Tag Archives: augmented-reality

Lenovo’s new ThinkReality A3 business smart glasses look almost normal

This story is part of CES, where CNET covers the latest news on the most incredible tech coming soon. Smart glasses are slowly advancing, maybe becoming a mainstream consumer product that companies like Facebook and Apple will eventually try to sell us. In the meantime, designing commercial versions for business might still be the best …

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2020 forced us all to live online: How my virtual year played out

Every once in a while, back in a year called 2019, I’d run off every few weeks or so and spend time in a VR headset, or peek at some augmented reality device. I’d come back from demos imagining a world lived virtually. With all the pieces in play from so many companies, it seemed like the possibilities were almost …

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Chat app Tele feels like FaceTime built for AR

When I joined up with executives from Spatial to try a new phone app last Friday night, I was expecting some sort of AR meeting experience where people would seem to float in my virtual space. That isn’t exactly what I got. Instead, I felt like I was floating in someone else’s space. Or rather, in a third space. Chatting …

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Snapchat’s next mission in AR: Going from playground to practical

Snapchat’s and Instagram’s lenses and filters have been building out weird transformative camera tools for years, and they’re starting to get more ambitious. And weird. And maybe fun? But will they become more essential? There are still no magic AR smartglasses people are wearing in 2020, at least not in this universe. But if you want an idea of where …

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AR is alive and well on the iPhone, and Apple’s augmented reality is getting better fast

Sometime in the not-too-distant future, Apple will reportedly unveil an augmented- or mixed-reality headset. Apple hasn’t discussed any headgear yet. But augmented reality is alive and well on the iPhone — and it’s only getting better. Apple’s depth-sensing lidar sensor (available on the iPhone 12 Pro and latest iPads), with its advanced 3D-scanning possibilities, feels like the backbone of the Apple headsets of …

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Varjo’s lidar

At some point, the line between what we see in a VR headset and what we see in the real world may melt away. Finnish AR/VR headset maker Varjo could be approaching that moment with its latest lidar-enabled XR-3 headset, available to order today. At $5,495, plus a required $1,495 yearly software license, this is hardly cheap (a version without …

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The Mandalorian AR Experience comes to 5G Google Pixel phones

Season 2 of The Mandalorian is in full swing on Disney Plus, with a new episode dropping Friday, and Google is letting you bring its hero home. You can download The Mandalorian AR Experience onto your 5G Pixel and some 5G Android phones, Google said Monday in a blog post.   “The Mandalorian AR Experience puts you in the shoes of …

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9 great reads from CNET this week

It’s becoming a regular thing: Once again, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey testified before Congress. This time around, it was about how their social media companies handled the 2020 US election, though the questioning also touched on tech addiction, encryption and antitrust. That was midday Tuesday; later in the day, President Trump fired the head of …

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Sony’s $5,000 eye

Glasses-free 3D isn’t a new thing, but there’s a new generation of technology that could resurrect the idea for a world full of VR and AR headsets. Sony’s Spatial Reality Display is a pro monitor designed specifically for looking at 3D objects on a desktop without a headset, and it’s arriving next month.  We got an in-person demo of a …

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Mario Kart Live Home Circuit hands

I hate cleaning. But I’ve done a lot of moving things around and tidying up, just to get things just right for kart racing. Cones under tables, gates behind chairs. I’ve blocked off my dining room. We’re almost ready. And suddenly, we have a racing circuit. I’m looking at my Nintendo Switch screen as I see the kart racing around …

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