in this case, is the mobile AR space.

Apple AR: Game Company Creates Playable Augmented Reality Arcade Machine in Their Office

The gaming company Ivanovich Games has created a sort of "game-ception" using Apple's ARKit. They have designed a Steam-powered playable arcade machine game called "Operation Warcade" which can now be projected into real life using augmented reality, creating a true "go inside the video game" experience.

News: Augmented Reality Surprised Sundance Film Festival with a Journey into the Human Brain

The largest and arguably most widely known event of its type, especially in the US, the Sundance Film Festival is an annual celebration of independent film—ones made outside the Hollywood system. This year, a new type of experience appeared at the Sundance Film Festival in an installation called "The Journey to the Center of the Natural Machine." This mixed reality presentation offered the user the newest type of storytelling in a long and important line—continuation of the species kind of im...

News: Samsung Announces They're Entering the AR Field

This week, Dr. Sung-Hoon Hong, Vice President of Samsung Electronics, announced at the Virtual Reality Summit in San Diego that not only does Samsung have a new virtual reality headset coming, but that Samsung intends to enter the field of augmented reality, too. In fact, Hong talked very little about virtual reality and instead spoke at length about Samsung's move into augmented reality.

News: K-Pop Stars from BlackPink Debut New AR Feature on Candy Crush Friends Saga for Samsung Galaxy Note10 & Note10+

In recent days we've covered the marriage of augmented reality and top-tier music artists. This time, though, the music stars are showing off the tech rather than integrating it into their act.

News: Nike's Newest App Uses AR to Sell Momofuku Sneakers

Nike's newest app is changing the way we shop. Called SNKRS, it uses augmented reality to sell the limited edition Nike SB Dunk High Pro "Momofuku" sneakers.

News: Golfshot Mobile App Chips in AR Mode for Measuring Shots on the Course

Although some look to golf for some quick off-the-grid time, the scenic hills and blue skies of your local putting green are not immune from the ever-expanding reach of augmented reality. A new update to the Golfshot mobile app brings new AR features to iPhones and iPads designed to help golfers determine shot distances during course play.

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.

News: Clay VR Has Gesture Recognition Using Just Your iPhone

If you don't know Clay, you're probably going to want to. According to their website, Clay VR's goal was to not only expose users to the world of AR/VR, but fully immerse them in it. Clay does this by allowing users to feel like they were touching the objects in virtual worlds in order to make the virtual worlds feel more natural and real.

News: 'The Walking Dead' Mixes Augmented Reality & Wine to Keep You Alive Between Episodes

Fans of The Walking Dead can now kill time until the series returns from its winter hiatus by raising walkers from the labels on bottles of wine influenced by the show.

News: Turn Your Data into a Hologram with This HoloLens App

Theorem Solutions, a company that helps engineering and manufacturing companies reduce their costs, has taken the next step with their mixed reality technology. The company has now added their own app, called Visualization Experience, to the Windows Store for the Microsoft HoloLens

News: Ghostbusters World AR Game Arrives as Halloween Treat & We Dive into Its Location-Based Tricks

Because timing is everything, the latest entry in the location-based augmented reality gaming sweepstakes, Ghostbusters World, has arrived just in time for Halloween.

News: Amazon Adding Virtual Try-On from L'Oréal's ModiFace to Its Beauty Products

Cosmetics augmented reality specialist ModiFace appears to be really benefiting from the brand power of L'Oréal, which acquired the company last year.

News: Google Brings Augmented Reality to the Mainstream by Adding AR Content to Search

If Google hasn't already demonstrated that it is serious about augmented reality, then it made it abundantly clear at the Google I/O keynote on Tuesday.

News: Magic Leap Teases Magicverse Debut in 2020, Launches Magic Leap Toolkit for Developers

After talking up the Magicverse for the past year and adding new capabilities to Lumin OS to accommodate it, Magic Leap appears to be inching ever closer to actually launching its cross-platform flavor of the AR cloud while introducing a new tool for its development community.

News: Snapchat Launches In-App Store with 'World's First AR Superstar' Hot Dog Toy & Other Swag

It used to be that the best kind of swag was T-shirts and hats from your favorite music artists, but now the symbol of casual insider cool falls to the tech companies, and Snapchat has just joined the ranks of branded apparel purveyors.

News: Magic Leap Seems to Be Partnering with Alibaba on a Shopping App

We've seen how mixed and augmented reality can offer better shopping experiences for consumers, and even how Magic Leap wants to make advertising a non-intrusive experience. So it's no surprise that Magic Leap seems to have partnered up with Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba—one of their largest investors—to create an augmented reality shopping app.

Apple AR: 'Ancients AR' Game from Immersion VR Is Battleship on Steroids

Sending fleets of ships into battle as an ancient Nordic god? Sign me up.

News: Blippar Bounces Back with Web-Based AR Platform

After one of Britain's "Brothers Bling" bought Blippar out of bankruptcy, the mobile augmented reality company is getting back to business with the addition of web-based AR capabilities to its platform.

News: Snapchat Redesign Includes AR Bar, Adds Landmark AR Feature, Integrates Giphy & Photomath Camera Tools

The first annual Snap Partner Summit kicked off on Thursday in Los Angeles, and with it came some new products announcements, several of which enhance Snapchat's already robust augmented reality powers.

News: BBC Brings Ancient Artifacts into Your Living Room with Augmented Reality App for iOS & Android

According to Indiana Jones, certain things belong in museums, but, thanks to augmented reality, you can now see some of the ancient treasures of the world in your own home via the Civilisations AR app from the BBC.

News: Watch Trimble Give the Microsoft HoloLens 2 the Elon Musk Tesla Cybertruck Smash Test, Sort Of

Everyone seems to be talking about Elon Musk's new futuristic Tesla Cybertruck, the vehicle that either looks like a cool moon rover or an outlandish video game replica, depending on your tastes.

News: HoloSuit Proof of Concept Uses Full Body Motion to Control the HoloLens

Here at NextReality, we talk a lot about the many different ways of controlling holograms in the HoloLens and other augmented and mixed reality devices; New and creative ways are coming more and more every day. Most recently is something called the HoloSuit. In the 25-second clip below, you can see a woman moving the arm of a jacket which in turn moves a 3D model of Darth Vader on the screen. It's a simple idea with big potential.

Apple AR: There's Really No Point to Playing StackAR in AR

When explaining augmented reality to the uninitiated, Pokémon Go is often cited as an example. For all its popularity, though, many players would recommend disabling the AR capabilities in catching Pokémon.