Apple starts to sell coolest toy ever

Um, yes please?

Apple has begun selling LEGO’s “Hidden Side” LEGO kits. Lego is awesome, yes, but what’s better than awesome? Lego that mixes the physical toy with an augmented reality experience.

It’s a new series of LEGO sets that are based on a “chilling, creative world of ghosts,” so kids can build toys that come to life thanks to augmented reality on a smartphone.

After the sets are built, kids can view them on an iOS device for interactive augmented reality gameplay that varies based on the set.

All of the sets have unique interactions, with mysteries to solve, items to find, games to play, ghosts to collect, AND A GHOST BOSS BATTLE.

Four of the LEGO Hidden Side sets (sell below) are available from the Apple online store as of today, and will likely be available in Apple retail stores as well.

Newbury Haunted High School – $129.95
 

Paranormal Intercept Bus 3000 – $59.95
 

Wrecked Shrimp Boat – $29.95

Graveyard Mystery – $29.95

All of these kits come with mini figures, animals, and other theme related accessories as well as all of the building materials to create the intended design.

Who’s got a birthday coming up? Does 11 months count as coming up?

Facebook releases it’s future on us all

At F8, Facebook’s developer conference, the social media company introduced the way that it wants you, the end user, to see the world.

How’s that? Well, augmented.

Facebook’s augmented reality camera, or camera platform as FB calls it, will place digital imagery on the world around you. Think Pokemon Go, except…useful, realistic, change the way we see the world type stuff.

From the Sauce, Mark Zuckerberg:

“Facebook is so much about marrying the physical world with online, when you can make it so that you can intermix digital and physical parts of the world, that’s going to make a lot of our experiences better and our lives richer. Facebook is so much about marrying the physical world with online.”

From now on (actually, for a while now, but here’s where the action really starts) the camera is no longer just a tool that you use to capture images.

Now, you can change the world with it, manipulate the images that you capture as well as the environment you see through it. You’ll be able to display and intake information, add digital objects, and enhance existing objects.

Again, from the Zuck:

“The camera needs to be more central than the text box in all of our apps,” he said. “We’re making the camera the first augmented reality platform.”

At F8, the demos were on an Oculus headset, but soon, the plan is that you’ll be able to create and interact with augmented reality right on your smartphone. Or whatever replaces the smartphone – which may well be lightweight glasses, according to Zuckerberg.

And so the race begins to see who wins on creating the end augmented reality platform. Will the end product be shaped more by  software, rather than hardware? What mix will we end up with?

Over the coming months Facebook plans to give developers a chance to use its tools to create their own filters and effects for Facebook’s cameras. Developers who want to build their own apps, games, and art will be able to do so, perhaps taking the Camera in unanticipated directions.

Hi Future! *Waves* We’re in you…almost!

Is Apple bringing an AR product into the game?

There are some big rumors floating around the techisphere that Apple has partnered with German lens specialist Carl Zeiss to create Augmented Reality/mixed reality smart glasses.

It would make for some lovely symmetry if, when the world is expecting a great iPhone 8 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the groundbreaking iPhone, they instead produced another groundbreaking product… and a great iPhone 8.

The rumor has come about because of a (purposefully?) not-very-tightlipped Zeiss employee at CES, at a Zeiss booth, which had no Augemented Reality products, but was situated in the AR area.

So… not super concrete.

But it sounds good, right? Augmented reality, in case you’re wondering, is different from Virtual Reality, because it superimposes digital information and images onto your view of the world, instead of creating a whole new world (good luck getting that song out of your head now, suckers).
Think: Pokemon Go, but less annoying?

Apple CEO Tim Cook has talked-momentarily- about his interest in AR before, and that he considers it to be of a higher commercial value than Virtual Reality, and Apple does have some patents out that could relate to this possibility , but we’re just not sure if this might not be reaching a bit.

Exciting rumor for this Wednesday Afternoon though.