This Week In XR: Table Setting The New XR Decade As Magic Leap Gets Down To Business

Between the recent leak about Apple’s AR plans to debut its highly anticipated AR glasses in 2022, and Magic Leap’s non-announcement of its 2021 launch of the Magic Leap 2, lots of table setting is getting done this last month of the year. The shape of the next decade in XR is coming into focus. 

Magic Leap Reveals Enterprise Strategy And The Magic Leap 2. Brushing off nabobs of negativity, Rony Abovitz got down to business last week, sharing the company’s plans for enterprise, and revealing the highly anticipated Magic Leap 2 AR headset will be available sometime in 2021, following trials with enterprise customers. The company has beefed up its enterprise offerings and support, but it’s not calling this a pivot. Although everyone else is. The Magic Leap website has been revamped to emphasize its business to business offerings. Magic Leap needs to find a Microsoft Azure, a monthly source of recurring revenue. Not that they seem overly concerned about revenue right now.

Frontdoor acquires XR start up Streem. Frontdoor is one of the largest companies in the home services industry, and recently became publicly traded. Streem is a Portland based startup that has developed a see-what-I-see technology using smartphone AR. The acquisition will put Streem’s technology in the hands of the large Frontdoor marketplace of home contractors and technicians. The Streem team will continue working from their current offices while integrating into Frontdoor.

Scope AR adds to its SaaS platform with the acquisition of Tel Aviv-based WakingApp. WakingApp AR Studios has been building an app creation tool that allows developers and designers to rapidly produce AR experiences as stand-alone apps or integrate mobile AR experiences into existing mobile apps. Scope AR plans to add this to its WorkLink platform.

Oculus Quest adds hand tracking support to latest Quest software update. The standalone VR headset becomes the first major consumer headset to receive hand tracking as a built-in feature. Quest owners can experience the hand tracking by turning on the hand tracking option in the Experimental Features menu. Developers will gain access to the SDK next week. 

Airbus announces new VR flight trainer. The pace of enterprise training applications continues to accelerate with the virtual cockpit from Airbus. It will allow live instructors to sit beside pilots in training in full featured virtual Airbus planes. Built to run on commercially available VR headsets and hand controllers, the Airbus VR Flight Trainer intends to make pilot training more accessible for digital natives who will become the next generation of pilots. Airbus sees this move as helping to fill the need for 550,000 pilots of the next 20 years. 

Neilsen’s SuperData releases new XR Market Intelligence Platform. SuperData XR Dimensions business intelligence platform covers all of XR for developers, hardware manufacturers, investors and more. Subscribers have access to hardware sales numbers, consumer spending habits, venture capital investments in XR, and more XR industry insights. Some recent insights include 2019 VR hardware revenues approaching $2.1 billion, up 31% from 2018 driven largely by Oculus Quest sales, over 2 billion users have experienced AR thanks to mobile apps in Q3 2019 alone, and North America is the top region for XR technologies having over a third of the total market.

ARCore getting new update from Google with impressive new capabilities. The update includes a new Depth API which powers the AR feature we’ve all been waiting for: occlusion. Occlusion is the ability for objects in 3D space to block the view of other objects behind them. Whether its a Pikachu running behind a tree, or a new coffee table you want to see in the living room, ARCore’s new occlusion capabilities just made AR content a whole lot more convincing. Developers will be the first to get ahold of the Depth API, but we can expect to start seeing apps utilizing the new capabilities sometime next year.

Focals 2.0 by North will start shipping in 2020. North announced they have ended production of their first generation Focals smart glasses to focus on production of the next generation of smart stylish eyewear arriving sometime in 2020.

Taqtile raises $3 million to bolster development of AR for industrial applications. Along with the $3 million investment round led by Broadmark Capital, Taqtile has joined Magic Leap’s enterprise partner program. Taqtile’s applications are geared towards training and other on-the-job purposes.

Firefox Reality receives new update for syncing webpages between desktop, mobile, and now VR. The new update allows VR users of the Firefox web browser to log in to their account and sync tabs, bookmarks, and more from flat screen devices to their VR headset. Next time you stumble upon a new 360 video or WebXR experience while browsing in 2D, it’ll be a whole lot easier to hop into VR and load up your experience. 

Coca-Cola’s holiday AR activations are powered by Unity and built by Tactic. This holiday season, Coke fans can point their smartphone cameras at Coca-Cola branded packaging to experience holiday themed AR artwork and games featuring their favorite polar bears, each AR experience built using Unity’s AR technology. 

SpringboardVR VR arcade content platform partners with VRstudios. VRstudios provides turn-key wireless multiplayer VR systems for location based entertainment venues, while SpringboardVR is a content marketplace built for VR arcades. The partnership will allow VRstudios to provide not only a hardware solution, but a library of experiences available on SpringboardVR’s platform. 

Sansar’s partnership with live music venue Bootshaus kicks off with world-famous DJ’s Don Diablo: The Virtual Show. Don’s real-life performance at Bootshaus will be captured live and transmitted to a global audience in Boosthaus VR in Sansar. 

The Advanced Imaging Society, a non-profit supported by the big tech companies and movie studios, holds its annual On the Lot conference in Los Angeles Tuesday and Wednesday, December 17th and 18th. To learn more, and buy tickets, click.

“This Week in XR” is written and edited with Michael Eichenseer.