Month: March 2020

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. What is surprising is the type of sensor it is, and that plot twist raises the level of intrigue for Apple’s development of augmented reality smartglasses. Don’t Miss: Apple Brings People Occlusion & Motion Capture to ARKit 3 Alongside RealityKit & RealityComposer for AR Development On Wednesday, Apple unveiled the 2020 iPad Pro, which runs on the A12Z Bionic chip, and includes an Ultra Wide camera and Liquid Retina display… more

With many office workers in the US being asked to work from home if their job allows, Magic Leap’s customary updates for the Lumin OS and Lumin SDK brings some help to keep distributed workforces connected. Chief among the new features arriving with Lumin OS version 0.98.10 and Lumin SDK 0.24 is a new Meetings feature that enables local and remote collaboration with 2D and 3D files. Don’t Miss: Magic Leap Repackages Developer Tools as The Lab, Publishes Updates for Lumin SDK & Lumin OS, & Previews Magicverse SDK However, before we unpack those new features, perhaps the most exciting new… more

For enterprise augmented reality platform makers, remote assistance apps represent one of the greatest opportunities to show off the power of immersive computing. These apps enable experts to guide front-line workers or customers with AR prompts and other content in the field of view of their smartphones or smartglasses. The evolution of this concept, built for AR headsets like the HoloLens 2, the Magic Leap 1, and the forthcoming wave of wearables powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 chip, eases the path to multi-user video and immersive conference calls where local and remote participants… more

The rumors have been circulating for months, but now there’s a source attached to the notion that Magic Leap is looking to sell itself off after a rough couple of years following the launch of its Magic Leap 1 augmented reality device. The first rumbling of trouble came back in 2018, when the device was finally revealed to the public, after much Apple-style secrecy and well-hyped promotion, only to be scorched by many tech reviewers who apparently expected more from the $2,295 device. Don’t Miss: Nreal Changes Company Name, Amid Magic Leap Legal Battle Unknown Chinese Parent Company Revealed… more

As first reported by Next Reality last year, game developer Preloaded, in partnership with BBC Studios, has finally launched BBC Earth – Micro Kingdoms: Senses. The experience, which allows the user to become immersed in the world of insects and arachnids, is accessed using the Magic Leap 1. Don’t Miss: Hands-On with Magic Leap’s Undersea, an AR Experience That Transports You to Another World BBC Earth’s title is now available as a free download in the Magic Leap World app store. Actor Stephen Fry (V for Vendetta, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), narrates the experience — the same… more

Apple’s first AR wearable might not arrive until 2022, but we may have an early preview of what it will be like to wear a pair of its smartglasses via iOS 14. Clues found in the code for the next major version of Apple’s mobile operating system point to an app with the codename of Gobi that overlays augmented reality data over products in a retail setting. Don’t Miss: Here’s What You Need to Run ARKit 3 on Your iPhone or iPad The app would activate the AR experience through either the scanning of a QR Code or detection of a nearby iBeacon or AirTag, Apple’s rumored AR-enabled Tile… more

The worldwide health crisis around the coronavirus has gripped the live events industry, particularly in the tech sector, with the cancellations of Mobile World Congress, the Game Developers Conference, Facebook’s F8, Google I/O and now South by Southwest. But one conference, focused on immersive computing, is looking to ride out the current storm and still hold its annual meeting, which is 78 days away. Don’t Miss: After Nearly a Decade of AWE, Founder Ori Inbar Unpacks the Past, Present, & Future of Augmented Reality “We are still [two and a half months] out from the AWE event and are… more

The still-unfolding story of China’s Nreal augmented reality startup continues to develop, with each turn uncovering another unexpected wrinkle. Now, in a new filing with the courts in its legal battle with Magic Leap, the company has revealed a sudden name change, as well as the involvement of a previously unknown parent company. Don’t Miss: Magic Leap Claims He Stole Augmented Reality Ideas as an Employee, but Who Is Chi Xu, the Founder of Nreal? Currently, Nreal, initially operating under the corporate name Hangzhou Tairuo, is defending itself against a lawsuit from Florida-based… more

Alternate US history is the go-to move for hot new cable and streaming shows, from HBO’s Watchmen to Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale, reimagining how things might have turned out is an endless well of narrative inspiration. The latest show to delve into this genre comes from Disney’s Freeform network, and it’s called Motherland: Fort Salem. And along with the theme of magic comes a unique promotional tie-in from Snapchat that uses augmented reality to bend reality in the direction of the show’s magical theme. Don’t Miss: This Sci-Fi Style 5G Promo for AR is Better Than Some Movies What is that… more

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. The company has now adapted its software for operation within the hardware framework of Google Glass Enterprise Edition 2, which it will sell bundled with the Envision app as “Envision Glasses.” Don’t Miss: Google Glass Resurfaces as a Tool to… more