Meta has introduced the Segment Anything Model, which aims to set a new bar for computer-vision-based ‘object segmentation’—the ability for computers to understand the difference between individual objects in an image or video. Segmentation will be key for making AR genuinely useful by enabling a comprehensive understanding of the world around the user. Object segmentation is the process of identifying and separating objects in an image or video. With the help of AI, this process can be automated, making it possible to identify and isolate objects in real-time. This technology will be critic ..read more

Qualcomm announced at Mobile World Congress (MWC) today it’s partnering with seven global telecommunication companies in preparation for the next generation of AR glasses which are set to work directly with the user’s smartphone. Partners include CMCC, Deutsche Telekom, KDDI Corporation, NTT QONOQ, T-Mobile, Telefonica, and Vodafone, which are said to currently be working with Qualcomm on new XR devices, experiences, and developer initiatives, including Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Spaces XR developer platform. Qualcomm announced Snapdragon Spaces in late 2021, a software tool kit which focuse ..read more

Having not had a chance to see Mojo Vision’s latest smart contact lens for myself until recently, I’ll admit that I expected the company was still years away from having a working contact lens with more than just a simple notification light or a handful of static pixels. Upon looking through the company’s latest prototype I was impressed to see a much more capable prototype than I had expected. When I walked into Mojo Vision’s demo suite at AWE 2022 last month I was handed a hard contact lens that I assumed was a mockup of the tech the company hoped to eventually shrink and fit into the lens ..read more

Earlier this month during Apple’s annual developer conference, WWDC 2022, the company gave developers the first look at improvements coming to Apple’s ARKit 6 toolkit for building AR apps on iOS devices. Though Apple has yet to reveal (or even confirm) the existence of an AR headset, the clearest indication the company is absolutely serious about AR is ARKit, the developer toolkit for building AR apps on iOS devices which Apple has been advancing since 2017. At WWDC 2022 Apple revealed the latest version, ARKit 6, which is bringing improvements to core capabilities so developers can build be ..read more

Niantic, the company behind Pokémon GO, the Lightship AR SDK, and more, announced this week that it has acquired 8th Wall, creators of AR development tools designed to run through web browsers with wide reach across devices. In what the company calls its “largest acquisition to date,” Niantic this week announced that is has acquired 8th Wall, a company known for its toolset that allows developers to build web-based AR content. Neither company disclosed the price of the acquisition, though 8th Wall had previously raised $10.4 million in funding since its founding in 2016, according ..read more

Niantic, the company behind Pokémon GO, today announced it has raised a $300 million Series D investment which values the company at $9 billion. Beyond its geo-location games, the company has been building out a world-scale framework which it believes will be critical for a future full of rich augmented reality. Niantic is best known for games like Pokémon GO and Pikman Bloom, and while these games focus mostly on geo-location gameplay, the company has long been steadily building up the tools and technology to deliver full AR experiences for the future. Earlier this month ..read more

HP this week announced its ‘xRServices’ program which equips customers of its industrial printers with a HoloLens 2 headset, allowing the company to provide immersive remote support for repairs, training, and more. While many AR companies are focused on building AR products, HP is making an interesting move in using the technology as an add-on to improve an existing line of its business. The company’s newly announced xRServices program promises to deliver remote AR support for its industrial printer customers. The program employs Microsoft’s HoloLens 2 headset, which HP’s customers can ..read more

Today Facebook announced that it plans to expand the capabilities of its Spark AR platform to give developers more tools to build experiences that leverage existing smartphone-based AR and the company’s upcoming AR glasses. Facebook has made no secret that its Ray-Ban Stories camera glasses are just its first step toward building full blown AR glasses. But just as the hardware continues to be refined, the software must evolve too. Facebook’s Spark AR Studio toolset was initially built largely around AR face filters but has been steadily expanding with more features. The latest updates improv ..read more

Facebook announced today that an upcoming update to the Quest development SDK will include experimental support for a Passthrough API which will allow Unity developers to build AR experiences and features into apps on Quest 2. Although Quest wasn’t launched as an AR headset initially, its impressive passthrough camera capability showed that it could handle AR functions surprisingly well. In fact, if you use the passthrough view as your default background, the Quest boundary and main menu floats against the backdrop of your playspace—effectively making it an AR experience that’s been availabl ..read more

Red 6, a company building an aircraft platform with augmented reality capabilities designed for military training, says it has raised a $30 million Series A investment to further its mission. Founded in 2018, Red 6 is the creator of the Airborne Tactical Augmented Reality System (ATARS), which brings augmented reality into the cockpit of training planes to allow pilots to experience training scenarios while actually flying. Earlier this month Red 6 announced it had raised a $30 million Series A investment, which the company claims puts its valuation at $130 million. The investment was led by ..read more