There are people here in Las Vegas and it’s beginning to look a lot like CES again. A little sticker that says “I was at CES 2022” reminds us that only a hearty few made last year’s trip. As anticipation builds for the Thursday, January 5 opening of the CES exhibits, CTA’s vice president of research Steve Koenig kicked off the pre-show media briefings with his take on “Tech Trends to Watch.” Artificial intelligence, Web 3.0, digital health and augmented reality predictively top his list with a distinctive side note: Watch how enterprise — business at scale — innovates on top of recent tech innovations. Continue reading CES: Steve Koenig Reveals This Year’s Tech Trends to Watch

Meta, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services and Dutch mapping company TomTom have joined forces with The Linux Foundation to give Google a run for its money in the maps space with the launch of the Overture Maps Foundation to build interoperable open map data. “Mapping the physical environment and every community in the world, even as they grow and change, is a massively complex challenge that no one organization can manage,” Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin said. Overture’s mission is to create an extensible mapping framework that will enable companies to contribute their own data, constantly refreshing as the physical world changes. Continue reading Meta, Microsoft, AWS Want to Map the Future with Overture

Apple has reportedly registered the name xrOS in association with its upcoming extended reality eyewear, expected to be released in 2023. The xrOS moniker represents a switch from another operating system’s name, realityOS, that had been used internally with regard to the device. Whatever the new system is eventually called, the highly anticipated gear will be Apple’s first major debut in a new product category since the Apple Watch was introduced in 2015. Apple’s wearables division contributed more than $41 billion to the company’s bottom line in the last fiscal year, accounting for about 10 percent of its overall sales revenue. Continue reading Apple Registers xrOS, Likely to Power Mixed Reality Headset

The industry is buzzing about a new Sony product called Mocopi that offers motion capture priced for consumers. The Meta Quest-compatible Mocopi utilizes six tracking bands to be worn on the head, back, hands and feet. Priced at 49,500 yen (or about $358), Sony announced Mocopi on its Japanese YouTube channel, with a U.S. release expected toward the end of January 2023. Touted as a way to operate avatars in the metaverse or make videos, Mocopi will have an SDK that can import motion data into 3D animations. Continue reading Sony Targets the Metaverse with Consumer Motion Capture

Google is starting to publicly roll out many of the new features introduced at its Search On event in September. Spanning Google Search, Shopping and Maps, the tools let consumers do things like search their favorite restaurant dish by name, like “truffle mac and cheese near me.” A visual search experience for Maps called Live View lets users glimpse street scenes in cities including London, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, San Francisco and Tokyo. And an AR shopping feature invites people to try on everything from makeup to accessories using a library of 148 models. Continue reading Google Intros New Features for Search, Maps and Shopping

Information continues to trickle out regarding Apple’s new reality altering headset, expected to hit the market next year, possibly as soon as April. Bloomberg reports it will be powered by a Mac-level M2 chip, with more than 10 cameras facing both outward and inward and “the highest-resolution displays ever featured in a mass-market headset,” although the price tag, forecast as between $2,000 and $3,000, doesn’t sound mainstream. The first version of realityOS the company has developed is codenamed Oak. Apple is also reportedly developing 3D content for the new platform. Continue reading Apple Said to Be Developing 3D Content for realityOS Headset

On October 22, ETC@USC began a one-week student challenge on “The Future of Themed Experiences.” Leveraging the tools, techniques and resources of today and those that could emerge in the next few years, students were asked to come up with an original idea for an experience that: 1) has a specific location-based experience, and 2) extends the experience out into the real and virtual worlds before and after the person has the location-based experience. Eighteen 3-minute pitch videos were submitted and an esteemed panel of industry executives chose to reward five of them. All 18 videos with follow-up Q&A discussions are available online. Continue reading ETC@USC Student Challenge: Future of Themed Experiences

The Meta Quest Pro is making its way to reviewers, who say that the pricey $1,500 mixed reality headset from Meta Platforms will be out of reach for most consumers but could be a natural upgrade to business users who want to upgrade from the Quest 2. Offering augmented reality in color and avatars with nuanced facial expressions, the Quest Pro is a productivity tool “ideal for builders, architects, engineers, designers, and others” who want to create or work in immersive environments. For everyone else, a consumer-priced Meta Quest 3 will be arriving in late 2023. Continue reading Reviews Are in for Meta Quest Pro, Quest 3 to Arrive in 2023

After seeing its stock plunge more than 60 percent this year, Meta Platforms posted another decline, with Q3 revenue falling 4 percent, to $27.7 billion, from $29 billion for the same period last year. CEO Mark Zuckerberg told analysts that on a constant currency basis “total revenue grew slightly this quarter,” adding that “we’re still behind where I think we should be, but we believe that we will return to healthier revenue growth trends next year,” though just in case “we’re planning our budget somewhat more conservatively.” Meanwhile, Facebook’s number of daily active users hit 1.98 billion, a 3 percent gain year-over-year. Continue reading Meta Revenue Falls Despite Facebook Attracting More Users

Snap Inc. reported its slowest-ever quarterly growth, with revenue up 6 percent to $1.13 billion year-over-year in Q3. Due in part to a 25 percent spending increase, Snapchat’s parent logged a net loss of $359 million, far exceeding the $72 million loss a year prior. Interestingly, Snap increased daily active users by 19 percent, to 363 million (surpassing analyst predictions of 358 million). Snap, like virtually every social media platform, has struggled to maintain revenue growth since Apple’s 2021 privacy changes made it harder to target ads. Continue reading Snap Adds Users but Experiences Its Slowest Revenue Growth

ClipperVision is the new direct-to-consumer regional streaming service for viewing Los Angeles Clippers basketball games and related content. The six channel options will make more than 70 of 84 regular season games available to fans located primarily in Southern California for $200 per season. Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer purchased the LA Clippers for $2 billion in 2014 and has since been strategizing an improved television platform for the franchise. The new offering makes the Clippers the first NBA team to host its own streaming platform, accessible without any additional TV subscription. Continue reading Clippers Become First NBA Team to Host a Streaming Service

Meta Platforms unveiled its anticipated mixed reality headset yesterday at Meta Connect. The $1,500 Quest Pro, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced as “the first in our new line of advanced headsets,” becomes the first full-color AR/VR device to hit the U.S. market on October 25. Although Meta is positioning the Quest Pro as a productivity device, the thrust was that app makers will be encouraged to develop for it. Meta also announced that NBCUniversal content and Microsoft Office, Windows, Teams and Xbox Cloud Gaming are coming to Meta Quest headsets. Continue reading AR/VR Meta Quest Pro Targets Productivity Sector for $1,500

Meta Platforms is expanding its advertising inventory with new units in Facebook, Instagram and Messenger. Advertisers now have a new way to feature ads on Instagram’s Explore page, which displays content based on user preferences and routines. The Profile pages for all adult Instagram users will also carry advertising and select influencers will be eligible to push ads into their feeds as a way to potentially earn revenue. Messenger is going to use machine learning to program ads to likely purchasers. And Facebook Reels are getting “post-loop ads,” which creators and brands can slot between short videos. Continue reading Facebook, Instagram and Messenger Offering New Ad Units

Online game company and mobile app developer NetDragon Websoft has invested $40 million in Rokid, maker of 5G-friendly AR glasses for business applications. Both companies are based in China. NetDragon has been in the news this past month when it became the first company to appoint an AI as its “rotating CEO.” Following the Rokid announcement, it appears the firm may be interested in developing lifelike AI characters to inhabit its games and augment teaching and enhance its AR initiatives, though to hear NetDragon actual CEO, Liu Dejian tell it, the company can learn a lot from its new c-suite addition, Tang Yu. Continue reading Chinese Game Company Appoints AI CEO and Invests in AR

Despite speculation that Apple will debut a realityOS (rOS) headset next year, CEO Tim Cook says the metaverse is not yet ready for prime time, telling a European publication he’s “really not sure the average person can tell you what the metaverse is.” On a continental excursion that included a commencement address at the University of Naples Federico II in Italy, Cook appeared bullish on augmented reality, while downplaying virtual reality, the technology around which Meta Platforms is building its future. “I think AR is a profound technology that will affect everything,” Cook told the magazine Bright. Continue reading Cook Hints Apple’s First realityOS Glasses Will Be AR, not VR