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Art by Mike Sullivan.

Apple Devising Software to Help Anyone Build AR Apps, to Drive Headset Sales

By Wayne Ma · Jan. 27, 2023 7:27 AM PST · 1 comment

Apple is developing software to make it easy for users of its upcoming mixed-reality headset to build their own augmented reality apps, according to four people who have worked on the headset. With the software tools, Apple hopes that even people who don’t know computer code could tell the headset, via the Siri voice assistant, to build an... Apple is developing software to make it easy for users of its upcoming mixed-reality headset to...

Photos by Bloomberg.

Inside Meta’s Struggles to Gain an Edge on Apple in AR Race

By Sylvia Varnham O'Regan · Dec. 19, 2022 6:00 AM PST

Before Meta Platforms released its Ray-Ban camera-equipped glasses last September, the team spent months trying to get them to work with Apple’s iPhone. Meta wanted photos taken on the glasses to automatically download to users’ phones without requiring them to open Meta’s app. But because of how Apple’s software... Before Meta Platforms released its Ray-Ban camera-equipped glasses last September, the team spent...

Photos by Bloomberg. Art by Mike Sullivan

ByteDance’s VR Unit Stumbles in Early Effort to Challenge Meta

By Juro Osawa · Sept. 22, 2022 6:00 AM PDT

Zhang Yiming, founder of TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, has long had an ambition to follow in the footsteps of Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg and grab a piece of the nascent market for augmented and virtual reality. In 2020, the year Meta launched its Quest 2 VR headset, ByteDance engineers worked on a confidential internal project to... Zhang Yiming, founder of TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, has long had an ambition to follow in...

Mojo Vision CEO Drew Perkins wearing an AR contact lens prototype. Credit: Mojo Vision.

A New Milestone for AR Contacts; Snapchat’s Subscription Service

By Mathew Olson · June 29, 2022 11:00 AM PDT

Mojo Vision CEO Drew Perkins wearing an AR contact lens prototype. Credit: Mojo Vision.

A New Milestone for AR Contacts; Snapchat’s Subscription Service

By Mathew Olson · June 29, 2022 11:00 AM PDT

My time with Mojo Vision CEO Drew Perkins was limited, so I didn’t have time to ask him if he had seen this year’s The Batman, where the title character makes regular use of AR contact lenses to augment his nighttime detective work. As the first person to wear a functional prototype of Mojo’s in-development AR contacts—a major milestone for Mojo... My time with Mojo Vision CEO Drew Perkins was limited, so I didn’t have time to ask him if he had...

Screenshots from NBA All-World. Credit: Niantic, HypGames, NBA, and NBPA.

ar/vr entertainment

Niantic’s Shot at Mixing AR and Basketball; HTC’s Metaverse Phone

By Mathew Olson · June 28, 2022 11:00 AM PDT

If you squint, sports fandom doesn’t look all that different from video game fandom. In each, people have their favorite players (or larger-than-life characters), there are stats to pore over endlessly. Anyone with an impulse for collecting things can likely be drawn in by either pastime. It’s easy to see, then, how Niantic ended up landing an... If you squint, sports fandom doesn’t look all that different from video game fandom. In each,...

A promotional image for the Quest 2 VR headset. Photo: Meta Platforms.

A Peek at Meta VR Testing; Tim Cook Says “Stay Tuned” for AR News

By Mathew Olson · June 23, 2022 11:00 AM PDT

Meta Platforms is working hard—and shelling out money—to make sure it leaves no stone unturned when it comes to making sure its VR products work for a wide range of people. In recent days, for instance, Meta has been looking for very specific demographic groups—young people of South Asian descent or African American females who wear lipstick—for... Meta Platforms is working hard—and shelling out money—to make sure it leaves no stone unturned...

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Apple's Tim Cook (clockwise from top left), Bob Iger, Al Gore and Mike Rockwell. Images by Bloomberg, Shutterstock. Art by Mike Sullivan.

The Inside Story of Why Apple Bet Big on a Mixed-Reality Headset

By Wayne Ma · May 17, 2022 6:00 AM PDT · 10 comments

In 2016, Apple’s board of directors gathered inside one of its buildings in Cupertino, Calif., for a glimpse into the company’s future. Former Vice President Al Gore, then–Disney CEO Bob Iger and other Apple board members walked from room to room, trying out prototype augmented and virtual reality devices and software. One of... In 2016, Apple’s board of directors gathered inside one of its buildings in Cupertino,...

Apple CEO Tim Cook. Photo by Bloomberg

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Apple Eyes 2022 Release for AR Headset, 2023 for Glasses

By Wayne Ma, Alex Heath and Nick Wingfield · Nov. 11, 2019 5:01 AM PST · 3 comments

Apple is aiming to release an augmented-reality headset in 2022 and a sleeker pair of AR glasses by 2023, The Information has learned. Apple executives discussed the timelines, which haven’t been previously reported, in an internal presentation to employees at the company’s Cupertino, California, campus in October, according to... Apple is aiming to release an augmented-reality headset in 2022 and a sleeker pair of AR glasses...

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Photo by Bloomberg; illustration by Mike Sullivan

The Big Interview

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Mark Zuckerberg on Mind Reading, Apple and the Race to Mainstream VR

By Alex Heath and Mathew Olson · March 8, 2021 7:41 AM PST · 3 comments

Today we published a 45-minute special edition of The Information's 411 podcast featuring a recent interview we conducted with Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, about his company’s growing investments in augmented and virtual reality. The following is a lightly edited transcript of that interview: Alex Heath: Can you just set... Today we published a 45-minute special edition of The Information's 411 podcast...

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