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For its latest augmented reality trick, Snapchat has brought the world an AR Lens that has become a bit of a viral hit on Twitter as users turn themselves and their favorite movie stars into characters out of a Pixar movie. According to a Snap spokesperson, more than 215 million Snapchat users have interacted with the Cartoon 3D Style Lens since its launch on June 10. The Lens has tallied more than 1.7 billion views over that period. Don’t Miss: AR Snapshots: Celebrate Pride Month with These Snapchat Augmented Reality Lenses With the Cartoon 3D Style Lens, Snapchat can remix photos taken… more

Over the past few weeks, Google, Snap, and Facebook have all taken their turns to show off their new augmented reality technologies. This week, it was Apple’s turn, with new AR features for iOS 15 along with new capabilities for developers. Meanwhile, Facebook’s plans to launch a smartwatch in order to circumvent the dominance of Apple and Google over the mobile ecosystem leaked this week, and those plans include a future symbiotic relationship with its forthcoming smartglasses. Also, Snap shared a new AR experience developed via Lens Studio for its next-generation Spectacles smartglasses… more

Magic Leap has had a rough couple of years, highlighted by high-profile executive departures, lawsuits, troublesome patent shuffles, and massive layoffs. Despite this, things seem to have calmed down at the augmented reality startup under Peggy Johnson, but there are still questions as to how things went awry under the old regime. • Don’t Miss: Magic Leap Experiencing Yet Another Major Executive Shake-Up, Report Says Most former Magic Leap staff have remained tight-lipped, but now one major former executive is finally shedding some light on the situation. Magic Leap’s former senior vice… more

The debut of the augmented reality version of Snap’s Spectacles came with several examples of how the wearable can allow creators to transform the world around them. Now, weeks after the initial launch of the AR smartglasses, we’re getting yet another example of how the device can facilitate new kinds of immersive experiences. • Don’t Miss: How to Get a Pair of Snap’s New Spectacles AR Smartglasses Los Angeles-based technical designer Katherine Harris managed to snag a pair of Spectacles and decided to use the device to develop a new kind of teaching tool. Harris, a veteran of Microsoft… more

Just when everything seemed settled over at Magic Leap, it turns out that the internal tumult is still in play. Now, just as newly minted CEO Peggy Johnson has managed to fully position herself publicly as the new leader of the struggling augmented reality startup, more executive departures have begun. • Don’t Miss: Magic Leap Made Me Cry, Probably for the Last Time. Here’s Why That’s the Good News Magic Leap’s chief operating officer Henk Vlietstra, chief patent officer David Lundmark, and chief technology officer Paul Greco are all exiting the company according to a report from Business… more

One of the more exciting augmented reality announcements Apple made during its WWDC keynote on Monday came in the form of Object Capture, a new 3D scanning feature coming to macOS Monterey. That cry you just heard in the distance came from the chorus of companies who have published 3D scanning apps leveraging the LiDAR sensors of recent or built their business models around 3D capture services. Don’t Miss: Apple Delivers Competitor to Google Lens & Google Maps AR Features in iOS 15 Meanwhile, Unity is in the catbird’s seat of Apple’s Object Capture car. Among the early access partners… more

As brands and content makers create more augmented reality experiences, the demand for tools to create 3D content grows in kind. And Apple may have just leveled the playing field for 3D content creation. Don’t Miss: Apple Delivers Competitor to Google Lens & Google Maps AR Features in iOS 15 On Monday, at WWDC 2021, Apple introduced Object Capture, a photogrammetry tool built on the Swift programming language and coming to the Monterey edition of macOS via RealityKit 2, the next version of Apple’s AR engine. Object Capture stitches together a series of photographs to create a 3D model of… more

It’s (virtual) developer conference season, and this week was Facebook’s turn with F8 Refresh. Like Google and Snap, Facebook had some new AR capabilities to show off. And while Google and Snap made big AR hardware reveals, Facebook did not. However, CEO Mark Zuckerberg did reveal insights into the company’s AR device roadmap after the virtual conference. In the AR headset segment, Magic Leap set the stage for its future devices by selecting AMD to design a semi-custom processor. Facebook Introduces Support for Shared Video AR Experiences for Spark AR After introducing a pair of new Spark… more

The last few weeks were fairly busy in the realm of augmented reality and remote meetings developments. Most of that activity was generated by some mammoth announcements from Snap and its Spectacles AR smartglasses, and Google, with its Project Starline experimental holographic video conferencing system. Now, right on cue, Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg has emerged to give some (veiled) responses to some of what we’ve seen from the competition in the last few weeks. • Don’t Miss: Facebook CEO Zuckerberg Uses Latest Appearance to Triple Down on Augmented Reality & Creator Revenue-Focused… more

After introducing a pair of new Spark AR capabilities last week, Facebook had one more trick up its sleeve to unveil at its virtual F8 Refresh developer conference. On Wednesday, Facebook gave its audience a sneak peek at its new Multipeer API, which will enable Spark AR creators to build AR camera effects that sync multiple video callers on Messenger and Instagram as well as its Portal smart camera lineup. Don’t Miss: This Viral Instagram Augmented Reality Filter Will Tell You Which Disney Character You Really Are Multipeer API opens up opportunities for shared experiences for video calls… more