Category: Uncategorized

The fight to wrest control of apps from Apple’s revenue-focused grip just took a major turn in favor of Epic Games. On Friday, a court issued a permanent injunction against Apple that now allows developers to direct customers to outside payment systems. • Don’t Miss: Epic Games Files Legal Action to Stop Augmented Reality Startup Nreal from Using Name in the US The ruling means that Apple’s traditional fee that cuts into developer profits can now be completely avoided, not just by Epic Games, but for any developer on the Apple App Store platform. Previously, Apple levied a whopping 30% fee… more

Just hours after an early leak via Twitter, Facebook and Ray-Ban have officially released their new wearable collaboration. As we surmised, based on the leaked packaging, the device is called Stories. • Don’t Miss: Facebook Ray-Ban Smartglasses Leak Reveals Fashionable Device with Cameras, Multiple Colors The smartglasses come in black, blue, and brown, with the option of outfitting the lenses with dark grey, polarized dark blue, brown, green, clear, and clear with a blue light filter. You can also order the smartglasses with prescription lenses. The frame styles come in Ray-Ban’s classic… more

Facebook promised that it would release a pair of smartglasses in partnership with Ray-Ban sometime this year and now it looks like we have our first look at the device. The design is amazingly in line with Ray-Ban’s classic look, so much so that if you wore a pair of these in public right now most onlookers probably wouldn’t realize you were wearing anything other than a normal pair of shades. • Don’t Miss: Mark Zuckerberg Reveals More About Facebook’s Upcoming Smartglasses Set to Debut This Year The leak comes from one of the most reliable leak-focused Twitter handles, Ev Leaks, which is… more

We always know roughly when Apple events are coming, but when their new product events pop up, they’re always a pleasant tech refresher from the Cupertino tech giant. This time, the Apple event news comes with a special treat, another beautiful augmented reality invitation. • Don’t Miss: Apple & Snapchat Use AR to Let You Travel on the New York Subway System via Apple Pay The invite for Apple’s latest event reveals that the launch will take place on September 14 at 1 p.m. ET. Although Apple hasn’t revealed what it will debut at next week’s event, rumors are circulating that it could… more

Amid a troubling resurgence in coronavirus cases, led by the new Delta variant, augmented reality is once again moving back into the spotlight as a solution, especially now that the move to return to offices has been stalled. This week, a few developments in the AR space offered more proof that immersive remote work solutions could be the answer for a number of corporate and private consumers. Among these developments is the increasing rise of spatial audio, which is vital to truly immersive mobile AR apps, and we have a great new example. Also, Facebook’s latest developer initiative allows… more

The enterprise-focused category of augmented reality doesn’t often get the headlines due to its relatively sedate profile as a mostly factory floor and training-based tool. But a new massive investment in one of the biggest enterprise AR players, Xerox’s CareAR, will likely fuel new activity in this still emerging category. • Don’t Miss: Hands-On with Spatial’s Remote Meeting App on Microsoft HoloLens This week, CareAR received a new investment of $10 million from ServiceNow, one of its existing partners in the realm of enterprise software. “Service teams today are challenged with solving… more

The augmented reality passthrough abilities of Facebook’s Oculus Quest were only fully opened to independent developers recently. But despite the recency of the shift, the change is already yielding interesting AR applications that few would have considered for the primarily VR-centric device. • Don’t Miss: Facebook Finally Opens Oculus Quest Passthrough Feature to Developers, Making the VR Device an AR Playground Austria-based indie developer Dominik Hackl has come up with a clever way to study playing the piano using AR overlays as a guide. The project, called Magic Keys, was first… more

In our review of Amazon’s non-augmented reality Echo Frames smartglasses, we made the case for audio virtual assistants being the linchpin for AR wearables. Given that premise, it’s now vital to pay attention to developments in the spatial audio space, the latest of which comes from a popular little startup known as Clubhouse. • Don’t Miss: Spatial Launches Tele iPhone App for Casual, Avatar-Based Chats in Augmented Reality If you’re not familiar with Clubhouse, you can check out a quick sample via an interview I did on the platform earlier this year. On Sunday, the startup released an… more

The year leading into fall is turning out to be packed with a flurry of augmented reality activity. Most notably, TikTok is adding another major weapon to its AR arsenal. Also on deck are the powers of Hollywood horror in the form of an innovative approach to AR marketing that uses sounds. Speaking of transforming into another version of yourself, makeup industry giant Avon has doubled down on its AR bet by pairing with a major pioneer in the virtual try-on space. We also covered new releases from the world of Snap Spectacles, and a new tool from Google that could absolutely blow open the… more

One of the primary assumptions in the world of VR and augmented reality is that the user has the ability to “see” virtual objects and the real world structures around them. But what if the user doesn’t have perfect eyesight, or any eyesight at all? A new project from Google could eventually pave the way for the blind to participate more actively in the growing virtual worlds of AR. • Don’t Miss: Snap’s Acquisition of 3D Mapping Startup Signals Move to Build AR Cloud Google’s new Project Guideline gives blind runners the ability to detect the lines on a running track using image recognition… more