The AR Roundup: October 2018
Published in
4 min readOct 17, 2018
Here’s what you missed in augmented reality for October 2018
Numbers
- IDC published its latest report on AR/VR headsets which forecasts an 88% yearly growth rate until 2022 to reach 53.1 million by that time. 2018 expects to see a 31% increase in sales to 4.2 million units by the end of the year. (Mobile Marketer)
- Digi-Capital’s latest look at the investment landscape in XR suggests activity in the US has waned while VC dollars are flowing in China. Digi-Capital’s XR Analytics Platform showed Chinese investments into computer vision and augmented reality technologies reaching $3.9 billion in the last 12 months, while North American AR/VR investment fell from nearly $1.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2017 to less than $120 million in the third quarter of 2018. (TechCrunch)
- North American companies generate limited revenue in Europe (15 percent), which Digi-Capital’s Analytics Platform forecasts growing larger than North America this year. Despite its scale, Asia is a source of only 11 percent of North American companies’ revenue. (VentureBeat)
Featured Video: Meet Mica
Money
Big News
- Apple bought Spektral, a machine learning green screen startup to focus on AR (The Verge)
- Apple inks $600M deal to license IP, acquire assets and talent from Dialog to expand chipmaking in Europe (TechCrunch)
- Apple completes Shazam acquisition, will make app ad-free for everyone (The Verge)
- Magic Leap buys mesh-computing startup Computes (TechCrunch)
Hardware
- Atomico leads $31M Series B in Varjo, the Finnish startup developing ‘human-eye resolution’ VR and XR (TechCrunch)
- VueReal raises $8.5M from Sustainable Development Technology Canada (FINSMES)
- Porsche leads $80 million investment in WayRay to bring holographic AR displays to cars (VentureBeat)
Platforms & Tools
- Apprentice.io raises $8 million for conversational augmented reality platform (VentureBeat)
- Blippar raises $37 million hoping to become profitable in the next year (TechCrunch)
Applications & Solutions
- Illumix raises $8.6M to build more dynamic phone-based AR games (TechCrunch)
- Leaftail Labs recently raises $1.25 million from investors including Shasta Ventures (GeekWire)
Featured Tweet: RGB Face Tracking
News
Hardware
- Apple launches iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max and iPhone XR (ZDNET)
- Apple debuts new A12 bionic chip to power new immersive AR experiences (ZDNET)
- Google unveils the Pixel 3 XL (TechCrunch)
- Magic Leap One adds 48-state U.S. shipping and 24-month financing (VentureBeat)
- Sennheiser and Magic Leap Reveal AMBEO AR One Spatial Audio Headphones (VR Focus)
- Facebook Introduces AR Enhanced Video Calling Devices — Portals (TechCrunch)
- ThirdEye reveals design of its next-gen X2 smartglasses & retail partnership with b8ta (Next Reality)
- HaptX Launches Enterprise-focused Haptic Gloves Dev Kit (Road to VR)
- Lucyd Release Prescription Compatible Smart Glasses (VRFocus)
Platform & Tools
- Adobe launches new AR and drawing tools (TechCrunch)
- Upskill launches support for Microsoft HoloLens (TechCrunch)
- Google’s Owlchemy Labs reveals ARCore spectator experiment (VentureBeat)
- Facebook rebrands Camera Effects platform to Spark AR and opens it up to Instagram developers (Mobile Marketer)
- Snapchat lets you take a photo of an object to buy it on Amazon (TechCrunch)
- Google Lens is coming to Google Search (TechCrunch)
- Google Lens is directly integrated in Google’s Pixel 3 (CNET)
- Shopify rolled out support for AR Quick Look to its 600,000+ stores (The Verge)
- Wikitude SDK update can now track any surface using plane detection (Next Reality)
- eBay debuts “HeadGaze” which tracks the user’s head movement with the iPhone X (MacRumors)
- Torch 3D launches Torch mobile app to create and edit 3D content and view it in AR (Next Reality)
Applications & Solutions
- Google rebrands AR stickers as Playground and adds new animations (Playmoji) (The Verge)
- Weta Workshop unveils Dr. Grordbort’s Invaders game for Magic Leap One (VentureBeat)
- Rovio’s Mobile Gaming Classic Angry Birds Comes to Augmented Reality via Magic Leap One (Next Reality)
- Funomena demos Luna: Moondust Garden for Magic Leap AR glasses (VentureBeat)
- Onshape Teams Up with Magic Leap for New Spatial Computing CAD App (PRWeb)
- AT&T to launch DirecTV Now App for Magic Leap AR Headset (Variety)
- Framestore Teams With Air New Zealand For First Magic Leap Project (VR Focus)
- Magic Leap to Launch ‘Avatar Chat’ Next Month, Developer Tools to Create Multiuser Apps (Road to VR)
- Wayfair’s New App is made for Magic Leap headsets (AdWeek)
- Brainlab and Magic Leap Partner in Digital Surgery (VR Focus)
- ILM’s next augmented reality experiment is Porgs on Magic Leap (Gizmodo)
- Pokémon Go gets an AR boost on Android with ARCore support (The Verge)
- Snapchat Becomes SnapCAT with AR Lenses for Your Feline Friends (Next Reality)
- The Sims Freeplay Adds Multiplayer Augmented Reality Mode via ARKit 2.0 (Next Reality)
- Chicago launches world’s largest permanent projection mapping digital art installation (Chicago Tribune)
- Noovie ARcade brings AR to Halloween in 1,700 theaters across the country (Mediapost)
- Sports iPhone AR app, HomeCourt, demoed on stage at the Apple Event (GeekWire)
- Apple shows off fast-action Galaga AR multiplayer game (VentureBeat)
- Vuzix partners with OnCore Golf to bring real-time insights and feedback to its users (Wareable)
- Kayak app adds luggage-sizing AR (Mobile Marketer)
- Dynamics 365 announces new Windows Mixed Reality integration in its suite of tools (Windows Central)
Featured Poll: AR Addiction?
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