Qualcomm. introduces Snapdragon Spaces XR Developer Platform, a headworn Augmented Reality (AR) developer kit to enable the creation of immersive experiences that seamlessly blur the lines between our physical and digital realities. With proven technology and an open, cross-device horizontal platform and ecosystem, Snapdragon Spaces delivers the tools to bring developers' ideas to life and revolutionize the possibilities of headworn AR. Snapdragon Spaces is in early access with select developers and is expected to be generally available in the Spring of 2022.

Qualcomm Technologies is a pioneer in Augmented Reality with over a decade of AR research and development. Utilizing these years of innovation and expertise, Snapdragon Spaces offers robust machine perception technology that is optimized for performance and low power for the next generation of AR glasses. The Snapdragon Spaces platform provides environmental and user understanding capabilities that give developers the tools to create headworn AR experiences that can sense and intelligently interact with the user and adapt to their physical indoor spaces. Some of the marquee environmental understanding features include spatial mapping and meshing, occlusion, plane detection, object and image recognition and tracking, local anchors and persistence, and scene understanding. The user understanding machine perception features include positional tracking and hand tracking.

Niantic, developer of the world's first and only scaled AR platform, announced it's opening its Lightship Augmented Reality Developer Kit (ARDK) to developers that will make creating augmented reality experiences more accessible. The Lightship ARDK will present several of the tools used in Niantic's games, such as Pokémon GO and Pikmin Bloom. These tools will allow developers to create games using three features made popular by Niantic games: Real-time mapping, understanding (which helps AR objects interact with real-world places), and multiplayer sharing features.

On the light of the occasion Niantic CEO, John Hanke, said "At Niantic, we believe humans are the happiest when their virtual world leads them to a physical one. Transforming humanity's relationship with technology by merging the physical and virtual worlds will require the ideas and perspectives of as many people as possible. That's why we're so excited to open the vault of technology that powers our own games, so developers, creators and brands globally can build inclusive experiences that push the boundaries of what's possible in AR."

Mark Zuckerberg has recently announced a rebrand of Facebook to Meta during the companies Connect 2021 AR/VR event. This change will involve the dissolution of the Oculus brand for hardware naming and will also introduce an arguably more significant change in that Oculus/Meta accounts will be disassociated with Facebook accounts removing the need for a Facebook account to use the headsets. This change has allegedly come about due to the negative connotations regarding the Facebook brand and to encourage new users who aren't interesting in creating a Facebook account. While these changes won't be fully implemented until 2022 some users have reported that Oculus support is able to unlink Facebook accounts immediately while retaining purchases and most non-social features on the headset.

Andrew BosworthAs we've focused more on work, and as we've heard feedback from the VR community more broadly, we're working on new ways to log into Quest that won't require a Facebook account, landing sometime next year. This is one of our highest priority areas of work internally.

VR and AR headsets might not have been quite the success they were expected to be, mainly due to cost, but now, a Japanese company has developed what has to be one of the weirdest VR headsets to date, one that's meant to be used in bed.

The HalfDive VR headset, or BMD (Bed-Mounted-Display) from Diver-X is trying to implement a range of new features that have never been seen before in a VR headset, such as "wind feedback. This is simply done by a pair of fans built into the headset that outside of adding a touch of wind in your face effect, can apparently also be used for cooling down the user.

Other more normal features include a 3D audio system that consists of four speakers placed around the head, a force feedback system based on what might best be described as friction bands, vibration feedback via an "audio exciter" and foot controllers in addition to regular hand controllers.

Xiaomi today took another bold step in the exploration of future technology with its new bio-inspired quadruped robot - CyberDog. The launch of CyberDog is the culmination of Xiaomi's engineering prowess, condensed into an open source robot companion that developers can build upon.

CyberDog is Xiaomi's first foray into quadruped robotics for the open source community and developers worldwide. Robotics enthusiasts interested in CyberDog can compete or co-create with other like-minded Xiaomi Fans, together propelling the development and potential of quadruped robots.

The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced an intent to form the Open 3D Foundation to accelerate developer collaboration on 3D game and simulation technology. The Open 3D Foundation will support open source projects that advance capabilities related to 3D graphics, rendering, authoring, and development. As the first project governed by the new foundation, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) is contributing an updated version of the Amazon Lumberyard game engine as the Open 3D Engine (O3DE), under the permissive Apache 2.0 license. The Open 3D Engine enables developers and content creators to build 3D experiences unencumbered by commercial terms and will provide the support and infrastructure of an open source community through forums, code repositories, and developer events. A developer preview of O3DE is available on GitHub today. For more information and/or to contribute, please visit: https://o3de.org

3D engines are used to create a range of virtual experiences, including games and simulations, by providing capabilities such as 3D rendering, content authoring tools, animation, physics systems, and asset processing. Many developers are seeking ways to build their intellectual property on top of an open source engine where the roadmap is highly visible, openly governed, and collaborative to the community as a whole. More developers look to be able to create or augment their current technological foundations with highly collaborative solutions that can be used in any development environment. O3DE introduces a new ecosystem for developers and content creators to innovate, build, share, and distribute immersive 3D worlds that will inspire their users with rich experiences that bring the imaginations of their creators to life.

As global market changes spur demand for augmented reality (AR) technology, there is an increasing need for innovations that combine the best technologies in CPU, GPU and machine learning into a single SOC (system on chip) to allow for the creation of the most demanding AR experiences while maintaining power efficiency.

Magic Leap today announced it is partnering with AMD on an AR technology solution that includes a semi-custom SOC to enable enterprise users to re-imagine and transform how virtual content and information is visualized and merged with real-world environments.

Today, we are thrilled to announce a new partnership with Nintendo to jointly develop mobile titles built on Niantic's real-world AR technology, bringing Nintendo's beloved characters to life in new ways. We're honored that Nintendo has chosen Niantic to be its publisher of real-world AR applications. To kick off the partnership, Niantic and Nintendo are developing an app based on the Pikmin franchise. The app will include gameplay activities to encourage walking and make walking more delightful. Slated to launch later this year, this will be the first title created by our Tokyo Studio since it was established in April 2018. We'll share more details about the apps in the coming months. We're excited to continue building on this partnership as we pursue our mission of encouraging people to explore the world together.

OLED panes are expertise areas of display makers such as LG and Samsung, however, when it comes to Apple, they have to rely on external manufacturers to make a display. For years Apple has been contracting LG and Samsung to make the display for iPhones and Macs, but it looks like Apple is now collaborating with another firm to develop micro OLED technology. According to sources over at Nikkei Asia, Apple is collaborating with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to develop "ultra-advanced display technology at a secretive facility in Taiwan". Despite TSMC not being the traditional choice for panel manufacturing, there is a list of reasons why Apple chose its years-long partner to work with.

TSMC is known for manufacturing silicon chips, however, Apple envisions that the Taiwan maker will manufacture ultra-advanced micro OLED technology using wafers. Building the displays using wafers will result in much lower power consumption and far lower size. Why is this approach necessary you might wonder? Well, Apple is developing a new generation of AR glasses and there needs to be a solid display technology for them to exist. It is reported that the new micro OLED displays are under development and are about one inch in diameter. The source also adds that this is just one out of two projects being worked on inside of Apple's secretive labs located in the Taiwanese city of Taoyuan. What is the other project remains a mystery, however, with more time we could get information on that as well.

Apple has been rumored to be working on a mixed-reality device for some time now, expected to launch in 2022 and target the premium market. We have recently received information from a source with direct knowledge of the device who claims the new headset will feature dual 8K displays, eye tracking, inside out tracking, and swappable headbands. The report details a late-stage prototype device with a sleek curved visor design attached to the head with interchangeable headbands that offer features like spatial audio and extra battery.

The device would not include any traditional controllers instead relying on inputs such as eye movement, and hand gestures, or a physical finger ring device. The headset would include limited augmented reality features such as pass-through video from the over dozen cameras mounted on the device. The report also corroborates previous reports with an estimated price of 3,000 USD launching in 2022 and targeting first-year sales of 250,000 units before releasing a more advanced AR device in 2023.

Apple is reportedly developing an initial VR headset as a precursor to their eventual AR glasses. The upcoming VR headset will be a niche expensive product that may only be distributed through Apple's first-party stores and will cost considerably more than competing products from Oculus, Sony, and HTC. The headset will feature custom Apple silicon more powerful than their current M1 processor and include limited AR abilities. Apple had previously planned to develop a device that would harness the processing power of a user's mobile device but has since switched to a standalone solution which has increased complexity. The Apple VR headset codenamed N301 is currently in a late prototype stage and may be announced sometime in 2022, if this timeline holds then Apple may announce their AR glasses the next year in 2023.

Today, during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES ), Lenovo introduced the ThinkReality A3 lightweight smart glasses. One of the most advanced and versatile enterprise smart glasses to come to market, the ThinkReality A3 is part of a comprehensive digital solutions offering to deliver intelligent transformation in business and bring smarter technology to more people.

As increasingly distributed workforces and hybrid work models become the reality of a new normal, small and large businesses around the world are looking to adopt new technologies for smart collaboration, increased efficiency, and lower downtimes. From customized virtual monitors and 3D visualization to Augmented Reality (AR) assisted workflows and immersive training, the ThinkReality A3 helps transforms work across many levels of the enterprise.

Mojang has recently announced that they will be shutting down their Augmented Reality Minecraft Earth mobile free-to-play game on June 30th. This decision comes as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic limiting movement and collaborative play which are vital for the game. Mojang plans to re-allocate its resources and invest in areas more valuable for the Minecraft community. The game will receive one final update today which removes all in-app-purchases and reduces time requirements for in-game tasks. Players who made any purchase in the game will receive a free copy of Minecraft Bedrock Edition.

MojangMinecraft Earth was designed around free movement and collaborative play - two things that have become near impossible in the current global situation. As a result, we have made the difficult decision to re-allocate our resources to other areas that provide value to the Minecraft community and to end support for Minecraft Earth in June 2021.

Corning Incorporated, the world's leading manufacturer of optical materials, including high-refractive index glass that enables superior image quality for augmented and mixed reality (AR/MR) wearables, and Pixelligent, a leading high-quality compound material supplier, on Thursday announced a new strategic collaboration to further the development of AR/MR optics. Pixelligent's resins, which are optically transparent polymers, paired with Corning's glass will help reduce product-development time and expand availability of AR devices.

Corning has several years of experience delivering mass-produced quantities of ultra-flat, high-index glass wafers for leading AR device makers. The inherent properties of glass, paired with industry-leading materials science and optical design expertise, make Corning uniquely suited to help customers deliver increasingly demanding functionality for consumer electronics.

A German website, Heise.de, has discovered a bug in HDMI 2.1 chipset that causes black screen issues on specific hardware. On AV chipsets sourced by Panasonic, and used by Denon, Marantz, and Yamaha HDMI 2.1 AV receivers, the chipset experiences a specific issue of a black screen. More specifically, the bug happens once you connect Microsoft's newest console, Xbox Series X, or NVIDIA's Ampere graphics cards. When connecting these sources at resolutions like 4K/120 Hz HDR and 8K/60 Hz HDR to Panasonic HDMI 2.1 chipsets, the black screen happens. This represents a major problem for every manufacturer planning to use the Panasonic HDMI 2.1 chipset in its AV receivers, meaning that the issue has to be addressed. The Audioholics website has reached out to Sound United and Yamaha to see what their responses were, and you can check them out below.

Editor's Note: This is written by Arm vice president and general manager Paul Williamson.

Over the last year, I have been inspired by the innovators who are dreaming up solutions to improve and enrich our daily lives. Tomorrow's mobile applications will be even more imaginative, immersive, and intelligent. To that point, the industry has come such a long way in making this happen. Take app stores for instance - we had the choice of roughly 500 apps when smartphones first began shipping in volume in 2007 and today there are 8.9 million apps available to choose from.

Mobile has transformed from a simple utility to the most powerful, pervasive device we engage with daily, much like Arm-based chips have progressed to more powerful but still energy-efficient SoCs. Although the chip-level innovation has already evolved significantly, more is still required as use cases become more complex, with more AI and ML workloads being processed locally on our devices.

HTC VIVE, a global leader in innovative technology, today officially announces it will enter the cloud software business with the VIVE XR Suite offering at its hybrid event, "Journey into the Next Normal", which took place physically in Shanghai and online through the Engage virtual events platform. Comprised of five separate applications covering remote collaboration, productivity, events, social and culture, the VIVE XR Suite gives users the tools they need to overcome the new challenges faced while working and living in a socially distant world. The VIVE XR Suite is targeted to launch in Q3 2020 in China, with additional regions to follow throughout the year.

The VIVE XR Suite is comprised of 5 major applications (VIVE Sync, VIVE Sessions, VIVE Campus, VIVE Social, and VIVE Museum) to meet the daily needs of the users to overcome the new challenges faced by users around the world who are working, learning and living remotely. Although it is called an XR Suite, it is important to note that this software is not dependent on VR/AR devices to function. All the applications will function on existing PCs/laptops and some apps will even support modern smartphones, but for a superior immersive experience, PC VR or standalone VR devices would be recommended. Users will be able to login to all apps in the suite using a single account and across various devices they own. This integrated application bundle which is created in partnership with the leading software companies in their respective areas will provide a seamless experience for the consumer and business user. The CEO's of all the software partners in the VIVE XR Suite (Immersive VR Education, VirBELA, VRChat, and Museum of Other Realities) attended the event live via video and within VR in avatar form.

Today, during the VR/AR Global Summit Online Conference, Lenovo announced the latest addition to its portfolio of commercial virtual reality (VR) solutions - the Lenovo Mirage VR S3 headset with ThinkReality. The new VR solution for enterprise was unveiled during the keynote speech by Nathan Pettyjohn, Commercial AR/VR Lead, Intelligent Devices Group, Lenovo.

The Lenovo Mirage VR S3 is an all-in-one headset developed in conjunction with Pico Interactive, a global technology company that develops innovative VR and enterprise solutions. Specifically designed for enterprise, the Lenovo Mirage VR S3 features a 4K display for clearer visuals, hands-free control for utilization with or without the provided controller, and an easy to clean, hygienic face plate suitable for mass use. Built with integrated audio and up to three hours of battery life, the new VR headset is rugged, light weight and ready to scale within the enterprise.

Power up your XR displays and 5G devices because NVIDIA is taking streaming to the next level. With the announcement today of the NVIDIA CloudXR 1.0 software development kit, we're bringing major advancements to streaming augmented reality, mixed reality and virtual reality content — collectively known as XR — over 5G, Wi-Fi and other high-performance networks.

With the NVIDIA CloudXR platform, any end device — including head-mounted displays (HMDs) and connected Windows and Android devices — can become a high-fidelity XR display capable of showcasing professional-quality graphics. CloudXR is built on NVIDIA RTX GPUs and the CloudXR SDK to allow streaming of immersive AR, MR or VR experiences from anywhere, whether from the data center, cloud or at the edge. And with NVIDIA GPU virtualization software, CloudXR scales efficiently allowing multiple users or tenants to securely share GPU resources.

Magic Leap the augmented-reality startup has raised over 2 billion dollars from investor such as Alphabet and Alibaba to develop AR products. In a recent blog post by CEO Rony Abovitz titled "Charting a New Course" he announces that the company has come under financial hardship due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and will focus all of its resources on the enterprise market and the launch of Magic Leap 2. This restructuring will involve Magic Leap abandoning its consumer developments in the near-term and significant layoffs, Bloomberg reports layoffs may be 1000 which would result in the companies workforce halving.

Since the release of HoloLens in 2016 we have seen mixed reality transform the way work gets done. We have unlocked super-powers for hundreds of thousands of people who go to work every day. From construction sites to factory floors, from operating rooms to classrooms, HoloLens is changing how we work, learn, communicate and get things done.

We are entering a new era of computing, one in which the digital world goes beyond two-dimensional screens and enters the three-dimensional world. This new collaborative computing era will empower us all to achieve more, break boundaries and work together with greater ease and immediacy in 3D. Today, we are proud to introduce the world to Microsoft HoloLens 2. Our customers asked us to focus on three key areas to make HoloLens even better. They wanted HoloLens 2 to be even more immersive and more comfortable, and to accelerate the time-to-value.

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, debuted the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR1 Platform, the world's first dedicated Extended Reality (XR) platform during a launch event leading up to the Augmented World Expo (AWE). XR1 is a next-generation platform offering mainstream users high-quality XR experiences while enabling OEMs to develop mainstream devices. The XR1 platform also has special optimizations for Augmented Reality (AR) experiences with Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities offering better interactivity, power consumption and thermal efficiency. Qualcomm Technologies also announced that Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) Meta, VIVE, Vuzix and Picoare already developing on the first dedicated XR1 platform.

"As technology evolves and consumer demand grows, we envision XR devices playing a wider variety of roles in consumers' and workers' daily lives," said Alex Katouzian, senior vice president and general manager, Mobile Business Unit, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. "By integrating powerful visuals, high-fidelity audio, and rich interactive experiences, XR1 will help create a new era of high-quality, mainstream XR devices for consumers."

Toshiba's Client Solutions Division (CSD), a division of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., today announced the full availability of its dynaEdge AR Smart Glasses solution. With a starting price point of $1,899.99, the company's dynaEdge AR Smart Glasses are Toshiba's first completely wearable AR solution to combine the power of a Windows 10 Pro PC with the robust feature set of industrial-grade smart glasses. Toshiba's new AR solution includes the dynaEdge DE-100 Mobile Mini PC, dynaEdge AR100 Head Mounted Display (HMD), Lens-Less Frame, USB-C Cable with Cable Clip and carrying case.

For customers or application developers looking to design specialized software for the smart glasses, Toshiba will offer Developer's Kits with two different configurations - Basic and Performance to best meet a variety of industrial applications. Pricing starts at $2,399.99.

Vuzix Corporation, a leading supplier of Smart Glasses and Augmented Reality (AR) technologies and products for the consumer and enterprise markets, is pleased to announce that the company has begun mass production of the world's first Windows-based smart glasses. First production shipments are expected to be delivered within approximately 30 days.

Vuzix entered into a development agreement with Toshiba in February 2017 to create a customized Window-based USB-C Type C AR smart glasses for Toshiba, which is a derivative product of the Vuzix M300 Smart Glasses. Over the past year the team at Vuzix created an entirely new Vuzix product for Toshiba, has delivered hundreds of engineering and development units and has begun volume manufacturing for Toshiba to fulfill the initial purchase order received by Toshiba as part of 3-year supply agreement, that has an expected minimum of $5,000,000 in purchases in the first 12 months, and which was previously announced by Vuzix in December 2017.

This week at SXSW, Bose introduces Bose AR, the world's first audio augmented reality platform, and glasses to hear- a Bose AR prototype that launches the future of mobile sound. Bose also announces its SDK schedule date for developers, manufacturers, and research institutions, along with collaborations currently under way, and venture funding for related start-ups.

Unlike other augmented reality products and platforms, Bose AR doesn't change what you see, but knows what you're looking at- without an integrated lens or phone camera. And rather than superimposing visual objects on the real world, Bose AR adds an audible layer of information and experiences, making every day better, easier, more meaningful, and more productive.