Author: defaultwptest_0plels

Facebook Reality Labs chief Andrew “Boz” Bosworth does a lot of hinting and teasing of what’s coming next at Oculus, often with only a vague timeline on the horizon. However, on Friday, Boz finally delivered on a big tease he last highlighted back in April, and it has everything to do with augmented reality on the Oculus Quest. • Don’t Miss: Facebook Reality Labs Chief Teases AR Coming to Oculus Quest Gaming, Delves into Future Smartglasses Hardware The feature is called the Passthrough API Experimental and Boz describes it as “a way to build and test apps that seamlessly blend the real and… more

On Friday, the Tokyo Olympics finally kicked off after massive delays and complications due to the pandemic. Part of the opening ceremonies included an Intel-powered drone show that put a virtual globe in the sky, but this weekend a different kind of virtual object innovation will be in play at the games thanks to augmented reality. • Don’t Miss: Japan-Based Developer Unleashes Giant AR Gundam Robot on the Public via HoloLens 2 Japanese telecom giant NTT Docomo has launched a series of tech-powered innovations at the Olympics called the Tokyo 2020 5G Project. (In case you weren’t aware, the… more

One app is continuing to make a name for itself as the go-to platform for celebrity art that transcends canvas and paint and moves in augmented reality. The Acute Art app’s latest example of this comes from the likes of BMW and its stable of fine artists who have spent decades transforming the luxury car maker’s vehicles into works of art. • Don’t Miss: Microsoft HoloLens 2 Brings Extinct Animals Back to Life at Paris National Museum The first real foray the Acute Art app made into the world of immersive celebrity art involved street art legend KAWS. That AR release on the app allowed users… more

After adding full-body tracking and 3D body mesh in its past two Lens Studio updates, Snap continues to supply creators, particularly apparel retailers, with tools for creating clothing-centric AR experiences. Arriving via Wednesday’s release of Lens Studio 4.1, the Upper Garment Segmentation template enables users to create the ability to project AR content shirts, jackets, dresses, and other similar clothing on multiple persons appearing in the camera view. Don’t Miss: AR Snapshots: Dive into Shark Week with These Snapchat AR Lenses But that’s not all. The Multi-Object Detection template… more

Already among the leaders in AR development tools via its Unreal Engine, Epic Games has added another tanky weapon to its arsenal. On Wednesday, the company announced its acquisition of Sketchfab, itself one of the leading repositories of 3D content for AR and VR experiences. Don’t Miss: Unreal Engine Maker Epic Games Lands $1.25 Billion Investment to Drive Future of Gaming & AR Sketchfab will continue to operate as an independent company, which includes maintaining compatibility and support for other platforms, including Unity, a chief competitor to Epic Games’ Unreal Engine. In addition… more

The legal battle between Epic Games and augmented reality startup Nreal isn’t cooling off anytime soon. In a new twist, the Chinese startup, while defending itself against Epic’s lawsuit, has decided to file its own lawsuit against the games and software platform maker. • Don’t Miss: Epic Games Restarts Lawsuit vs. Nreal as Settlement Talks Collapse If you haven’t been keeping score, here’s the basic chain of events, which was first exposed to the public when Next Reality broke the story in January 2019. In late December of 2018, Epic Games quietly lobbed its first legal volley at Nreal… more

Snapchat parent company Snap has opened up its war chest to acquire yet another company that will play a role in its augmented reality ecosystem. This week, Snap confirmed its acquisition of Vertebrae, an AR and 3D e-commerce startup with offices in Los Angeles and Austin, for an undisclosed amount. Don’t Miss: What Snap’s Voca.ai Acquisition Could Mean for Snapchat & Spectacles — Virtual Voice Assistants Meet Augmented Reality The deal, first reported by The Verge and confirmed by Next Reality via a Snap spokesperson, will allow Vertebrae’s team of 50 employees to continue development on… more

From the front lines of mainstreaming augmented reality smartglasses comes the latest update from Snap and its Spectacles wearable. This time the demonstration of the device’s powers comes from a more creative arts perspective. • Don’t Miss: AR Snapshots — Dive into Shark Week with These Snapchat AR Lenses New York-based poet and computer programmer Zach Lieberman managed to get his hands on a pair of Spectacles and decided to translate his words into immersive elements using Lens Studio. The results of the experiment can be seen in a new video posted on Monday which shows Lieberman… more

After a postponement of the Summer Olympics for a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Tokyo is set to host the games this summer, despite a surge in cases in the city. Nonetheless, the games seem set to go on, and USA Today has published two AR experiences highlighting two new sports, skateboarding and sports climbing, making their Olympics debut. Don’t Miss: USA Today Teams Up with 8th Wall to Launch AR Basketball Game for March Madness The AR experiences feature American professional skateboarder Tom Schaar and Team USA climber Kyra Condie, with a 3D scan of each athlete anchored in the… more

A pair of properties from the soon-to-merge Warner Media and Discovery companies chose different platforms for their augmented reality marketing, with Warner film Space Jam: A New Legacy opting to go with Facebook and Discovery Channel publishing an AR experience through Snapchat. Other brands, Virgin Galactic and Asics, jumped into the AR content fray this week via mobile apps and NFTs. In addition, while Google brought its Google Meet video platform to Google Glass, Rokid and DigiLens unveiled new developments in the smartglasses segment. AT&T Taps Facebook to Promote ‘Space Jam: A New… more