AR

The world will soon be an even more crowded place. In addition to exotic matter (XM) and various species of Pokemon, it will soon be filled with Slimes, Creepers, and all sorts of creatures. That is the world stage that Niantic Labs will be launching its new game on this Friday. But unlike Pokemon and even more than Ingress, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite might be launching to a bigger and more receptive fanbase, raising the stakes even higher for the company.

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The game-making company Sensible Object was acquired by Niantic, as announced by the companies this morning. Niantic is the company that was once part of Google, coming from Google Maps and landing in a separate company under Alphabet called Niantic Labs. They made Pokemon GO and Ingress and they'll soon have a Harry Potter game using the same engine. Now they're readying their business to explode in size once more by acquiring a team called Sensible Object - now re-named Niantic London!

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In the wake of Pokemon GO, it seems that everyone wants a slice of the augmented reality pie. Just a couple of weeks ago, Microsoft and Mojang announced Minecraft Earth as part of the 10th anniversary of Minecraft, and now Square Enix is following suit. Over the weekend, the company announced Dragon Quest Walk in Japan, which is an augmented reality game based around the long-running Dragon Quest series.

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Oculus and Vive may be competing head to head in the VR space but, outside of those two, not much else is happening with other companies. Google has not mentioned Daydream even once at I/O last month and OEMs that have made the first batch of Windows Mixed Reality headsets have mostly fallen silent as well. Despite that, Samsung isn't yet calling it quits and suggests multiple AR and VR products are coming this year, whether you like it or not.

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Computer makers, platform developers, and even Facebook have all been gushing over XR, that new term that embraces virtual, augmented, and mixed reality but many if not all of them have mostly the high-end market in mind. Considering the prohibitive cost of components, few have made their technologies and hardware easily within reach of consumers. At MWC earlier this year, Chinese startup nreal promised a ready to wear and affordable mixed reality headset and it's now making good on that promise with the nreal light.

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There's a cool headset capable of both AR and VR, and Qualcomm's at the helm. They've created this "Qualcomm Snapdragon Smart Viewer Reference Design" as a sort of guide for other manufacturers to make their own, to sell to you. As such, you probably won't be using this headset specifically, but the resulting headsets made by brands you've heard of before. Cross your fingers for soon.

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Augmented reality headset Meta is getting a second chance, with a new company - and some heavyweight mixed-reality management - snapping up the tech after its creator's demise earlier in the year. Meta Company made headlines with its AR wearable and even began selling different versions of the headset; however a funding crunch left the firm insolvent as its lenders sold the assets out from under it.

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Google Glass is back from the dead, with a new $999 headset that delivers upgraded capabilities, longer battery life, and the promise of new confusion around augmented reality. The Glass Enterprise Edition 2 is, as the name makes clear, not really intended for consumers. Instead, Google is hoping to convince businesses that their workers should be wearing a computer.

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It definitely feels like we're closing in on the release date of Niantic's Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. At the beginning of the month, Niantic rolled the game into beta in some regions of the world, and now the company has published a new trailer for the game. The trailer doesn't provide any details we didn't know about before, but it certainly sets the stage for the conflict at the center of the game.

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During its Accelerate conference today, Lenovo unveiled a new sub-brand called ThinkReality intended to bring augmented reality to enterprise users. The ThinkReality platform is described as both cloud and device agnostic, meaning it can be used with a number of products, but Lenovo is also ready with its new ThinkReality A6 AR headset.

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Google is known for cooking up many interesting experiments and investing in them as far as making them available to consumers. It is, however, also known for sometimes flip-flopping on those and abandoning them with very little warning. Nowhere is that more evident than Google's augmented and virtual reality thrusts, which has undergone some significant changes over the years. At I/O 2019, Google reaffirms its commitment to its ARCore platform will keeping ominously silent on Daydream VR.

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You don't need to wait for Apple to launch smart glasses in order to get an AR headset, and now Epson's Moverio line is making augmented reality even more straightforward. Latest addition to the company's smart glasses range, the Moverio BT-30C may look like a movie prop but it's actually the most consumer-friendly version Epson has designed so far.

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