Businesses curious as to how 5G may impact operations would do well to look to South Korea, where as of November, 5G subscriptions reached 28 percent or about 20.19 million of total mobile subscriptions, according to RCR Wireless. The country not only has a substantial 5G base, but some of the fastest. Autonomous vehicles are already relying on 5G there, as are smart factories, and the proclivity consumers have shown for new technologies prompts experts to conclude the nation may lead the way in areas such as augmented reality, virtual reality and the metaverse. Continue reading South Korea a Case Study in 5G Deployment for Businesses

Announced in 2019, the Magic Leap 2 augmented reality headsets are now being demoed for reviewers, with a commercial launch set for later this year. In 2020 the company shelved consumer plans to focus on enterprise clients in areas like healthcare, manufacturing and defense, where it will compete against Microsoft’s HoloLens. Offering a significantly improved field of view compared to the original 2018 Magic Leap, the new Magic Leap 2 is also lighter and more powerful than its predecessor. The new goggles are wired to a disc-shaped processor that must be carried or clipped on for mobility. Continue reading Magic Leap 2 Lighter with Better Field of View Than Original

Moving back toward an onsite experience, the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) hybrid format for CES 2022 opened to an anticipated reduced audience compared to previous years but continued its showcase of insightful and exciting product revelations and keynote addresses. With its own hybrid makeup, the ETC@USC team’s boots on the ground in Las Vegas and remote reporting in Los Angeles identified and covered four specific areas of activities — the multiverse, augmented reality, NFTs and artificial intelligence – as well as other CES tech trends, products, keynotes and highlights. ETC’s CES 2022 Report is now available online. Continue reading ETC Releases Its CES 2022 Report: AI, AR, Multiverse, NFTs

Super Bowl 56 is now history, and the massive 70,000-square-foot Samsung Infinity Screen that debuted at the game made history, too. Hanging directly over LA’s SoFi Stadium field in an open loop, the Infinity Screen defies categorization. Not only is it the largest stadium display in the world, according to Samsung, but it is designed differently, hanging on the horizontal, with images displayed on the interior and exterior vertical surfaces, so fans can get a clear view no matter where they’re sitting. Totaling 80 million pixels, the panels soar as high as 40-feet (about four stories). Continue reading Samsung Infinity Screen: the World’s Largest Stadium Display

Popular messaging app Snapchat has added a new way for its top creators to earn money on the platform, introducing mid-roll ads in public Stories. The feature is in U.S. beta testing now with an early set of Snap Stars, who will receive a share of the revenue generated from ads within their public Stories. “Stories lower the barrier to content creation and engagement, and we believe placing ads within a Snap Star’s public Story will allow an easier path to financial success,” Snap says of the program, which it plans to roll out commercially later this year. Continue reading Snapchat Debuts Mid-Roll Ads with Revenue-Share for Stars

Meta Platforms’ Vishal Shah told attendees of the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s annual leadership meeting that the brave new virtual world his company is conjuring will offer vast opportunities for marketing and promotion without the physical constraints of real estate leases, supply chain snags and geographic inconvenience. Appearing virtually, Shah revved the engines at “The Road to the Metaverse” tour, promising brands an exciting ride, albeit one that may take 10 years to hit cruising speed. Meta is stepping on the gas to get there, investing $11 billion in its Reality Labs VR unit last year.  Continue reading Meta Hypes Numerous Benefits of Metaverse for Advertising

Dimenco’s new stereoscopic 3D display has been called “breathtaking” and the future of screen viewing. The Netherlands-based company’s Simulated Reality Pro gives the impression of images coming out of the screen without special eyewear. Dimenco defines Simulated Reality (SR) as immersive technology somewhere between augmented reality and virtual reality. Dimenco’s display tech relies on visual parallax and perspective-shifting to provide its SR experience. The viewer’s eyes are tracked by an in-unit sensor that serves discrete left- and right-eye views rapidly enough to read as a single image, allowing you to “look around” the picture elements. Continue reading Dimenco’s Glasses-Free 3D Display a Hint of Things to Come

As Facebook parent company Meta Platforms continues its planned evolution to the metaverse, observers have begun asking about Instagram. Acquired in 2012, the photo and video-sharing platform may be finding the accommodations that help it with advertisers hurt it with younger users gravitating to TikTok and Snapchat. While Meta doesn’t break out numbers for Instagram, the “family of apps” of which Instagram is a member generated $32.8 billion in Q4 revenue, all but $155 million of it from advertising, according to earnings released Wednesday. That’s an 18 percent improvement over Q4 2020. Continue reading Wall Street Ponders Instagram as Meta Posts $10.2B VR Loss

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has been busy reinventing his company since the October announcement that the parent entity would name-change to Meta Platforms, where Zuckerberg remains chairman and CEO. Traditional social media engineers and support staff workers at the company, which turns 18 this month, are being urged by managers to reapply for new positions that involve responsibilities in augmented reality and virtual reality, according to reports that say Meta is actively recruiting from tech giants such as Microsoft and Apple to fill thousands of new jobs in hardware and software. Continue reading Meta’s VR Evolution Includes New Cross-Platform 3D Avatars

Snap has secured multiyear global content collaborations with Disney, NBCUniversal and ViacomCBS. The three corporations will not only continue bringing their current shows to Snapchat’s Discover feature, but also individually plan to expand offerings in the future. The deal sees programming from ESPN, Paramount+ and E! returning to the platform. Snap says more than 100 million monthly users watch entertainment content on the short-form Snapchat Discover. The mobile app, which turned 10 last year, reported 306 million daily active users worldwide as of September 30. Continue reading Snap Renews Major Content Deals and Updates AR Shopping

Apple, the world’s most highly valued public company, hit an all-time quarterly revenue record of $123.9 billion for Q4, an 11 percent increase year-over-year. The company also saw profits up 20 percent to $34.6 billion for the quarter despite the supply chain issues that plagued the industry. “We are gratified to see the response from customers around the world at a time when staying connected has never been more important,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in the company’s earnings release, attributing the robust performance to “our most innovative lineup of products and services ever.” Continue reading Apple Has a Record $123.9 Billion Quarter Despite Chip Crisis

Meta has a VR megaphone; Apple has been working on an AR headset; and Microsoft wants the best of both worlds, with its mixed reality HoloLens and headset-agnostic Xbox game platform. But observers say don’t count Google out. The search giant is reportedly ramping up its headset efforts under the codename Project Iris with a release target of 2024. As with HoloLens and, experimentally as of last summer, Passthrough API-enabled Oculus Quest 2 headsets, Google’s device-in-progress is said to use an outward-facing camera to provide a real-world backdrop for digital images. Continue reading Google Quietly Developing Cloud-Based Android AR Goggles

Microsoft has made a nearly $70 billion offer to buy Activision Blizzard in a move that will bolster its Game Pass franchise, instantly expand its reach in mobile gaming, and create a content platform for the consumer virtual worlds that are expected to be big business in coming years. Statista estimates the global gaming market generated just over $178 billion in revenue in 2021, more than PwC projections for video streaming (almost $59 billion) and box office ($23 billion) combined. When the transaction closes, Microsoft says it will be the world’s third-largest gaming company by revenue, behind Tencent and Sony. Continue reading Microsoft Believes Activision Purchase Is ‘Key’ to Metaverse

ETC’s George Gerba and Don Levy spent Thursday navigating the Las Vegas Convention Center’s Central Hall looking for unique products from major exhibitors at CES 2022 that would be of special interest to the entertainment industry. They found a Hisense ultra-short throw projection TV, a Samsung TV with an adjustment capability that would be useful in-camera as well, Fraunhofer tech for adjusting the volume of dialog separately from other audio in a consumer device, a winged drone with impressive flight duration and speed, and a few other products of note. Continue reading CES: TV, Audio and Drone Tech Make a Splash at Central Hall

Much has been written on how gaming can be an incentive to change behavior. But can it also be used to clinically improve health outcomes? Lygeia Ricciardi, founder and chief executive of AdaRose — “a community of powerful women who are maximizing self care, health and wellness” — gathered executives at CES who said their companies have successfully used gaming to improve health for numerous use cases including pain reduction, aid in concentrating, lower drug reliance and more medical compliance as well as generally improved levels of well-being. Continue reading CES: Case Studies on How Gaming Tech Can Improve Health