BBC: Zuckerberg wants Facebook to become online ‘metaverse’. “Mark Zuckerberg has laid out his vision to transform Facebook from a social media network into a ‘metaverse company’ in the next five years. A metaverse is an online world where people can game, work and communicate in a virtual environment, often using VR headsets.”
CNET: How to make your own AR face filter. “We’ve already spent years contorting our faces, surrounding them with butterflies or pinning stuff to our heads to find out which Disney villain best represents us. However, it wasn’t until I got my hands on the new iPad Pro and played around with the Face Paint feature in Procreate that I realized how easy it is to make your own face filter. So I made a video about it, which you can watch above.”
Yale School of Medicine: Virtual Reality Game Is an Effective Tool for Vaping Prevention Among Teens. “Yale researchers have developed an immersive, virtual reality video game that helps teens learn about the dangers of e-cigarettes and practice strategies for refusing them. E-cigarette use among youth is on the rise—they are the most popular smoking product used by middle and high school students in the U.S. Approximately half of teenagers between 14-18 years old have tried an e-cigarette at least once, while about 10% of teens vape regularly. However, many teens are unaware of the long-lasting effects nicotine can have on a developing brain.”
Ubergizmo: This App Scans Your Lego Bricks And Tells You What To Build . “If you’ve been collecting Lego for years, chances are you might be sitting on a box or two of random leftover bricks. What you want to build using those bricks is entirely up to you, but if you’re open to suggestions, then maybe you might want to take a look at the Brickit app that uses augmented reality to help give you some suggestions.”
Android Police: Google celebrates the Fourth of July with an AR fireworks game straight out of 2005. “We here in the United States are sliding into a holiday weekend, with Independence Day falling on Sunday this year. Google has designed a new AR game to celebrate the occasion, combining fireworks, national landmarks, and Guitar Hero into one odd experience.”
Android Police: Google kills Measure, its AR-based measurement-taking app. “Google’s AR plans have changed over the years, from the standalone Project Tango to modern web-based efforts. But it’s the AR-based Measure app that’s the subject of today’s eulogy. The app leveraged your camera on ARCore-supported devices to (as the name suggests) measure the dimensions of stuff, and now it’s being retired. Google has suspended both support and updates for Measure.”
Dot LA: Snap Unveils Its New AR Glasses and Innovation Lab. “Snap unveiled its latest AR glasses, pushing deeper into the technology it considers its big bet. Chief executive Evan Spiegel demonstrated the latest version of ‘Spectacles’ that overlay computer graphics atop the wearer’s field of vision during the company’s annual partner summit on Thursday.”
Google Blog: Experiment with AR and VR made for the web. “Augmented and virtual reality are opening up the possibilities of how we interact with the world and information around us. WebXR brings together AR and VR on the web to make them more convenient and widely accessible. Today on the Experiments with Google platform, we’re launching the new WebXR collection to showcase what is possible with this technology — from helpful utilities to get things done, to playful and immersive experiences.”
Mashable: Facebook is working on wristbands that let you control a computer with your mind. “Facebook’s Reality Labs (FRL), a research lab within Facebook focused on augmented reality technologies, is working on wristbands that can intercept your brain’s signals and use them to let you easily interact with an AR system.”
Berkeley: A tomb with a view: Egyptologist recreates after-death experience. “UC Berkeley Egyptologist Rita Lucarelli, a pioneer in the digitization of ancient funerary artifacts, is heading up an effort, enriched by high-end Vive Cosmos virtual reality headsets, to offer scholars and others an immersive tour of one of the world’s most spellbinding death cultures.”
CNET: Facebook VR venture could include realistic avatars, Zuckerberg says. “Facebook’s exploration into virtual reality could soon include more realistic avatars. During a podcast interview with The Information, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave more details about the social media company’s plans to explore virtual and augmented reality with the Oculus VR device.”
FedTech Magazine: Artificial Intelligence and Extended Reality May Pose Security Risks, Expert Warns. “Just as federal agencies are getting more adept at deploying technologies such as augmented reality and artificial intelligence to enhance their mission effectiveness, they need to also start worrying about how those tools could compromise their cybersecurity. That’s according to cybersecurity expert Theresa Payton, who detailed her IT security predictions for 2021 and 2022 during a recent webinar sponsored by CDW and Intel.”
ReviewGeek: David Attenborough and Dinosaurs Come to Your Living Room in this AR iPhone App. “The app, Museum Alive, is a fun extension of David Attenborough’s documentary Natural History Museum Alive, which was created in 2014. In the film, he encountered CGI skeletons as he walked through the London museum and talked about them. The engaging app has a similar feel but uses animated 3D models of habitats that you or your child can view through a smartphone camera.”
EurekAlert: Exercise caution after working out in virtual reality. “Virtual ‘exergaming’ has become a popular way to exercise – especially among younger people – since the release of virtual reality (VR) fitness games on consoles such as Nintendo and Playstation. But while VR is undoubtedly raising fitness games to a whole new level, researchers at the University of South Australia are cautioning players about the potential side effects of VR, particularly in the first hour after playing.”
