Smartphones News
News: Volvo Takes Showrooming to the Next Level with a HoloLens
While the early stages of any new technology always seems amazing because of the utilitarian, almost altruistic software concepts it inspires, mixed and augmented reality will still see its fair share of corporate apps. That might be a good thing, however, as Volvo's plan goes past general information and advertising to make a truly helpful tool for prospective car buyers.
News: Pokémon GO Will Be So Much Better with a Mixed Reality Headset
Pokémon GO has had an incredible impact on gamers in a way we've never seen before, but you can only do so much in augmented reality on a smartphone. It's clear we're headed for more immersive experiences, but the Amsterdam-based development studio Capitola VR already created a proof-of-concept version of the game that works on the Microsoft HoloLens.
News: Mixed Reality Is the Future of VR Gaming
Don't Miss: The Difference Between Virtual, Augmented, & Mixed Reality
News: Pokémon GO Unveils the Good, Bad & Weird Sides of Gaming in Augmented Reality
Pokémon GO made waves as the first augmented reality game to gain popular adoption. In fact, it was so popular that it only took a few days to uncover some the benefits and serious issues with combining physical and digital worlds.
News: If You're Curious About Creating Software for Augmented & Mixed Reality, Start Here
If not the future of computing in general, augmented, virtual, and mixed reality certainly will change the world of gaming. If you want to try your hand at shaping this evolved medium, the Unite Europe conference posted a talk that explains the first things you need to learn to develop holographic games.
News: Pokémon GO Just Gamified the Non-Sedentary Lifestyle
Pokémon GO, the biggest augmented reality sensation ever, broke app store records this opening weekend. But it also did something even more important: it gamified physical activity.
News: The Manus VR Gloves Bring Full Hand Tracking into the Virtual World
Most virtual and mixed reality headsets offer unnatural controls, making you use awkward movements or physical devices to control the holographic elements in your direct view. This doesn't make a lot of sense because using your hands is more natural, so Manus developed a set of gloves that solves that problem entirely.
News: Here's How the Weather Channel Is Using Augmented Reality to Make Us All Safer
The Weather Channel, by virtue of its name, has always been tasked with the difficult problem of making the weather interesting. As Mashable notes, they've turned to augmented reality for a solution and can now render a 3D storm in their studio, as well as help us understand how bad a storm might be with 3D forecasts.
News: Would You Buy This $89 Mannequin Head to Store a VR or AR Headset On?
How do you safely store your augmented, virtual, or mixed reality headset when you're not using it? Cybust hopes you're willing to shell out $89 to display it like a sculpture around your house.
News: This Hackathon Project Turns Any Room into an Art Gallery
One of the first things you'll do with the HoloLens is place little holograms around your room, and it'll look like you have a large figurine collection. Ralph Barbagallo, Edward Dawson-Taylor, and their HoloHacks team decided to take that a bit further and created an app that allows the user to produce and tour virtual art exhibits.
News: Habit.at Mixes Holographic Fun with Food to Help Kids Eat Healthier
You might not think a mixed reality headset could help kids eat their vegetables, but that's the exact premise behind Habit.at—the app that won the "Social Good" category at the 2016 HoloHacks competition in Los Angeles.
News: VLC Lands on the Microsoft HoloLens with Special New Features
The latest beta of the popular open-source media player VLC just hit the Windows Store, which means it not only runs on Windows 10 and Xbox One, but the HoloLens as well.
News: CyberPong Updates the Classic Game for VR on the Vive
Pong, one of the simplest video games ever created, has managed to evolve in some crazy ways over time, from the original basic 2D version and colorful Breakout sequel, to the PlayStation game with power-ups and 3D graphics, and now Cyberpong VR—a virtual reality game on the HTC Vive—where you act as the paddle instead of just moving it into place with a controller.
News: Pokémon GO, the Augmented Reality Smartphone Game, Is Now Available
After a relatively short beta-testing period, Pokémon Go is now rolling out to Android and iOS devices right now. If you want to catch 'em all in the real world, your wait is over.
News: Apple May Finally Be Making an AR Headset, According to Their New Patent
Microsoft has the HoloLens and Google has their money on Magic Leap (as well as their own Tango and Cardboard, among others), but we've heard next to nothing about how Apple plans to enter the virtual/augmented/mixed reality space. A new patent offers some clues.
News: Here's How Helicopter Pilots Can Use Augmented Reality to Fly Safer
While flying isn't easy, once an airplane gets into the clouds there isn't a whole lot to worry about—most of the work happens during takeoff and landing. Helicopter pilots, on the other hand, have a lot of dangerous obstacles (like power lines and buildings) to contend with. But, once again, augmented reality can save the day.
News: When the Web Exists in 3D Space, What Happens to the Browser?
Augmented and mixed reality experiences attempt to break us out of windowed computing experiences and allow us to place software anywhere in the room. But that software doesn't have to take a rectangular form—theoretically, the web doesn't have to restrict itself to a page in a browser any longer. Does this mark the end of the web browser entirely? Probably not. A lot of information works well on the page, and the Microsoft HoloLens still uses a pretty standard version of their own Edge brows...
News: Check Out These Awesome Mixed-Reality Movies Made with the HoloLens
Mixed reality filmmaking isn't a new concept. Disney managed to make it work in 1988 with Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but not without an enormous amount of work. We haven't seen many mixed reality films of that scope since, and perhaps that's because it's still hard to accomplish. Filmmakers don't look through a viewfinder or monitor and see the fully rendered result on screen—but that can change with mixed reality headsets like the HoloLens.
News: How Virtual & Mixed Reality Trick Your Brain
Our brains do a magnificent amount of work to process visual stimuli, but they aren't difficult to fool. Optical illusions can trick our minds into believing what we're seeing is real, even if it's not—and virtual and mixed reality technologies take advantage of this little loophole in our brain to help us accept the unreal.
News: Complex Hand-Tracking Is the Key to Better Mixed Reality Interfaces
Keyboards and mice work fine for computers, but in a holographic environment you'll want to do more than just point, click, and type. While we can still benefit from these input devices, complex hand-tracking methods are necessary for the evolution of mixed reality user interfaces.
News: Designing Software for Mixed Reality Requires a Massive Shift in Thinking
We started with a static page and evolved to dynamic screens, and making that 2D surface interactive was a relatively straightforward transition in design. But when you can put holographic objects literally anywhere in the room, the way you design apps, games, and experiences requires a different mode of thought entirely.
News: Mixed Reality Advertisements Sound Hellish—But Magic Leap Has a Plan
Graeme Devine, Chief Creative Officer at Magic Leap, spoke at the Games for Change festival about how mixed reality will change the world for the better. While we might need to take our own magic leap to believe in his utopian future, he hinted at a solution to the impending problem most of us fear: a cluttered, endless nightmare of ads.
News: How Skype Video Chatting Works on the HoloLens
When you wear a holographic computer on your face, you gain some things and lose others. That's certainly the case when using Skype in Microsoft's HoloLens. Some video chats will work better because your caller can see what you see, rather than your face—but others just feel weird.
News: Coming Soon to Mixed Reality—Audio Sticky Notes by Holo Voice
When you want to leave someone a quick message, you often write it down on a sticky note and paste it to the relevant location. Alternatively, you call to leave a voicemail. Holo Voice Memo lets you do both at the same time by leaving an audio clip on a physical object in the room so anyone with a HoloLens and the app can play it back.
News: HoloHear Is Like Google Translate for Deaf People
Deaf people primarily communicate through sign language, so understanding spoken languages can prove challenging. To bridge that gap in communication, the HoloHear team built a mixed reality app at a Microsoft HoloLens Hackathon in San Fransisco that translates the spoken word into sign language.
News: Will the HoloLens Forget About Gaming?
Microsoft's HoloLens has many applications in the business world, both large and small, but what about gaming? Initial demos gave the impression that we could expect amazing first person shooters, platformers, and even Minecraft. Yet, as Newsweek noticed, the HoloLens was nowhere to be found at E3 this year.
News: Stimulant's HoloLens App Helps Navigate Inside Buildings
We've got Google Maps to help us out when we need to navigate outdoors, but Google can only map out so many indoor locations without getting creepy. And that's where Stimulant comes in. This "innovation studio" built a HoloLens app that lets you map out an area, define locations, and use the headset to get instant directions to any defined location.
News: This App Shows How HoloLens Can Make Healthcare Safer
If you've been to the doctor enough, you know that the medical staff can make a variety of mistakes from time to time. They're human and that's normal, but errors in the medical field can often have significant negative impacts. At Boston's 2016 HoloHacks event, a team of developers created HoloHealth to mitigate human error in common healthcare tasks.
News: Concept App HoloTwin Uses Holograms to Control Real World Objects
Spending time in a holographic environment brings the virtual world to life, but it doesn't actually create much interaction with your physical environment. So Daenet created a concept app called HoloTwin to demonstrate how holograms and real-world devices can interact with one another. While very simple, HoloTwin uses a holographic light bulb as a virtual switch for an actual, physical LED light. While you wouldn't want to strap on the HoloLens every time you wanted to adjust the lighting in...
News: How Snapchat Quietly Became the First Social AR Platform
Most augmented/mixed reality hardware still exists in the development stage, whether that's one of the more robust headsets or a high-powered smartphone. Most everything else isn't widely used or monetized. Snapchat, however, snuck in under the radar and created the foundation for the first social network to focus on augmented reality.
News: Mobile AR Won't Be Truly Amazing Until 5G Happens
We don't know exactly what form 5G cellular technology will take, but it intends to bring faster Wi-Fi-like performance to mobile devices. While that'll provide major advantages to lots of connected technology, PC Magazine notes that it could be what augmented and mixed reality needs to become widely adopted.
News: Princess Leia Makes an Appearance on the HoloLens
While Magic Leap and ILMxLABs blew the internet's collective mind with a mixed reality Star Wars game demo last week, it'll likely be awhile before we see either the game or the hardware that'll run it. In the meantime, you can get one of the most famous Star Wars holographic messages on the HoloLens: Princess Leia's message to Obi-Wan Kenobi.
News: Shima Smartglasses Make Augmented Reality Fashionable
The world of augmented reality has seen a myriad of different products, from sensor-laden smartphones to robust holographic headsets, but Google Glass's failures nearly killed the middle ground.
News: The HoloLens Is Already Teaching Tomorrow's Doctors
The human body is amazingly complex, and seeing inside one poses a variety of challenges whether you're dealing with an actual human or some kind of facsimile. Mixed reality offers the ability to get the best of both worlds by creating a holographic teaching tool for human anatomy.
News: This App Streams Custom Holograms from a Computer to the HoloLens
The Microsoft HoloLens has a good amount of content available, but it's fairly limited in terms of what you can customize. You can access a built-in library of holograms, but if you want to create your own you have to do that with code.
News: Snapchat Is Quietly Developing Augmented Reality Glasses
In the wake of Google Glass' failure, we can expect other companies to fill the void in due time. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Snapchat may be one of the first.
News: Get Ready to Play Fantasy Card Games in Mixed Reality
Card games like Magic: The Gathering, Pokémon, and the like have offered engaging fantasy worlds for players—but not without significant help from their imaginations. Video games and cartoons may have helped build these worlds, but mixed reality finally offers an opportunity to make the player's imagination real.
News: Magic Leap Will Bring Star Wars to Mixed Reality
The mysterious Magic Leap just partnered up with Lucasfilm's ILM xLAB to bring Star Wars to their mixed reality headsets. Based on the video demo making its way around the internet, it looks pretty impressive.
News: This Smart App Makes HoloLens Room Scanning a Game All on Its Own
Complex games in mixed reality require a pretty detailed scan of the room, and getting this process right can be both time-consuming and annoying. Computer science students at the University of Washington decided to fix that by turning it into a game.
News: This Advanced Diver's Helmet Takes AR to the Depths of the Ocean
The headsets of tomorrow offer some amazing possibilities in both gaming and work, but what we've seen so far only begins to scratch the surface. The US Navy saw the potential to use augmented reality in a helmet to provide divers with an incredible amount of information we have so far only seen in Hollywood movies.