Pokemon Go was undeniably one of 2016’s biggest gaming success stories, offering a wholly new mobile experience that hinged on location-based gameplay and augmented reality technology. Today at WWDC 2017, Apple unveiled ARKit, a new platform that will allow developers to integrate computer vision into their projects with greater ease than ever before.
Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi, debuted ARKit with a live demonstration on stage. He used an iPhone to run a test application that could place virtual objects on a surface in front of him at the touch of a button.
The coffee cup that Federighi set on the table remained in place as he moved around with his iPhone in hand, without the kind of stuttering or unwanted rotation that can break immersion in this kind of experience. He went on to add a lamp to the scene, which cast a realistic shadow from the coffee cup to demonstrate the way virtual objects can interact.
ARKit will provide fast, stable motion tracking that developers can build into their apps. It’s capable of seeking out planes like tables and floors, it can estimate how much ambient light is in the vicinity, and it’s capable of balancing the scale of various objects to ensure the scene is congruent.
The utility will apparently work alongside third-party frameworks like Unity and Unreal as well as Apple’s own SceneKit to give developers more freedom in their creative process.
Apple is bullish that ARKit will become the largest AR platform in the world overnight, thanks to the hundreds of millions of iPads and iPhones already out in the wild, already capable of running content created using the tools. The company has already been working with some big-name partners, with IKEA and Lego both having experimented with the platform.
Meanwhile, Niantic has used ARKit to make Pokemon Go even more immersive. The way that Pokemon are rendered in real-world environments has been improved, integrating them into their environment with a greater sense of place and space.
Wingnut AR, a sister studio of Peter Jackson’s movie production company, then demonstrated its usage of the technology on stage. A standard table top was transformed into a sci-fi battle, with explosions and artillery covering the surface and spilling out into the ‘skies’ above.
ARKit is set to launch as part of iOS 11 later this year.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.