The AR Roundup: April 2020

Here is what happened in augmented reality between April 1–30, 2020

Source: 8th Wall (Israeli President is the first country leader to use AR to greet the nation as a hologram)

Numbers

Forecasts

• SuperData now projects XR hardware and consumer software will earn $6.3B in 2020. (SuperData)
• The number of hearables in use is estimated to grow to more than 970 million by 2024. That would be an increase of 270% over the 260 million estimated for this year according to Juniper Research. (Mediapost)
• Consumer demand for immersive experiences during quarantine could accelerate VR adoption, especially for the entertainment industry (Business Insider)
• Digi-Capital’s long-term virtual and augmented reality forecast is for the AR/VR market to reach around $65 billion revenue by 2024, however, the next two years are forecast to be impacted by COVID-19-related factors. (VentureBeat)

Survey Results

• “Outside of gaming and entertainment, respondents expect the most disruption from immersive technologies in healthcare and medical devices over the next 12 months. 38% of respondents pointed to healthcare and medical devices as ripe sectors for disruption, and education followed closely at 28%.” (2020 Augmented and Virtual Reality Survey Report — Perkins Coie)
• ARM study found the 16–24 age group showed the most positive response to wearing AR with the 55–64 the lowest (79 percent and 45 percent respectively). The report also found that the younger generation are actually happier to stay connected to their smartphones while each subsequent age group showed a greater interest in using AR to make tasks easier. (VR Focus)
• PTC : Eighty Percent of Executives Managing IoT and AR Strategies Expect the Tech to Become Industry Standard Within Five Years (MarketScreener)

Reported

• Image-messaging app Snapchat has seen a surge in usage during the pandemic, notching a 37% lift in shared photos that use its camera’s augmented reality (AR) lens from late March compared with late February. Time spent interacting with these lenses jumped 25% month-over-month. (MobileMarketer)
• Snap Inc. Announces First Quarter 2020 Financial Results: “Over 75% of our daily active users engage with augmented reality every day on average. At the end of Q1 2020, over 900,000 Lenses had been created by our community through Lens Studio” (Snap)
• “Across four sites, we use augmented reality to complete spacecraft manufacturing activities in 90% less time than with traditional methods. For example, an activity that normally takes 8 hours could be completed in 45 minutes,” Peterson said. “If we look just at fasteners, one Orion space vehicle has more than 57,000 cable harness fasteners. Saving time per fastener adds up quickly!” (NASA)
• “In 70 percent of customer calls where #AR was used, we are able to provide an immediate fix because AR improved communications between field support and our product experts.” IBM AR Working To Support And Accelerate Support Services (Forbes)
• According to Porsche, participation in the Tech Live Look program is up by more than 300% as dealer employees look for ways to help get customer cars out the door as much as 40% faster than without it, thanks to the ability to share information in real time. (CNET)
• “By deploying the Ubimax remote support solution xAssist, Coca-Cola HBC achieved a downtime reduction by up to 50%.” (Ubimax)
• Realeyes emotion detection technology determines consumer smiles are down by 32% in COVID-19 era (Real Business)
• This March, Homecourt saw 13 million dribbles per day, about 25 times more than they registered in the weeks before the pandemic. Homecourt has seen a sharp rise in shots taken, but not as much as dribbles. They’re seeing 500,000 to 600,000 shots per day globally, which is about five times their normal daily average. (NBC Sports)
• Over the past three years, AMA and RealWear have been successfully collaborating with more than 90 global customers in over 15 industries and medical institutions. (RealWear)
• University Creating 20,000 AR/VR Lessons (Campus Technology)
• Niantic listed as #1 fastest growing company in America (FT)

Featured Video: Augmented Reality used to educate during COVID-19 era

Source: YouTube — Tom Emrich

Money

Hardware

• Mojo Vision Raises Additional $51 Million+ in Series B-1 Round (Mojo Vision)
• AR swim goggles-maker Form raises $8.5 million Series A (TechCrunch)
• Samsung Venture Investment Corp increased its investment in DigiLens (Yahoo Finance)

Platforms & Tools

• Apple likely buyer of NextVR, a live event streaming AR/VR company being sold for ~$100M (9to5 Mac)
• Ikea acquires AI imaging startup Geomagical Labs to supercharge room visualisations (TechCrunch)
• Arti Closes $4 Million Seed Investment Round for Cloud-based, No-hardware Augmented Reality Platform (MarTechSeries)
• Spatial Audio company Dirac closes USD $6 million financing round (Auganix)

Featured Tweet: Azure Remote Rendering public preview

Source: Twitter — Rene Schulte

Source: Twitter — Roy Rodenhaeuser

News

Hardware

Launch Announcements

• Merge debuts the ability to print and build your own Merge Cube and features Merge EDU apps for remote learning (Wakelet)

Updates

• ThirdEye and TROIA partner to bring energy, utilities, oil and gas sectors remote assistance through mixed reality glasses (Globenewswire)
• Facebook to supply free Portals to some care home residents under NHS scheme (TechCrunch)
• Varjo Expands Worldwide Access to Industrial VR/XR with Launch of Sales in Key Markets in Asia Pacific and Israel (Varjo)
• Microsoft is Expanding HoloLens 2 Availability with “tens of thousands” Shipped to Date (Road to VR)

Rumors, Patents & Relevant Research

• Facebook‘s Smart Glasses Peek Out from the Curtain (Christopher Grayson)
• Facebook wins a Depth Camera System Patent for their Future Smartglasses Device aimed at Replacing Smartphones (Patently Apple)
• Chinese startup Rokid pitches COVID-19 detection glasses in US (TechCrunch)
• Leaked image shows off apparent iPhone 12 Pro with triple lens camera and LiDAR Scanner (9to5 Mac)
• Apple Invents HomePod with Built-in Camera that Provides Siri with Eyes to deliver Next-Gen Commands & Longer-Range Face ID (Patently Apple)
• Apple Invents a ‘Scene Camera’ System for a future HMD device that brings Vivid Imagery directly to the user’s eyes (Patently Apple)
• Apple researching trackpad & gesture combo for controlling AR (AppleInsider)
• Apple Invents a Light Field Panorama Camera System for iDevices & HMD that will create Immersive Scenes with 6 Degrees of Freedom (Patently Apple)

Platforms & Tools

Launch Announcements

• 8th Wall introduces Inline AR — embed WebAR into any website with AR iframes (8th Wall)
• 8th Wall debuts end-to-end WebAR Hologram Solution (8th Wall)
• XR Swim Platform Wants To Become The Steam Of WebXR Content (VR Scout)
• Threekit Launches Configurable Augmented Reality Tool for The Next Generation of Online Shopping (Globenewswire)
• Tvori releases the new animation timeline and gets ready to conquer the XR prototyping market (Tvori)
• Microsoft Power Apps now allows you to easily develop mixed reality apps (MSPoweruser)
• Wikitude announces the ability to track multiple objects simultaneously using identical or different objects with its SDK (Wikitude)
• New Vuforia Spatial Toolbox to Accelerate Spatial AR Programming of Machines and Robots (Yahoo Finance)
• Sketchfab launches support for native augmented reality for its 3D embeds (Sketchfab)

Updates

• Azure Remote Rendering enters public preview (Microsoft)
• Huawei’s AR Map app is available worldwide, but it only works at a few sites in China (Abacus News)
• Unreal Engine Creators Can Visualise Their 3D Creations Using Looking Glass Factory’s Holographic Display’s (VR Focus)
• Indoor AR navigation specialist Dent Reality joins Apple’s Indoor Maps Program (iMore)
• Zuckerberg announces new AR experiences to come to social including immersive backgrounds and new filters (ARpost)
• Google updates Scene Viewer to allow for easy recording of video for Android users (9to5 Google)

Rumors, Patents & Relevant Research

• Apple reveals 3D modeling of fingers to be used in Mixed Reality Headsets for Object and Gesture Recognition (Patently Apple)
• Carnegie Mellon University researchers demonstrate smartphone videos produce highly realistic 3D face reconstructions (Carnegie Mellon University)
• Microsoft’s HoloScreens App Lets You Add Virtual Screens to Your Physical Desk (Winbuzzer)

Featured Creator: Cyril Diagne doodles face masks with his face (so meta)

Source: Twitter — Cyril Diagne

News

Applications & Solutions

Consumer

• Israeli president uses AR to visit nation during lockdown (Cult of Mac)
• Moviebill, Regal debut AR game as COVID-19 keeps theaters closed (MobileMarketer)
• Great Notion To Debut Beer Industry’s First Augmented Reality App (Forbes)
• Complete Anatomy App Will Use LiDAR in iPad Pro to Measure Range of Motion After Injury (MacRumors)
• Google Search brings some more augmented reality objects (Android Community)
• Unbnd launches “Collect4” multi-player WebAR game (BandT)
• This Free App Will Help You Visualize Wallpaper and Tile on Your Walls (Apartment Therapy)
• CERN and Google Arts & Culture launch the story of our universe in mixed reality (Experiments with Google)
• Adobe previews Project Dually Noted — AR annotations (Adobe Document Cloud)
• An App with Augmented Reality Teaches How to Keep Social Distancing (IBL News)
• Developer creates WebAR tool to help people in Australia social distance (YouTube)
• Shopify debuts AR tool to help you see if an item will fit in your space (Twitter)

Enterprise

• NSF International rolls out remote food safety training technology with EyeSucceed software on Google Glass Enterprise Edition 2 (The Packer)
• Schrödinger teams up with Looking Glass to accelerate the rate of new drug discovery (Looking Glass)
• Loom.ai introduces LoomieLive — avatars for video conferencing (Loomai)
• JigSpace debuts remote live AR presentations (JigSpace)

Featured Quote: Sebastiaan de With, Designer of Halide, on iPad Pro’s LiDAR

We’re super excited as photographers and developers to see what the next few years bring . Photography isn’t traditionally taking photos anymore; it’s combining all the data and smarts in our devices into allowing totally new interpretations of what ‘photography’ can mean. And if you’re not excited about that, we’re at a loss! (Source: Medium — Halide)

News

Marketing

Social AR

• L’Oréal rolls out 1st beauty AR lenses on Snap’s desktop app (MobileMarketer)
• Boston Red Sox Fans Visit Fenway Park In AR With Latest Snapchat Lens (VR Scout)
• Lego Backs Lego Dots Line With Snapchat AR Lens (Adweek)
• Universal’s ‘Trolls World Tour’ streaming premiere gets help from Snapchat AR Lens (MobileMarketer)
• New Snapchat Lens Creates AR Safe Zone To Promote Social Distancing (VR Scout)
• Snapchat new Lens brings COVID-19 donations to life (UN Foundation)
• NFL Announces Fan Experiences For 2020 Draft Partner With Snapchat (Oakland News Now)
• National Geographic Debuts Instagram AR Experience for April Earth Day Issue (Adweek)
• Walgreens Turns to Filters on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat for Red Nose Day (Adweek)
• THE LION KING musical releases free new Instagram Filter (Broadway World)
• OnePlus uses Instagram to let fans virtually ‘unbox’ the OnePlus 8 series w/ contest (9to5 Google)
• USA Today debuts AR Face Mask filters on Instagram (Twitter)
• Meitu teams up with Pinkfong to launch a Baby Shark-themed AR filter that encourages handwashing (Yahoo Finance)

WebAR

• Nike uses WebAR to activate shoeboxes for its “Move to Zero” campaign (8th Wall)
• Stoneleigh Wild Valley Wine “Let Nature Take Over” in an AR-activated experience triggered from its wine labels (8th Wall)
• Russian bank, Sperban,, create a WebAR experience to send AR flowers in honor of International Women’s Day (8th Wall)
• Stuart Weitzman uses WebAR to bring the catwalk to the runway (8th Wall)

Other

• Back To The Moon Is The First Google Doodle Available In All Realities (VR Scout)
• Google rolls out AR Easter Bunny, other search goodies for Easter (MobileSyrup)

Editorial

• Coronavirus is a global pandemic. Here’s what that looks like in augmented reality. (Yahoo News)
• Confused about the coronavirus? This glossary will help (Yahoo News)
• Coronavirus a chance to choose new path, says climate activist Greta Thunberg (Yahoo News)
• This 3-D Simulation Shows Why Social Distancing Is So Important (NY Times)
• The time is right for AR: Inside Axel Springer’s immersive travel experience (DCN)
• Glavbuh magazine uses WebAR to bring editor-in-chief to life (Great Gonzo Studio)

Music & Art

• Real Estate Launch “Quarantour” Augmented Reality Web App (Pitchfork)
• SuperM Promises to Perform Unreleased Songs During Augmented Reality Live Stream Concert (Billboard)
• Gibson and Sweetwater partner with Amped Guitar for free three-month membership to Augmented Reality learning platform (Guitar World)
• Darren Bader’s AR app is in Beta (artnet)
• Lisson Gallery Has Launched a New Augmented Reality Platform That Allows You to Test-Drive Art in Your Home Before You Buy It (artnet)
• Mega Galleries Hasten to Launch AR and VR Technologies (Ocula)
• Netguru launches Kunster App to use AR to see the world through the eyes of the greatest painters (Netguru)
• KAWS Updates Travis Scott and Kid Cudi’s “The Scotts” Artwork For Augmented Reality (Highsnobiety)
• ALL WORLD launches to help artists sell art using augmented reality (Design Milk)
• SK Telecom Realizes 3D Cultural Heritage on Smartphones with AR Technologies (Business Korea)

Human Impact & Ethics

• Finally, progress on regulating facial recognition (Microsoft)
• Instagram Filters Are Changing the Way We Think About Makeup (Teen Vogue)

Follow me on Twitter @TomEmrich. Got news to share or have feedback on “The AR Roundup”? Email me at tom@tomemrich.com.

Read my latest blog post “Advertising Enters the Next Dimension” here.