The Xreal One Pro AR glasses have raised the stakes for those competing in the wearable augmented reality space, according to some CES 2025 attendees. The eyewear, which debuted at the show, updates the Xreal One, released in the U.S. last month. The Pro’s cinematic virtual display (of up to 447 inches) comes with 57-degree field of view, an improvement over the Xreal One’s 50-degree FOV. Xreal says the Pro model offers “professional-grade color accuracy.” An optional detachable 12MP camera, Xreal Eye, captures photos and video. The new model will sell for $500 starting in March. Continue reading CES: Xreal One Pro AR Glasses Are Thinner, with Greater FOV

Long billed as a manifestation of augmented reality (AR), the field of smart glasses has seen a wide range of products emerging on the market over the years. Notable products include the Ray-Ban Meta collection (a collaboration with Meta Platforms), Microsoft’s Hololens, and Vuzix’s entire product line. A survey at CES this year indicated the market of head-worn wearable computers is by no means a mature market. Our team found a few companies demonstrating their latest offerings. The principals of these companies believe their innovations differentiate from the current field with their own paths for solving specific use cases. Continue reading CES: Companies Present AR Use Cases for New Smart Glasses

BMW has revealed an upcoming release of its iDrive operating system that essentially turns the entire windshield into a 3D heads-up display. The “close-to-production” version of BMW Panoramic Vision showcased at CES 2025 integrates augmented reality to layer navigational directions and driver assistance tips onto the windshield. It also does away with the conventional dashboard “gauge cluster,” projecting digital equivalents onto the windshield that can be customized. The setup is powered by the new BMW Operating System X and will be introduced in all new BMW models from the end of 2025. Continue reading CES: BMW iDrive Turns the Car Windshield into an AR Display

CES Unveiled 2025 offered a preview of new technologies two days ahead of the official opening of the massive CES show floor in Las Vegas on January 7. From AI-powered tools and robotics to energy-saving innovations and immersive displays, the event showcased a spectrum of advancements. Among the more notable highlights included cognitive AI demonstrated by Neural Lab, the latest brain-computer interface tech from Naqi Logix, AR and smart glasses developed by companies such as Rokid and Mustard, and a variety of interesting video- and audio-related offerings to be showcased at CES. Continue reading CES Unveiled: Preview of Tech to Be Featured at Trade Show

DJI, a leading maker of consumer drones, is releasing Goggles N3 — first-person view (FPV) eyewear that offers improvements over its predecessor, Goggles 3, for less than half the original list price. Currently on preorder for $299 from DJI and Amazon, Goggles N3 has the same 1080p display as the earlier model with a wider field of view — 54 versus 44 degrees. The new product is also lighter than Goggles 3, with a bigger viewing cabin that can accommodate even very large eyeglasses, eliminating the need for diopter adjustments or custom lenses for prescription wearers. Continue reading DJI Intros New First-Person View Drone Goggles N3 for $299

D-ID has launched two new types of AI-powered avatars: Premium+ and Express. The company’s video-to-video avatar tools aim to provide personal look-alikes that can sub for their creators in uses ranging from instructional videos to business presentations, offloading on-camera duties in areas including sales, marketing and customer support. “Premium+ Avatars can generate hyper-realistic digital humans that are indistinguishable from real people and will serve as the foundation for fully interactive digital agents revolutionizing how brands communicate,” while Express Avatars can rapidly generate serviceable avatars “from just one minute of source footage.” Continue reading D-ID’s New Business-Use Avatars Can Converse in Real Time

Just in time for the holiday season, Google Shopping is launching an AI-powered personalized feed that recommends items customers might like. The redesign is coming to desktop and mobile devices in the U.S. in the coming weeks. Suggested items are based on search and YouTube histories as well as AI inference. Shoppers will get “an AI-generated brief with top things to consider” in finding the right item, plus a curated feed of products. For now, the brief will be labeled “experimental,” and Google is encouraging feedback for the times AI doesn’t get it 100 percent right. Continue reading Google Shopping Redesigned with Gemini Feed, Infinite Scroll

Apple has released a new AI model called Depth Pro that can create a 3D depth map from a 2D image in under a second. The system is being hailed as a breakthrough that could potentially revolutionize how machines perceive depth, with transformative impact on industries from augmented reality to self-driving vehicles. “The predictions are metric, with absolute scale” without relying on the camera metadata typically required for such mapping, according to Apple. Using a consumer-grade GPU, the model can produce a 2.25-megapixel depth map using a single image in only 0.3 seconds. Continue reading Apple Advances Computer Vision with Its Depth Pro AI Model

Meta has secured rights to the voices of actors Judi Dench, Kristen Bell, John Cena and others for its Meta AI chatbot, a ChatGPT-like digital assistant that is part of the plan for conversational AI as part of the multimodal Llama 3.2. Also revealed at Meta Connect this week was Orion, “the most advanced glasses the world has ever seen,” queued up to become Meta’s “first consumer full holographic AR glasses,” though they won’t be available anytime soon. A low-priced Quest 3 mixed reality headset, the $299 Quest 3S, will be arriving in time for the holidays, however. Continue reading Meta Reveals Orion Concept Glasses, Celeb Voices, Quest 3S

From exercising in outer space to navigating via Google Earth VR, HTC has made inroads with its Vive headsets. The new mixed reality model, the Vive Focus Vision XR, has color passthrough and 2448 x 2448 resolution per-eye. Aiming squarely at the enterprise and high-end gaming markets, it accommodates tethered PCVR or standalone play, while IPD eye tracking makes it suitable for high-volume environments, like training or industrial use. Available for $999 for the consumer platform and $1,299 for enterprise, this latest iteration in the Focus Vision series is also made for location-based experiences. Continue reading HTC’s $1000 Vive Focus Vision XR is Built for Work and Fun

A newly redesigned Snapchat experience is built around a three-tab user interface called Simple Snapchat. As part of that effort, the social platform is launching more generative video features, including text-to-video as part of the app’s Lens Studio AR authoring tool. Easy Lens allows the quick generation of Lenses by typing text prompts, making it possible to do things like experiment with Halloween costumes or explore looks for back to school. Launching in beta for select creators, Snap says the new features are designed for all ability levels. The company is also updating its GenAI Suite and adding an Animation Library of “hundreds of high-quality movements.” Continue reading Snapchat Is Getting a Redesign and Generative Text-to-Video

Snap is rolling out its fifth generation of Spectacles — standalone AR glasses that enable use of Lenses to “experience the world together with friends.” The firm is also launching a Spectacles Developer Program, and at a rental fee of $99 per month, that’s who the devices are aimed at, for now. Spectacles are powered by Snap OS, optimized to leverage people’s natural responses to interacting with their environment. They work seamlessly with mobile devices, turning smartphones into custom game controllers with Lenses. There’s even a Spectator Mode, “so friends without Spectacles can follow along, mirror your phone screen, and more.” Continue reading Snap Targets Developers with $99 per Month AR Spectacles

VFusion3D is the latest AI model unveiled by Meta Platforms, which developed it in conjunction with the University of Oxford. The powerful model, which uses single-perspective images or text prompts to generate high-quality 3D objects, is being hailed as a breakthrough in scalable 3D AI that can potentially transform sectors including VR, gaming and digital design. The platform tackles the challenge of scarce 3D training data in a world teeming with 2D images and text descriptions. The VFusion3D approach leverages what the developers call “a novel method for building scalable 3D generative models utilizing pre-trained video diffusion models.” Continue reading Meta, Oxford Advance 3D Object Generation with VFusion3D

Facebook parent Meta announced better-than-expected earnings for Q2 last week, surpassing Wall Street estimates for revenue and profit. The company plans to continue spending heavily on artificial intelligence and virtual reality, despite significant losses in its AR/VR and metaverse businesses. Meta reported a revenue increase of 22 percent from $32 billion for the same quarter last year, representing four straight quarters of growth exceeding 20 percent. The company noted that net income jumped 73 percent to $13.47 billion. Advertising revenue, largely from Facebook and Instagram, was up 22 percent year-over-year. Continue reading Meta Reports Q2 Digital Ad Growth, Will Continue AI Spending

Meta Platforms is bringing its Meta AI assistant to Quest 3 headsets in the U.S. and Canada. As part of the company’s ongoing collaboration with Microsoft, Quest 3’s Horizon OS will also get access to real-time information courtesy of Bing search. The update will also bring Meta AI with Vision — already integrated with the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses — to Horizon OS, initially just in passthrough mode. “These changes will begin rolling out in the U.S. and Canada in experimental mode next month — and we’ll continue to improve the experience over time,” Meta explains. Continue reading Meta Brings AI Assistant, AI Vision to Some Quest Headsets