AR/XR/Metaverse Insights

8th Wall: Introducing Sky Effects and World Tracking

Niantic, Inc., the creator of popular augmented reality (AR) games such as Pokémon GO and Ingress, has recently launched a new feature on their 8th Wall platform called Sky Effects + World Tracking. This feature is a first for any AR platform and for the browser, allowing developers to augment the sky and surfaces in the same AR experience. With Sky Effects + World Tracking, 8th Wall developers can create even more immersive AR experiences by moving 3D objects from the sky to the ground, foreground to background, and more. This allows for a seamless blending of the virtual and physical worlds, creating an entirely new level of immersion for users. Developers can now build Sky Effects and Sky Effects + World Tracking using popular frameworks such as A-Frame, three.js, and PlayCanvas. This new feature has the potential to revolutionize the way people interact with the world around them. Whether it is exploring a virtual cityscape or learning about the constellations in the night sky, Sky Effects + World Tracking has the power to transport users to entirely new worlds and dimensions. (8th Wall)

Tommy Hilfiger?is next to launch?AR?try-on mirrors in their stores using?ZERO10's tech?

Zero10?is an AR platform for fashion. With the company’s apps and products, customers try on clothes, some of which are only available as NFTs. The company also offers AR mirrors for fashion retailers. Amazon patented something similar in 2018. Zero10 partnered with Tommy Hilfiger, installing AR mirrors in Tommy Hilfiger stores worldwide as part of the?Tommy Hilfiger x Shawn Mendes collection?global launch. The stores will be Regent Street in London, Kurfürstendamm in Berlin, and Piazza Guglielmo Oberdan in Milan. Customers can try on ten selected garments from the 28-piece physical collection digitally in the mirrors. Three of the digital garments offer special effects only visible in AR. “After two years of working on our proprietary technology, it’s a significant step to finally bring AR Mirror to the real world to create new experiences for retailers,” says George Yashin, CEO of Zero10. “We believe that working with innovative brands like Tommy Hilfiger will help accelerate change in the industry. In line with our main concept, we believe AR technology can now be used by brands to implement new approaches in their business and reach a new generation of customers. Our next step will be to introduce AR storefronts and interactive points of sale.” (Mixed News)

Overheard at SXSW: ‘brands should start small, think big and learn fast with AR’

Tens of thousands of people have descended upon downtown Austin for SXSW 2023. Each year, the conference draws experts hailing from a wide variety of fields, as well as entrepreneurs, artists, and other professionals who are eager to learn more about the latest trends that are transforming their respective industries and popular culture as a whole. Artificial intelligence (AI) has, unsurprisingly, been a primary focus at this year’s conference. A quick search for the words “artificial intelligence” on the SXSW website yields information about 20 separate events. One speaker this morning quipped onstage: “Having ‘AI’ in your panel title is always a good idea.” Immersive technologies like virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) – you can check out this?glossary?to learn more about the differences between those three – have also been heavily emphasized at this year’s SXSW.?This echoed the IAB PlayFronts?(a conference focused on the intersection between advertising and gaming) in Manhattan earlier this week. (The Drum)

Why Le Bristol Paris Metaverse Venture Will Be Web3’s Most Exclusive Club

A couple of years shy of its centenary, Paris’ Le Bristol hotel is making its Web3 debut with the launch of Le Bristol Unlocked, 11 exclusive NFTs (the number corresponds to the hotel’s 11 signature suites) which will unlock money-can’t-buy experiences in the real world. While the exact nature of said experiences remain under wraps, they revolve around “gastronomy, service and hospitality — things that even the guests of the hotel cannot do and have never been done before,” says head of global marketing and e-commerce Thomas Matte? who spearheaded the project. “We love to disrupt and to bring Le Bristol where it is least expected; to drive such a classical hotel into Web3,” he said, adding that it was imperative, not to simply follow a trend and generate hype but to be authentic to the storied Oetker Collection Masterpiece Hotel’s DNA. “To do what we do best and what we are known for — the service, the excellence and the French savoir faire.” (Forbes)

Roblox and Its Generative AI: How Game Creation, and the Metaverse, May Be Changing

The world's biggest?metaverse?may, arguably, be Roblox. The platform my kids play almost daily is a continuous playground of increasingly evolving experiences with a vast marketplace. It's also going to become a space where generative AI emerges. Roblox released?two new AI tools?in the past week, but both are only showing up in the creator-focused?Roblox Studio: a coding tool that lets anyone use conversational AI to generate code on the fly; and a way to create material designs just by describing what you want. It looks very much like this emerging wave of AI is turning into a coding assistant… I'd hesitate to say complete coding tool, because it sounds like you'd very much want to see what errors and results come from whatever you think you've discussed into being. But much more so than in any other capacity, it looks like a way to quickly enable complicated creations. Stefano Corazza, former vice president of Adobe's Augmented Reality division and now head of Roblox Studio, says Roblox's new AI features are targeted at "someone who is familiar with coding, and we just want to make them more productive." (Cnet)

Snap acquired 3D-scanning startup Th3rd last year

Snap quietly acquired Amsterdam-based 3D-scanning studio?Th3rd?in the second quarter of last year, at a time when the company was looking to bolster its AR-powered commerce ambitions. A spokesperson for the company confirmed to TechCrunch that four team members from Th3rd, who are based in the Netherlands, joined Snap as part of the acquisition. The company did not disclose the financial terms of the deal. Founded in 2014, Th3rd specializes in creating high-quality digital twins of people and products to give brands and retailers a way to digitize their product catalog at scale. After being selected for Adidas’ Accelerator in Europe, the company?worked with the retailer?to digitize more than 2,500 shoes. Snap says?250 million Snapchat users?have engaged with AR shopping lenses more than 5 billion times since January 2021. For context, Snapchat has 375 million daily active users. The company also recently said in an email that it conducted a study with consulting firm Ipsos and found that 92% of Gen Z users are interested in using AR for shopping. (Tech Crunch)

Objaverse: 800,000 virtual props for AIs to play with

If AI is going to work its way out of the chat box and into our living rooms, it will need to understand spaces and objects better. To further that work, the Allen Institute for AI has?created a gigantic and diverse database of 3D models?of everyday objects, so simulations for AI models can be that much closer to reality. Simulators are basically 3D environments meant to represent real places that a robot or AI might have to navigate or understand. But unlike, say, a modern console game, training simulators are far from photorealistic and often lack detail, variation or interactivity. Objaverse, as it is awkwardly yet somehow pleasingly named, aims to improve this with its collection of over 800,000 (and growing) 3D models with all kinds of metadata. The things represented range from types of food to tables and chairs to appliances and gadgets. Any relatively ordinary object you might expect to see in a home, office or restaurant is represented here. It’s meant to replace aging object libraries like ShapeNet, an old standby database with about 50,000 less detailed models. If the only “lamp” your AI has ever seen is a generic one with no pattern or color, how can you expect it to recognize a funky cut-glass one or one with a totally different shape? Objaverse includes variations on common objects so the model can learn what defines them despite their differences. (Tech Crunch)

Motorcycle AR Display Lets Riders See Behind Them

It’s no secret that riding a motorcycle can be a dangerous activity. Motorcyclists are 28x more likely to die in a crash (per vehicle mile traveled) when compared to those traveling in conventional passenger vehicles, according to data gathered by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Motorcycle safety is constantly evolving, with new technologies making it easier for riders to maintain proper situational awareness while out on the road. This includes CREACT’s Vision 180, a motorcycle helmet dashcam kit that offers a number of nifty features, from real-time navigation and rear camera view to a driving recorder. “The Sony CMOS sensors remedied the challenges of dimming nighttime lighting and hazy vision brought on by rainy weather,” said the company in an official release. “The front and rear wide-angle lenses have 120 degrees of view capacity. Vision 180 can better grasp the overall road situation with its 120-degree view capacity?lens, and tilted 15 degrees?rear lens.” (VR Scout)

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