Smartphones News

News: In a Major Hit to Apple, Rovio to Launch Angry Birds in AR for Magic Leap

Considering Rovio Entertainment quite literally owes its existence to Apple and the App Store, it may ruffle a few feathers that the company has opted to aim the augmented reality debut of its blockbuster Angry Birds franchise at Magic Leap instead.

News: Auto AR Tech Company WayRay Sets Its Sights on Unicorn Status with $80M Funding Round Led by Porsche

Automotive augmented reality company WayRay has set its destination for a $1 billion valuation with an estimated time of arrival of 2019, and it has just passed a major milestone towards that goal.

News: Illumix Emerges from Stealth with $8.6 Million in Funding to Build a Mobile AR Gaming Platform from the Ground Up

Apple often cites its tight integration of hardware and software for its success. Startup Illumix is looking to do the same thing for AR gaming by building an AR platform for its apps.

News: 10 New AR Features in iOS 12 for iPhone & iPad

Apple's iOS 12 has finally landed. The big update appeared for everyone on Monday, Sept. 17, and hiding within are some pretty amazing augmented reality upgrades for iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches. We've been playing with them ever since the iOS 12 beta launched in June, and here are the things we learned that you'll want to know about.

News: Young Developers Are the Future of AR — This 11-Year-Old Has Already Created 2 AR Apps

While most kids his age are busy playing Fortnite, 11-year-old Yumo Soerianto is developing augmented reality games. Kids like Soerianto are the future of the augmented reality field — they'll likely be coming into their own as professional developers right as AR technologies become lightweight and powerful enough to be contained in a pair of sunglasses.

News: USA Today Turns to Augmented Reality to Tell the Story of Corruption in Chicago

To punch up the launch of its new podcast, USA Today has created an augmented reality experience to introduce listeners to the story of corruption in Chicago.

Market Reality: Tim Cook Tops NR30 Mobile AR Leaders, Magic Leap Expands, & Snap Exec Departs

Cited by many listed on this year's NR30 list as the most important event in the last 12 months, last year's release of ARKit catapulted Apple CEO Tim Cook to the top of Next Reality's rankings. This week, we dug deeper by explaining why he's at the top of the list of NR30 Mobile AR leaders.

News: Magic Leap L.E.A.P. Conference Speakers Announced, Includes Celebrities & a Major Tech Partner

Applicants looking to attend Magic Leap's first annual L.E.A.P. conference next month in Los Angeles have begun receiving their confirmation invitations, and now we have more detail about some of what will happen at the event.

News: This Android App Lets You Search for Specific Words in Books & Documents via Augmented Reality

One of the neatest tricks available in Google Lens, an app that can identify and interpret real world information, is the ability to copy text from the app's camera view and paste it into a digital document.

iPhone XR vs LG G7 ThinQ: Same Price, Same Screen Size, but Vastly Different Overall

With the new iPhones coming out, many see the current mobile market as just another epic battle between Samsung and Apple. But let's not forget there are many other phones that run Android. And when you start to sift through the specs, one stands out as a competitive alternative to the iPhone XR, the LG G7 ThinQ.

News: Verizon Is Giving Away the iPhone XS via Snapchat AR Scavenger Hunt

Now that the iPhone XS is officially available for pre-order, Verizon and Apple are giving Snapchat users the opportunity to win the device through an augmented reality scavenger hunt rather than forking over $1,000 for one.

News: The Weather Channel Uses Broadcast AR to Warn Residents in the Path of Hurricane Florence

If you've gone anywhere near a television in the US in the last 48 hours, you've probably seen some of the reports of Hurricane Florence and its devastating wind and rain making its way toward the Carolina coast.

News: Mobile AR Apps Can Now Track Any Surface Using Plane Detection via Wikitude SDK

In the latest update to its augmented reality platform, Wikitude has introduced new plane detection capabilities that can anchor virtual content to surfaces at any orientation.

NR30: The Mobile AR Leaders of 2018

This time last year, we got our first taste of what mobile app developers could do in augmented reality with Apple's ARKit. Most people had never heard of Animojis. Google's AR platform was still Tango. Snapchat introduced its World Lens AR experiences. Most mobile AR experiences existing in the wild were marker-based offerings from the likes of Blippar and Zappar or generic Pokémon GO knock-offs.

News: iPhone XS Max vs. Samsung Galaxy Note 9: The Best of the Best

The ongoing war between Apple and Samsung fans will rage on once again. With the release of the iPhone XS Max, Apple has presented a stronger adversary for the Samsung Galaxy Note 9, released earlier. Both stack up well against each other, providing two of the best experiences on their respective operating systems.

News: iPhone XS vs. Samsung Galaxy S9: The Battle of the Small Giants

Until next March, the iPhone XS and Samsung Galaxy S9 will be the only phones considered by many. Whether you're an Apple fan wanting to see how your new phone stacks up against the competition or a buyer on the fence, here's how the latest flagships from the two biggest brands compare.

News: NBA Star Steve Nash & Classic Galaga Game Come to AR to Show Off ARKit 2.0 as Apple Unveils New iPhone Lineup

On Wednesday, as expected, Apple unveiled the next generation of iPhones, namely the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max along with the more affordable iPhone XR, each equipped with a TrueDepth sensor.

News: Niantic Begins Accepting Nominations for PokéStops in Pokémon GO

Augmented reality gaming developer Niantic has decided to give its players the opportunity to make their mark on Pokémon GO with a PokéStop nomination system.

News: Magic Leap Expands to Switzerland with New Optics Center, Reveals More About Seattle Facility

Facing mixed reviews for the Magic Leap One, Magic Leap has already returned to the lab to improve on the device's successor.

News: 8th Wall Beats Google & Apple to Market with an AR Platform for Web

Google and Apple are working to enable augmented reality content for the web, but startup 8th Wall has managed to launch a web AR platform that works on mobile browsers now.

News: Meta Company's Funding Fallout Followed by Furloughs, Report Says

After a $20 million funding round fell through, augmented reality headset maker Meta Company has been forced to furlough (or place on temporary leave of absence) approximately 65% of its workforce for 30 days.

News: Exec Shuffle — Snapchat Chief Strategy Officer Imran Khan Resigns, Lampix Marketing VP Gordon Meyer Exits

In an SEC filing published on Monday, Snap, the company behind Snapchat, disclosed that Imran Khan, its chief strategy officer and a member of the NR30, is leaving the company to "pursue other opportunities."

News: KLM Packs AR Suitcase into iPhone App to Help Passengers Check Luggage

Royal Dutch Airlines (KLM) is making it easier for its passengers to travel by employing an incredibly practical new augmented reality feature included an update to its iOS app.

Market Reality: Apple, Snapchat, Magic Leap, & Unity Demonstrate Why They Make Up Top 4 of the NR30

This week, Next Reality published its annual feature on the leaders in the augmented reality industry, the Next Reality 30. So it's no coincidence that the companies represented in the top four spots of the NR30 also made business headlines in AR this week.

News: Warner Bros. Conjures 'The Nun' Snapchat AR Lens to Scare Up Ticket Sales

The latest sponsored augmented reality experience on Snapchat from a movie studio might be its scariest — and perhaps most popular — yet.

News: 3D Scanning App for iPhone Makes Capturing & Sharing AR Content as Easy as Taking a Picture

Augmented reality app developer Laan Labs has shared a preview of a beta app that achieves 3D scanning with just an iPhone and produces highly-detailed models for sharing with others.

News: First Truly Mainstream, Hit Augmented Reality App May Arrive Through Advertising, Says Unity CEO

Despite the launch of ARKit a year ago, and ARCore this year, a true killer app has not arrived for either platform, that's according to the head honcho for one of the leading development environments for 3D applications.

News: 7-Eleven Puts Augmented Reality in the Game to Attract Football Fans

Not content to let NFL's official pizza sponsor corner the market for feeding football fans, 7-Eleven has taken a page out of Pizza Hut's playbook with a promotional augmented reality game.

News: Turn the Sky into a Shared Canvas with This Fun Augmented Reality App

While we've seen Snapchat apply sky segmentation to AR content, the makers of the Blue Sky Paint app have applied similar capabilities to create and share airborne art.

News: Magic Leap Teams with Andy Serkis Effects Studio Imaginarium for New AR Experience

The critics of Magic Leap have been circling for a couple of weeks now, but that isn't stopping the company from pushing forward with major new partnerships. The latest Magic Leap tie-up is with none other than motion capture actor Andy Serkis and his UK-based The Imaginarium Studios.

News: Model Ashley Graham Struts Through Augmented Reality via 3D Capture by the New York Times

Traditional media institution The New York Times continues to break new ground in its augmented reality news coverage, this time with a 3D volumetric capture of model Ashley Graham.

NR30: Next Reality's 30 People to Watch in Augmented Reality in 2018

Welcome to the first annual Next Reality 30, our list of people who've made the biggest impact on the augmented reality space in the last 12 months — and what a 12-month roller-coaster ride it's been. Apple introduced ARKit-powered apps last fall, Google launched ARCore for Android soon after, Snapchat began monetizing AR, and the Magic Leap One headset finally came out. These are historic times.

News: Snap Shows Us the Future of AR Smartglasses Through New Styles of Spectacles 2 Camera Glasses

While they don't do augmented reality just yet, the latest styles of Snapchat's Spectacles 2 camera glasses serve as a peek into the future of how mainstream AR wearables may look.

News: Former Apple iPhone Engineer Explains Why He Thinks Augmented Reality Is the Future of Mobile

Any little bit of new light shed on Apple's rumored augmented reality plans is irresistible, and the latest comes from a fairly powerful source — a former Apple engineer who worked on the iPhone.

News: Pizza Hut Teams Up with NFL for Scannable Pizza Boxes & Augmented Reality Beanbag Game

After parting ways with Papa John's, the National Football League has drafted Pizza Hut as its official pizza purveyor, and the company has hit the field with an augmented reality game to entertain hungry football fans.

News: ARKit App WiARframe Wants to Be the Destination for AR Prototyping & Discovery

A new app for iPhones and iPads gives developers a sandbox for testing their AR experiences and sharing them with the world.

News: Samsung Sends Family Guy into Augmented Reality to Showcase Connected Home Products

On Friday, at IFA 2018 in Berlin, Samsung invited attendees into the residence of Family Guy's Griffin family to learn all about its "smart home" products via augmented reality.

Market Reality: AR Display Companies Cash in as Apple Acquires Akonia & Avegant Closes $12M in Funding

For the augmented reality hardware industry to progress towards the consumer segment, display technology needs to get better. Investors recognize that, and they are showing AR display makers the money.

News: The Best Labor Day 2018 Deals on Smartphones

While it's not the best shopping holiday of the year, Labor Day does have a few sweet deals on smartphones this weekend. There are phones from OEMs such as Apple, Motorola, and Sony on sale, to name a few, from stores such as Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart.

News: Magic Leap Releases Helio Experiments Demos, Finally Gives Us the Infamous AR Whale

You want whales? Ok, you'll get whales! That seems to be the unspoken message from Magic Leap via its latest update in the form of several new experiments posted inside its Helio app.