At this year’s Google I/O, Google’s smartwatches aren’t invisible like Daydream VR, but they’re definitely laying low. One domed demo space has a number of Wear OS watches running the latest software feature, Tiles, which I had a chance to finally use. But that’s not what things were like last year. A year ago, Google …

Google runs a lot of key services through voice and sound: Assistant, in particular. But immersive audio, the type that the Bose Frames audio glasses have promised, hasn’t become integrated into Google’s AR plans yet. But the company’s thinking about it, as a conversation with CNET at Google’s I/O developer conference confirmed. “When we talk about immersion, we’re sometimes too focused …

I’m putting a funky pair of wide-lens glasses on my head. But through them, I see a big screen. It’s the Samsung phone next to me. It’s a computer-monitor-size desktop. I use the phone as a trackpad. I open a web browser, and try reading an article. What if I had a keyboard and filed a story on this thing? …

Google’s 2019 I/O developer conference has key news on how Google Search and Lens are pushing into deeper phone uses for AR. But what about VR? In a year full of new VR headsets, including Facebook’s Oculus Quest and the Valve Index, plus hardware from HP, Vive and Qualcomm on the horizon, Google’s taking a different approach: shifting VR focus to …

Imagine you’re thinking about chairs, and you Google up some to try out in your living room. Or, you’re looking at a subway map in Tokyo, and you see suggestions on what routes to take that suddenly appear, translated into your own language. Google AR and Google Lens are getting there faster than you think. I’m in Google’s Immersive Lab …

You’ve seen this cinematic vision of the future: holograms in your conference room, consulting on glowing, floating 3D plans. Windows popping up in the air with real faces joining in videoconference, like portals to other worlds. Avengers: Endgame had a few scenes peppered with visions like these. The Microsoft HoloLens 2 is getting something that’s the closest thing I’ve seen …

Google’s yearly I/O developer conference is next week, but the company announced an update to its smartwatch software ahead of the big show. The feature may seem familiar if you’ve ever used a Samsung Galaxy Watch. Wear OS, Google’s five-year-old smartwatch software platform, got its last big update in the fall. That update added swipable access to new fitness features …

Facebook has two new VR headsets coming May 21: one is the Oculus Rift S, a new version of the PC-connected Oculus Rift that adds self-contained tracking, a higher-res display and a new design. But there’s also the Oculus Quest, a totally new standalone, self-contained mobile VR system that’s going to arrive at the very same time… for the very same …

In a hotel opposite Central Park, my 10-year-old son Alex and I are sitting in a room full of cardboard, and the man who dreamed it all up is in the middle of it. Nintendo invited both me and my son to interview Tsubasa Sakaguchi, the Director and Software Lead for Nintendo Labo, including the just-released Labo VR Kit.  The …

Nintendo’s late entry to the world of VR is finally here. Yes, it’s made of cardboard. Yes, it’s weird. But the ideas inside are probably unlike anything else you’ve tried before. It’s impossible not to think of Google Cardboard when putting together Nintendo’s Labo VR Kit construction set, which I did over the last week with my 10- and 6-year-old …