Pokémon Comes to Augmented Reality – Weekly Mashup 128

Augmented Reality Game Pokémon GO Will Have you Scouring Your City for Monsters
The Next Web

"Niantic Labs has revealed details about its upcoming augmented reality game, Pokémon GO, which it first announced in September 2015. Based on the wildly popular Japanese franchise and developed in collaboration with Nintendo, the title will see players explore their real-world surroundings to find and catch Pokémon. You’ll want to dust off your walking shoes if you intend to get ahead in the game. Some Pokémon will appear only in their native habitats. For example, water types might be found only near lakes and oceans." Read More

Virtual Reality Is Cool; This May Be Bigger
Wall Street Journal

"Augmented-reality technology mixes the real world with objects that aren’t really there. Investors contemplating the “next big thing” in tech should appreciate the irony in this. At the moment, virtual, not augmented, reality has the spotlight. VR made a splash this year thanks to the technology’s early focus on videogames. Augmented reality, on the other hand, will have to wait. While some companies sell specialized, expensive smartglasses for businesses, major efforts remain shrouded. Microsoft, which holds a developers conference this week, plans to get its HoloLens device to developers later this year. A market launch is a way off. Google’s on-again, off-again smartglasses project is apparently back on again, though details aren’t known." Read More

HoloLens TED Talk Shows What Augmented Reality can Do
Engadget

"If you think you have a sense of what Microsoft's HoloLens headset can do, you're in for a pleasant surprise. The company's Alex Kipman recently presented a TED Talk on HoloLens that included multiple fresh demos illustrating Kipman's vision of an augmented reality future. He showed off virtual caves and forests, and a space where you could watch TV at one moment and talk to family in the next. The highlight, however, comes near the end: Kipman talks to an avatar of NASA's Jeffrey Norris standing on a recreation of Mars. Suddenly, Star Wars' holograms aren't so far-fetched." Read More

Google may Reportedly add Augmented Reality Support to its Camera App
VentureBeat

"Google is rumored to be looking at bringing augmented reality to its camera app. If that’s true, the company would leverage technology from Google Goggles, allowing you to see relevant search results like nearby restaurants, transit information, and recommended retailers. Details given to Android Authority through an anonymous source state that the integration would include a new feature “allowing users to outline specific areas of the image” in order to directly target their searches. This would be an improvement on the current iteration of Google Goggles, which only allows you to search whole images." Read More

Toyota Patents Augmented-reality Windshield
CNET

"Have you ever had a lane departure warning system start shouting at you, when you were absolutely sure you weren't venturing out of the lane? What if you had a head-up display that instead could relay that information to you in real time using augmented reality? That's what one of Toyota's recent patents looks to do." Read More

With New Acquisition, Tinder Gets Into 'Augmented Reality'
Popular Science

"The dating startup is announcing its second acquisition today, buying a company called Humin that specializes in figuring out the context of social connections. But Humin isn’t a dating app or a social network. With this addition the company, Tinder is starting to break from the mold in which it was formed. Humin CEO Ankur Jain, who will join Tinder as VP of product and head of special projects, says that Tinder’s longterm play is to help manage more of our social interactions." Read More

Augmented Reality Startup Daqri Acquires Hologram Maker To Take On Microsoft HoloLens
Forbes

"Daqri, a little-known startup that makes a remarkably-capable helmet with a visor that projects digital information onto the real world, has big ambitions: It wants to put augmented reality everywhere and take on the likes of HoloLens from Microsoft and Magic Leap. To do that, it needs holograms. That’s why Daqri, which is based in Los Angeles, has agreed to acquire Two Trees Photonics, a U.K.-based company building holographic technology based on research coming out of Cambridge University. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed." Read More