Apple is bullish on lidar, a technology that’s in the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro, and Apple’s iPad Pro models since 2020. Look closely at the rear camera arrays on these devices and you’ll see a little black dot near the camera lenses, about the same size as the flash. That’s the lidar …
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The latest iPhones can take remarkably impressive 3D photos and scans, especially with the rear lidar sensor. But, of course, iPhones don’t have 3D screens. The $349 Looking Glass Portrait is a 7.9-inch desktop photo frame-sized display with a built-in Raspberry Pi 4 computer that aims to be a 3D viewer for those photos, and a holographic mini monitor for interactive …
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VR experiences, for me, usually follow a certain pattern. Sometimes I feel like a futuristic pilot, or a wizard about to cast a teleportation spell. I grab the headset, slip it on, slide the controllers on my wrists. I check my space, cast a long arc to draw my magic circle. The world disappears. I’m in. Going from my reality …
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This story is part of The 2010s: A Decade in Review, a series on the memes, people, products, movies and so much more that have influenced the 2010s. I had a vision of the future when I was in high school in the early ’90s, and it involved a world in which we were immersed in headsets that were doorways …
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Microsoft’s contractors listened in on Xbox players using Cortana voice control features, Vice reported Wednesday. Voice data was also captured from the Kinect system’s voice commands prior to Cortana being added in 2016, according to the report. Microsoft last week revealed that humans could be listening to “short snippets” of voice conversations on its audio services, including Skype and virtual …
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If you’re looking for a new, weird thing to do with your next phone, consider hands-free use. Google’s upcoming Pixel 4 is going to throw a hands-free twist to its front-camera array: In addition to facial recognition, it’ll sense motion and hand gestures. This technology, originally called Project Soli, uses radar to detect 3D movement in space. And that’s in addition …
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The HoloLens 2 reboots augmented reality for Microsoft. It’s got a new fit, larger field of view and adds detailed hand and eye tracking. But one thing it’s still not is a consumer device. Alex Kipman is a Microsoft technical fellow and inventor of the Kinect and the HoloLens. During a visit to Microsoft’s Redmond campus to try the HoloLens …
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Ask me to fix a broken car or motorbike, and you’d be out of luck. But that’s exactly what Microsoft wanted me to do. And the tool it gave me was its new mixed reality HoloLens 2 headset. After I slipped it on, a set of digital instructions popped up over an actual broken ATV, set up in a mock …
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Comfort, better visuals, easier to use with your hands. That’s the takeaway from HoloLens 2, Microsoft’s follow-up to the Space Age goggles it announced four years ago. The technology behind the $3,500 (about £2,700 or AU$4,900) HoloLens 2 device, which Microsoft calls “mixed reality,” overlays computer images on the real world. Imagine arrows directing you down the street as you walk, …
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I am at Microsoft’s headquarters to get a demo of the HoloLens 2. I’m led down a basement hallway. Large sliding metal doors separate rooms. As I reach my destination, I find a re-creation of an automotive workshop. It smells like rubber tires. In front of me, there’s an ATV on a pedestal. Tools and parts are spread around the …
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