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Saudi Arabia Gains Majority Stake in Magic Leap in $450M Deal

Road to VR

Saudi Arabia has taken majority share of the US-based augmented reality company Magic Leap, The Telegraph reports, widening the stake via its state-owned sovereign wealth fund with a deal amounting to $450 million.

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Saudi Arabia Acquires $3.3 Billion Stake In EA, Take-Two, Activision Blizzard

GizModo VR

Saudi Arabia has utilized its Public Investment Fund to invest over $3.3 billion (that’s $3,300,000,000 for the more visual learners out there) in Electronic Arts, Take-Two Interactive, and Activision Blizzard, Al Jazeera reported (h/t Eurogamer ). Read more.

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The Fountain of Youth May Be Flooded With Oil Money From Saudi Arabia

GizModo VR

The obnoxiously affluent Saudi Arabia is trying to prove that maybe money can buy everything after all, pouring $1 billion a year into researching ways to slow down the effects of aging.

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Saudi Arabia Says Pink Hydrogen Is for Girlbosses

GizModo VR

Calling all ladies: Saudi Arabia wants you to work to develop some special forms of energy, just for girls. Saudi Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman made comments last week about the country’s supposed clean energy strides that also promote gender equality.

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Magic Leap Raises $461M in New Funding Led by Saudi Arabia’s Investment Arm

Road to VR

Magic Leap, the augmented reality headset manufacturer, has added another couple hundred million dollars to its Series D investment round, this time $461 million led by The Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign investment arm, Tech Crunch reports. According to the report, the Saudi Arabian fund raised $400 million of the investment, while Magic Leap says “new investors” made up the remaining amount.

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Saudi Arabia Wants to Build This Bizarre City Dubbed 'The Line'

GizModo VR

Saudi Arabia is developing a new city, 150-stories tall and built from scratch, that will serve as a semi-enclosed environment where people can live and work without ever stepping foot outside.

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Saudi Arabia Is Building a Tourism Resort Based on an Oil Rig to Try to Make Destroying the Planet Cool

GizModo VR

Oil-producing heavyweight Saudi Arabia recently unveiled a new tactic: making oil rigs look cool. It seems that the world’s largest oil producing countries will stop at nothing to keep drilling, despite the fact that doing so aggravates climate change and its devastating effects.

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F1 Saudi Arabia GP Live Stream: Watch Formula 1 for FREE

Digital Trends

Want to watch the Saudi Arabia GP later today? Here's how to watch the free Saudi Arabia GP live stream from anywhere. The race starts at 1 PM ET/10 AM PT. Movies & TV News Commerce 2022 ESPN Plus EXPN Formula 1 Streaming

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Hyenas Left a Massive Pile of Bones in a Saudi Arabian Lava Tube

GizModo VR

Scientists investigating a dried-up lava tube in northwestern Saudi Arabia were stunned to find a huge assemblage of bones belonging to horses, asses, and even humans. lava tube mammals hyena saudi arabia countries striped hyena continents mathew stewart crocotta

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Yemen Suffers Internet Outage Nationwide After Saudi Airstrike on Telecom

GizModo VR

Internet service in Yemen has been taken completely offline after an airstrike by military forces led by Saudi Arabia on a telecommunications building early Friday, according to the web monitoring group NetBlocks.

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Saudi Crown Prince Asks, Answers What if a City, But It's a 105-Mile Line

GizModo VR

Vicious Saudi autocrat Mohamed bin Salman has a new vision for Neom, his plan for a massive, $500 billion, AI-powered, nominally legally independent city-state of the future on the border with Egypt and Jordan.

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Apple may have given us a hint at its AR/VR headset’s name

TechCrunch VR

Australia, Saudi Arabia, Costa Rica and Uruguay. Apple’s highly anticipated mixed reality headset may now have a name, according to a Bloomberg report earlier this week. The outlet spotted trademarks in the U.S.

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Magic Leap’s New AR Headset Is Coming This September

VRScout

The Magic Leap 2 will be available for purchase starting at $3,299 through select partners. American startup company Magic Leap has announced the official price and specs of the Magic Leap 2, its latest mixed reality headset designed for professionals and developers.

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Saudi Police Arrest TikToker for ‘Sexually Suggestive’ Video With Another Woman

GizModo VR

An Egyptian TikToker living in Saudi Arabia was arrested this week by capital police in Riyadh, who claimed she made sexually suggestive comments to another woman in a live video and accused her of negatively affecting public morality.

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How autonomous vehicles and hyperloop are scooting along

TechCrunch VR

HTT will be building a 10 km track to connect Abu Dhabi to Al Ain and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Cyrus Radfar. Contributor. Cyrus Radfar is the founding partner at V1 Worldwide. More posts by this contributor. Will tech companies change the way we manage our health? Amazon isn’t to blame for the Postal Service’s woes, but it will need to innovate to survive. Two years ago, Lime was a great addition to guacamole, rather than a sidewalk.

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120,000-Year-Old Human Footprints Mark Possible Migration Route Through Arabian Peninsula

GizModo VR

Archaeologists in Saudi Arabia have discovered seven well-preserved footprints belonging to humans. Dated to around 120,000 years ago, these appear to be the oldest evidence of our species in the region. Read more.

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Magic Leap 2 Gains Certification so Doctors Can Use AR During Surgery

Road to VR

The well-funded company, which has amassed $4 billion in funds to date, has recently taken on $450 million from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund , giving the country a majority share in the US-based augmented reality company.

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Magic Leap Teases Magicverse Debut in 2020, Launches Magic Leap Toolkit for Developers

Next Reality AR

Speaking at the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Thursday, Magic Leap's chief product officer, Omar Khan, revealed that the Magicverse SDK 1.0 After talking up the Magicverse for the past year and adding new capabilities to Lumin OS to accommodate it, Magic Leap appears to be inching ever closer to actually launching its cross-platform flavor of the AR cloud while introducing a new tool for its development community.

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New Magic Leap Images Appear as Saudi Prince Gets Demo from CEO Rony Abovitz

Next Reality AR

It turns out that the government of Saudi Arabia has managed to do something last month's Game Developers Conference couldn't — give us a few new glimpses of the Magic Leap One being worn by someone other than Shaq. Last month, Magic Leap used GDC to launch its SDK, hold a number of private parties at a special "Magic Leap House," and even give a few select attendees private, apparently NDA-locked demos.

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Snap and Rakuten Viber Go to FIFA World Cup 2022

ARPost

Live Garment Transfer” Lenses also allow AR try-ons of the official team kit for five teams – USMNT, France, Saudi Arabia, Belgium, and Qatar. Rakuten Viber and Snap both have packages of AR lenses and interactive experiences to celebrate the FIFA World Cup.

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The Middle East Is Blanketed in Rare Snowfall

GizModo VR

It snowed in the Middle East on Wednesday, covering parts of Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, and Israel in rare white blanket.

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Former Twitter Employee Convicted as Saudi Spy

GizModo VR

A former Twitter employee was convicted on six of his original 11 counts of operating as an agent for Saudi Arabia. What does it cost to sell out and hand over the private information of the critics for a despotic regime? Apparently $300,000 and a nice watch.

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Magic Leap 2 Starting Price Positioned Slightly Less Than HoloLens 2, Release Date Set for September

Road to VR

On September 30th Magic Leap 2 will release first in the US, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Saudi Arabia. Magic Leap today announced pricing and release date details for the company’s latest AR headset, Magic Leap 2. Magic Leap 2 Release Date and Price.

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Amazon Selling ‘Oculus Certified’ Refurbished Quest 2 with $50 Discount & Extra Warranty

Road to VR

It’s not clear how many regions this is available in, but beyond the US we’ve also spotted the deal on Amazon in Australia, Mexico, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates.

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Magic Leap’s Next AR Headset to Ship in Q4 2021, Promising Larger FOV & More Compact Design

Road to VR

Magic Leap CEO Peggy Johnson took the stage at the Future Investment Initiative (FII) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia this past week to talk a bit about her time as the company’s new leader.

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Alleged Apple Trademarks Point to ‘Reality’ Branding for Long-rumored Mixed Reality Headset

Road to VR

Trademark applications were filed earlier this month in the US, EU, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Costa Rica and Uruguay for three names: Reality One, Reality Pro, and Reality Processor, Bloomberg reports.

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Microsoft Exec Peggy Johnson to Take Over as CEO of Magic Leap

Road to VR

A recent $350 million funding round has ensured the company more runway as it no doubt strives to justify its already massive $3 billion funding, which has arrived from sources including Google, Alibaba, Qualcomm, AT&T, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, and Axel Springer.

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Countries Invested in Drilling for Oil Unsure About This Not Drilling for Oil Thing

GizModo VR

Oil-producing heavyweights like Russia and Saudi Arabia will not go quietly into the night.

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#1168: “The Anticipation of Rain” Combines Open Brush Landscape VR Painting of a Monsoon with Custom Scents

Voices of VR

I also wanted to learn a bit more about what’s happening with VR in Saudi Arabia, as she was one of five selected projects amongst a tout of 231 in a competition there. I also wanted to learn a bit more about what’s happening with VR in Saudi Arabia, as she was one of five selected projects amongst a tout of 231 in a competition there

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Snapchat’s Latest Lens Studio Update Is A Game Changer For AR Creators

VRScout

14 new landmarks and 6 AR templates make their way to the desktop app. This week Snapchat further deepened its commitment to AR technology with the release of a new update for Lens Studio, the companies official desktop app for the creation of AR ‘Lenses,’ which adds fourteen new “Landmarks,” as well as six additional Lense templates. Debuted back in April, Snapchat’s “Landmarkers” Lenses bring famous locations all around the world to life in AR.

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Data Dive: How Much Does AR Influence Shopping?

AR Insider

France and Saudi Arabia. A R’s role in marketing and commerce continues to ratchet up as brands see that it’s working. This plays out through performance and ROI in ad campaigns, as well as signals that AR is gaining traction among consumers as a shopping utility.

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BBC to Stream Major World Cup 2018 Matches in UK on PSVR, Cardboard, Oculus Go & Gear VR

Road to VR

The VR app is said hit the respective app stores closer to the first match, which starts on June 14th with the Russia vs. Saudi Arabia match to kick it off. The BBC is bringing live coverage of all 33 of its licensed World Cup 2018 matches from Russia to a new dedicated app, dubbed BBC Sport VR – FIFA World Cup Russia 2018.

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Magic Leap Raises $280M from Japanese Telecom NTT DOCOMO

Road to VR

The company’s penultimate investment round netted the AR startup $461 million in March 2018, led by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign investment arm. Magic Leap, one of the most well-funded startups in history, just took on a $280 million investment from Japan-based mobile phone operator NTT DOCOMO. As Japan’s largest mobile operator, Docomo is slated to be Magic Leap’s exclusive telecommunications partner in Japan.

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Is Virtual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca a solution during Pandemic time?

EON Reality

Saudi Students have developed this Virtual and Augmented Reality Homework consisting of The Hajj, the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the holiest city for Muslims. Is Virtual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca a solution during Pandemic time?

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Snapchat Plus is official for $3.99, but it doesn't let you turn off ads

Mashable VR

Snapchat Plus is rolling out next week in the following markets: United States, Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates

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Magic Leap Founder Rony Abovitz to Step Down as CEO

Road to VR

Since its founding in 2011, Magic Leap has amassed over $3 billion in capital from investors such as Google, Saudi Arabia’s Venture Capital Fund, Alibaba, and Axel Springer, making it one of the most well-funded startups in tech history.

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Twitter says it will no longer amplify accounts run by states 'engaged in armed interstate conflict'

Mashable VR

But what about Saudi Arabia ? As Russia's war in Ukraine enters its 40th day, social media platforms are still working to update their policies to reflect the ongoing situation.