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News: TikTok Looks to Challenge Snap & Facebook AR Platforms with Effect House Tool

The Chinese short-form social media giant known as TikTok is getting into an increasingly crowded and competitive space: augmented reality effects tools.

Market Reality: Air Force Gets Immersive, Crypto's AR Future, Inside Amazon's Echo Frames, & Metaverse Goes Mainstream

The march to the mainstreaming of augmented reality can sometimes seem slow, but this week things picked up in earnest.

News: Snap Scores Big in Battle for Augmented Reality Platform Talent, Pulls Two Executives from Rival Facebook

The battle for augmented reality and social media supremacy starts with the people working behind the scenes, and this week Snap pulled off a telling win that could indicate a shift in the AR space.

News: The IRS Is Finally Getting into the Augmented Reality Game and Wants Your Help

The US Department of Treasury isn't generally known for being on the very edge of technology innovations (see the current hubbub around crypto), instead usually waiting until certain tools have been battle-tested in the mainstream or enterprise sector.

News: Augmented Reality Startup Red 6 Lands Multimillion-Dollar Contract to Support US Air Force Training

The emergence of Microsoft's HoloLens 2 as a cutting-edge US Army tool has focused a spotlight on the marriage between augmented reality and the military.

Opinion: There's a Blind Spot in Augmented Reality, and the Clarifying Lens of Crypto Is the Prescription, Here's Why

On this platform, we talk a lot about the future of augmented reality, and we pay attention to what is being said elsewhere as well.

News: How Amazon's Echo Frames Point the Way to Our Augmented Reality Smartglasses Future

Part of the mainstreaming of augmented reality is learning to adopt new habits around the hardware delivering these groundbreaking next-gen interface experiences.

Market Reality: Olympics AR Content on Instagram & Google, Facebook's Metaverse, & Snapchat's Magic Karaoke

Over the past week, practically every major tech company working on augmented reality has held their quarterly earnings calls with investors, and each addressed or at least mentioned the role of AR during their prepared remarks. However, Facebook's earnings call had some of the spicier commentary on the technology.

News: Facebook's Smartglasses Are the New AR Hype, but It's Becoming Clearer That a Metaverse Platform War Is Coming

Facebook's earnings calls are generally focused on numbers—revenue and user growth. But this week the company's founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, carved out a significant portion of the call to elaborate on Facebook's plans for immersive computing.

News: New York Times Revives Its AR Storytelling on Instagram with Tokyo Olympics Experiences

Old school media stalwart The New York Times launched its augmented reality news content in 2018 with a feature on the athletes of the Winter Olympics.

AR Snapshots: Snapchat's Latest Augmented Reality Lens Turns Celebrities into Lip-Syncing Pop Stars

The Lens Studio community, now made up of more than 200,000 creators, has generated some impressive augmented reality effects in the last few years. Amazingly, the groundbreaking Lenses for Snapchat continue to come, often from the internal AR team at Snap.

News: Google Adds More Olympic Athletes to Its Roster of Augmented Reality Search Content

After facing delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Olympic Games are underway in Tokyo, but a surge in cases worldwide has taken the spectator out of these spectator sports.

Market Reality: Snap & Epic Games Acquisitions, Nreal v. Epic Games, AR on Oculus Quest, & HoloLens at the Olympics

It's already been a banner year for mergers and acquisitions in the augmented reality industry, with WaveOptics and Ubiquity6 among the notable companies acquired. Two of the more active M&A players, Snap and Epic Games, continued their respective buying sprees this week with major deals supporting their AR strategies.

News: Facebook Finally Opens Oculus Quest Passthrough Feature to Developers, Making the VR Device an AR Playground

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.

News: This Is How Japanese Wireless Giant Docomo Is Using the HoloLens 2 to Add AR to the Olympics

On Friday, the Tokyo Olympics finally kicked off after massive delays and complications due to the pandemic.

News: BMW Releases Art Car Series of Famed Artists, Including Jeff Koons and Andy Warhol, in Augmented Reality

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.

News: Snap Adds Upper Garment Segmentation, Multiple Object Detection, & More with Lens Studio 4.1

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.

News: Epic Games Builds on Metaverse Foundation with Sketchfab Acquisition

Already among the leaders in AR development tools via its Unreal Engine, Epic Games has added another tanky weapon to its arsenal.

News: Nreal Fires Back Legal Countersuit at Epic Games Over Naming Dispute

The legal battle between Epic Games and augmented reality startup Nreal isn't cooling off anytime soon.

News: Snap Continues AR Buying Spree with Vertebrae Acquisition

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.

News: Snap Spectacles Used to Turn Spoken Word Poetry into an Augmented Reality Experience

From the front lines of mainstreaming augmented reality smartglasses comes the latest update from Snap and its Spectacles wearable.

News: USA Today Showcases New Summer Olympics Sports with Augmented Reality

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.

Market Reality: Facebook AR & Space Jam, Virgin Galactic AR App, Asics NFTs, & Shark Week on Snapchat

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.

News: Google Extends Support for Google Meet to Google Glass Enterprise Edition 2

Due to the apparent lackluster adoption of its Explorer Edition, it can be easy to forget that Google Glass still exists as an enterprise product.

News: This Is How You Can Join LeBron James & Warner Bros. Space Jam Cartoon Characters in Augmented Reality

The remake of the Warner Bros. classic animation meets live-action movie Space Jam, this time starring LeBron James instead of Michael Jordan, hits theaters today.

AR Snapshots: Dive into Shark Week with These Snapchat AR Lenses

Shark Week, which debuted in 1988 as a week of programming on the Discovery Channel dedicated to the titular predatory fish, has grown into a cultural beast of its own.

News: DigiLens Looks to Plastic Waveguides as Alternative to Glass for AR Smartglasses Displays

When it comes to the future of AR smartglasses, DigiLens has one word for you. Just one word. Are you listening? Plastics.

News: Asics Brings Its Sneaker Magic to the 3D World via NFT Auction

Some tried to call it a brief cryptocurrency-fueled fad, but it looks like NFTs are here to stay. Now, one of the biggest sneaker companies on the planet, Japan's Asics, is getting into the game with its own set of NFTs, and there's a virtual object component included.