Fooling a face-scanning phone camera may be a lot more challenging in 2021. Live-skin-sensing technology is coming to phones, promising a way to 3D scan your face — and also check to see if your face is made of actual living flesh. Trinamix, a subsidiary of German chemical company BASF SE, promises it could work …

I’ve watched the spread of folding-screen devices from a distance. I’ve been curious. But with high prices and weird construction and compromises, I often haven’t seen the point. That changed when I took a close-up look at some of the 2020 products boasting folding screens. The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip, and even the new folding Moto Razr, made sense when …

Standalone VR headsets like last year’s Oculus Quest are impressive, but the next generation of hardware that looks to push far past that. Blazing-fast 5G networks are what new smartphones are using to show off crazy download speeds, and the potential on future VR and AR headsets is even greater. Qualcomm has some new details on its 5G VR reference …

Snapchat’s augmented reality Lenses are already able to recognize landmarks, transform faces and bodies and play games. A new set of ground-sensing filters are going to make landscapes start looking weird, too. Trying out the water effect in our office. Scott Stein/CNET I took a look at two of Snap’s new Lenses, one that makes floors full of lava and one …

HTC and its Vive headsets have walked a strange middle ground in VR: not quite affordable mainstream, not fully enterprise, and still part of the SteamVR ecosystem alongside its competitor, the Valve Index. The Vive Cosmos, originally announced at CES 2019, continues that path, but is also taking things in a new direction. The Taiwanese company will make swappable faceplates for …

Google’s streaming game service, Stadia, is no longer just for Pixel phones. Official support for 13 Samsung phones, plus a few Asus and Razer gaming phones, is coming in a few days. But you’ll still need to hardwire these phones to the Stadia controller with a USB cable. If you’re interested in playing with Google Stadia, these are the phones …

Every once in a while, I run into a situation where shopping using AR actually makes sense. Trying on Warby Parker glasses, for example, or test-driving virtual Ikea furniture. Usually, it’s more like casual window-shopping or browsing. Apple’s ARKit is aiming to move past that and make the experience turn into more buying, too. Home Depot, Wayfair, Bang & Olufsen …

For the most up-to-date news and information about the coronavirus pandemic, visit the WHO and CDC websites. Facebook’s popular virtual reality headset, Oculus Quest, has frequently been out of stock. Now supplies of the headset may face more delays due to the coronavirus, which could affect production of the hardware.   The virus has killed nearly 640 people and infected …

Virtual reality seems like it’s undergone a dramatic refocusing over the past year: away from PCs, and toward do-it-all self-contained headsets like the groundbreaking Oculus Quest. A very Oculus Quest-like standalone VR headset ended up on my face at CES in Las Vegas, one of a number of VR demos I tried at the show. The Pico Neo 2 Eye …

Your phone is studded with cameras. You’re probably only using one at a time, though. That could change in the near future: imagine shooting video with two, or even someday three or four simultaneously. I’ve gotten a brief taste of what that weird phone future will feel like. I spent some of the weekend trying out two-camera simultaneous recording on …