AR glasses company Tilt Five raised $7.5 million from investors in a Series A round led by SIP Global.
The investment marks a major moment for Jeri Ellsworth’s patented approach to tabletop augmented reality. For those just catching up, Ellsworth is an electrical engineer who worked at Valve in the early days of its VR and AR research. She developed a novel approach to AR delivery with a pair of tracked glasses that project light onto a special retroreflective surface. The result is a field of view for AR that’s on par with modern day VR headsets — as long as you’re looking at things with the glasses that are backed by that special reflective surface. You’re also not blocked off from the real world like a VR headset, so you’re able to see your friends around the table with you through the AR glasses.
Jeri Ellsworth
If you’re wearing these glasses an otherwise still and flat board game could transform into one filled with life, movement and the sense of seeing real depth below anything within the board’s borders. An expansion piece extending the reflective surface vertically could even add some height to the virtual content displayed by Tilt Five.
A Kickstarter project for Tilt Five raised $1.7 million in October 2019, with delivery of the first PC-powered AR glasses kits originally promised to arrive in mid-2020. That timeline has come and gone with the global pandemic affecting hardware development timelines everywhere. In its funding announcement, the company wrote that it was ramping up production and would “commence shipping kits to Kickstarter backers and pre-order customers over the coming two quarters.”
Tilt Five is still offering its XE kits for pre-order, promising a pair of AR glasses, game board and wand for $359. Sometime in 2021 the company is planning to sell “Social Kits” with “3 AR glasses, 3 wands and a gameboard,” according to the announcement. Tilt Five’s investment round is led by SIP Global Partners with SIP’s Jeffrey Smith joining the startup’s board. BITKRAFT Ventures, Galaxy Interactive, Logitech, and Ken Birdwell participated in the round. The money will be used “to hire additional employees, build partnerships, and expand available content.”
“Our team has been so small for the last few years,” Ellsworth wrote in a direct message. “I’m so happy we’ll be able to bring on some more folks.”
$7.5 million isn’t exactly a huge amount compared to the hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars Rony Abovitz spent pursuing an AR dream at Magic Leap in Florida. The funding round is also half of what Ellsworth’s previous company, CastAR, raised in 2015 from Playground Global while working on what amounts to an earlier generation of Tilt Five’s technology.
Tilt Five “Through The Lens” image provided by the startup.
“The environment for XR startups is much different these days,” Ellsworth wrote. “There was this notion that this new market would evolve much faster than other markets in the past. Companies were raising/spending billions and making claims that within a few short years they’d completely replace all the ways we do our computing. I can’t point to a time in tech history where any tech change happened this fast. It was like everyone was ignoring Moore’s law and forgetting how difficult it is to change consumer habits. This is why we’re in a good position right now (post-hype) with a very practical system designed specifically for entertainment, with a clear use case and marketing message that customers will understand.”
Tilt Five still needs to deliver on its Kickstarter promises of a great tabletop gaming experience. And even then? The company’s path to success is unclear beyond successful delivery. Still, if Tilt Five does find any measure of success in 2021 or beyond it might represent one of the most remarkable underdog stories in modern tech history.
The iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max lets users instantly measure someone’s height using AR, thanks to the newly-added LiDAR scanner equipped on the new pro models.
The feature is available in Apple’s Measure app, and uses LiDAR-enhanced AR to measure the height of any person standing in-frame. You can measure to the top of their hat, head or hair, and it even works with people who are sitting down in a chair too.
The feature is only available for the high-end iPhone 12 Pro or 12 Pro Max models. The standard iPhone 12 and the upcoming iPhone 12 Mini do have AR capabilities, but do not include the LiDAR scanner which enhances AR functionality. The omission of the height measuring feature on the standard and mini models suggest that the LiDAR sensor is the missing ingredient on those phones.
When using the Measure app on a 12 Pro or 12 Pro Max, the feature should work automatically — all you have to do is position the phone’s camera so that the person you’re measuring appears in-frame from head to toe. After that, an AR overlay should soon appear with a line marking the top of the person’s head and their measure height. You can tap the photo button in the bottom right to take a screenshot of the measurement, accessible anytime in your photo library.
With the inclusion of the LiDAR sensor, this measurement feature is just one of many expected advancements for AR on iPhone 12 Pro models. “iPhone 12 Pro uses a LiDAR Scanner to measure how long it takes light to reflect back from objects,” Apple explains on its website. “So it can create a depth map of whatever space you’re in. Because it’s ultrafast and accurate, AR apps can now transform a room into a realistic rainforest or show you how a new sneaker will fit.”
Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit is an ambitious attempt to bring the fabled racing series into your home, pairing a physical, camera-equipped RC kart with an AR-powered Nintendo Switch game. But does the game get take first place or stall at the starting line? Here’s our Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit Review.
Mario Kart Live’s premise is crazy, almost too crazy to be pulled off reliably — it’s a physical Mario Kart RC, controlled by a Nintendo Switch, which then displays the kart’s POV with a camera that’s mounted on top. As if that weren’t enough, the game overlays graphics onto the camera view to present an AR experience capable of fully recreating the Mario Kart experience. The catch is that courses are designed by you, and you race through your own home.
It may sound too good to be true, but for the most part it’s not. Mario Kart Live works incredibly well most of the time, provided you have the right setup for it. It’s a barrel of fun and has all the bells and whistles of a normal Mario Kart game — nothing is left behind here. It’s Mario Kart as you know it, except with your own custom AR courses mapped however you like across your home.
What you quickly realize is that there’s just as much fun in creating your courses as there is in playing them — you can make a course any shape, any size and decorate it with household items. It’s amazing to watch a game that’s as iconic as Mario Kart be played out around you, surrounded by a course made up of your own possessions.
The pairing process is quick and easy, and within minutes I was laying out the bones for wacky courses around my coffee table, peppered with household decorations for good effect. One night, I even went all out and set up disco lighting around a course peppered with game controls sitting at camera’s eye-level for decoration. The results you can get from being a bit creative, even before properly playing the game, are impressive.
What’s included
In the box is one Mario or Luigi kart, a small USB-C to USB-A charging cable, two cardboard direction indicators (that come to life with AR, animated to indicate a sharp turn up ahead) and four collapsible cardboard gates, which you’ll use to mark out your course. You can place the cardboard gates anywhere you want, provided it’s within the signal range, but you’ll need to use furniture or heavy items to hold them in place. Even just a small nudge that misplaces them slightly can throw off the AR tracking.
You’ll also need a Nintendo Switch or Nintendo Switch Lite console, which is not included. There’s no way to control or connect to the Kart without a Switch and the accompanying Mario Kart Live software from the eshop, which is free to download.
AR Technical Stuff
In terms of the technical side of things, the AR technology works better than expected and is overall pretty good, with a few nitpicks. Given we’re talking about a Nintendo Switch paired with a physical, camera-equipped Mario Kart, it’s a remarkably impressive use of custom AR technology. It certainly works better, and is more fun, than any other AR game I’ve personally tried.
Before starting a race, you drive your kart through each gate to create a course, which is then displayed on the floor as an AR overlay. Plus, despite all races taking place in real life, Mario Kart Live uses AR to theme each race in a similar manner to traditional Mario Kart games. Each race has AR overlays that appear on the gates and are peppered over the racing track itself, with an impressive amount of AR assets and obstacles for each theme.
For the nostalgic World 1-1 track, for example, the gates are appropriately themed in the colors and pixelated style of Mario’s first ever 1-1 level, as pictured above. You even have to dodge 2D pixelated Goombas that move across the track.
However, there’s a lot more at risk here — if you bump into a Goomba, you risk veering off course and bumping into furniture, which can really set you back. The use of physical karts really points out how much work the regular Mario Kart games do to catch players up when they get sidelined.
Speaking of furniture, there’s no AR occlusion either, which means that real-life obstacles you place around or in the middle of your course might look odd in-game at times. For example, when I used a footstool in the middle of a course to act as an obstacle to loop around, there was no AR occlusion for the AI enemies, so they don’t disappear when they move behind it.
Gameplay
Let’s get one thing straight — this may be a toy, but it definitely isn’t a simplified version of Mario Kart. Mario Kart Live has almost all the features of the series’ mainline games, except it’s in your living room. There are all the staples like items, environmental obstacles and, of course, absolute chaos. When playing single player with just one physical kart, you can play in a Grand Prix mode against four AI Koopalings, or you can do a Custom Race mode where you can pick the theme and customize each gate.
The physical kart is well built and seems sturdy enough to take some wear and tear. This is a good thing, because you will bump into every piece of furniture in the house. It has a remarkably tight turning circle that matches the feel of existing Mario Kart games, and while it’s not particularly fast in real life, it feels it in-game.
The kart also reacts to in-game events — if you use a mushroom in-game, your kart will speed up in real life. If you get hit by a shell, the physical kart will stop in its tracks too. Surprisingly, the kart can even drift, which will give you a speed boost, as you would expect. Technically the real kart doesn’t actually ‘drift’ — it just slows down and does a very tight turn — but in-game your avatar will adjust to a drifting position, which is an effect that works really well.
There’s a fairly decent, if expectedly shallow, progression system in Mario Kart Live that sees coins collected from races go towards unlockable cosmetics and rewards for your karts. There’s kart skins, Mario/Luigi costumes and kart horns. Plus, the 150cc and 200cc modes are initially locked — you’ll have to win a few trophies in the Grand Prix mode to unlock them.
Multiplayer
Of course, the big multiplayer draw is playing with two physical karts in a local multiplayer race. Sadly, I only received one review unit so I can’t comment on how well it works or how fun it is, but other UploadVR staff members who bought two units remarked that it worked well enough for them without any major problems.
There is also a time trial mode that will let you pass the control between players and take turns to see who gets the best time on your course, but let’s be honest — two karts will be where the real multiplayer is at.
Connectivity, Reliability and Areas of Play
For the most part, in good conditions, I found that the connection and reliability of the game was pretty remarkable. I did experience some lag in certain sections of my living room, but after some testing it seems that this is specifically a quirk with my playing space. When the Switch is positioned slightly above ground, within 5m of the kart and with good line of sight to all areas of the track, I had no problems.
It’s worth noting that the connection seems to be between your Switch and the kart, and the position of your wi-fi router is (mostly) irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if the router is in another room without line of sight, as long as the Switch and the kart are in the same play area, you should be good to go. I was even able to take the Switch and kart out to my garage and play reliably in there, despite being ages (and several walls) away from my router.
When it comes to the size of your play space, obviously the bigger the better. The amount of space you have will affect your experience, but you can make do with an area that’s relatively small. Nintendo recommends at least 3 x 3.5m, which is around what I had, and it felt a little cramped but still worked fine.
You also don’t need smooth floors — the kart works just as well on short carpet.
Nintendo says the kart is for indoor use only so, naturally, I ignored their warnings and tried it outside anyway. Sadly, the warning isn’t just for safety purposes — the AR camera must be calibrated for indoor light, because the kart’s surroundings showed up as an over-exposed white mess in-game when used in bright light outdoors. This doesn’t just affect the picture quality either — the over-exposure means that the game can’t pick up the diagrams and markings needed to recognize each gate, so you can’t plot a track or take part in any races.
In more overcast weather you might get away with it, but don’t expect to be setting up outdoor races anytime soon.
Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit Review – Final Thoughts
Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit is an amazing achievement — it’s an application of AR technology that seems too good to be true, but actually makes good on its promises. It works incredibly well, but more importantly, it’s so much fun to play. There are times where you might experience the odd glitch or connection interruption, resulting in lag, but those don’t get in the way of just how amazing the whole kit is. It’s nothing short of astonishing that Nintendo has invented a toy that lets you race a physical Mario Kart around your house in an AR-supplemented version of Mario Kart with all the gameplay bells and whistles you would expect. The odd technical glitch is far outweighed by the impressive technical achievements.
Mario Kart Live takes a concept you know and love, and makes you think about it in a new way. The races are fantastic, but there’s just as much fun to be found before you even get to the start line. The game gives you the power to make and decorate your own Mario Kart race tracks, and that unlocks the kid inside of you, no matter your age.
Apple announced a new iPhone with the same kind of Lidar 3D-sensing technology which shipped earlier this year on the iPad Pro.
The new feature on the iPhone 12 Pro promises much improved AR features, like what’s pitched as helping improve photo quality as well as instantaneous placement of virtual content into your environment. It also may make 3D scanning of objects or places in the real world a more common practice.
In 2016, UK-based Zappar released a cardboard headset named ZapBox for viewing AR experiences through your smartphone. Today, the company is revealing a refreshed model using plastic.
The new ZapBox just launched a Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign looking for $65,000. Zappar labels the new device as a Mixed Reality headset capable of delivering augmented reality content with 6DOF movement for $40 and support for virtual reality, though its definition of VR is a little liberal.
Next ZapBox AR Headset Revealed
On the hardware front, the new ZapBox delivers a halo strap-design headset with brackets to hold a smartphone in front of a pair of lenses. The kit features two marker-based 6DOF controllers with triggers and a camera adaptor to place over your phone’s camera for a wider field of view. You can use a third square marker combined with computer vision to anchor virtual content to appear in the real world.
The company says any iPhone from 6 onwards will work with the kit, though can’t individually verify Android handset compatibility. It recommends Android phones be on the “higher end of the performance spectrum” and feature a gyroscope sensor and 60FPS camera mode.
When it comes to VR, however, ZapBox proposes accessing Google Cardboard-style content with a view of the real world beyond the limits of the headset’s field of view. The company reasons this is a more comfortable and social way to experience VR without being cut off from the world, but you then have to question if it’s really VR at all.
That aside, ZapBox comes with an existing suite of content that makes use of its AR features, plus all previously-made ZapBox apps will work on the new kit.
Early bird units for ZapBox go for $35 but, once they’re gone, the price goes to $40. The company anticipates shipping the kit to consumers and developers in April 2021. For $65, developers will also get early access to the ZapBox Unity SDK in beta and an older model ZapBox to get working with.
A new video from Nintendo details what you can expect from the AR-powered racing kit Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit, set to launch later this month on October 16.
The new trailer, embedded above, confirms some details we suspected from the initial announcement footage and shows us even more features. Each kit comes with one kart (either Mario or Luigi), 4 gates, 2 arrow signboards, a USB charging cable and instructions for the game download, so you can install the required software on your Switch.
The gates are used to set up the track layout — you lay them wherever you want and then drive through them in order to define the track. You can create any path you want between each gate — you’re not just limited to standard race configurations — and some pretty wacky ones are featured in the video. The included arrow signboards will also transform when viewed in AR view, becoming the neon animated direction indicators from the main Mario Kart series (pictured below). While a big play space would obviously be better, Nintendo recommends a minimum play area of 10 x 12 feet.
In terms of gameplay, there looks to be a lot of content on offer. Just like traditional Mario Kart, there’s speed settings for 50, 100, 150 and 200cc, and you can compete in a Grand Prix against AI, with the ability to change the track layout between each race. Themed levels will also put an overlay on the AR gameplay — a water level, for example, will display a blue hue over the AR footage.
Everything that happens in-game will be reflected with the physical karts too. If you get a mushroom, your physical kart speed up. If you hit an obstacle, the kart will stop. Classic Mario Kart items such as red shells, blue shells, bananas, lightning, bloopers and bullet bill will all be available as well.
There are 24 Grand Prix race tracks, including Cheep Cheep Reef, Ember Island, Boo Fortress, Chain Chomp Gate, Rainbow Road, World 1-1 and Magikoopa Mirage. Selecting these race tracks will alter the environmental obstacles, which are themed differently depending for each track. The game will support playing against AI or with up to 4 other players total, provided each user has their own kart and Nintendo Switch.
While the initial announcement trailer looked cool, this new video has really cemented just how many features are in the game. This isn’t a stripped-down version of Mario Kart altered to work in AR, it looks like the opposite. Most elements you know and love from Mario Kart will be on offer in Home Circuit, but with an AR twist.
Off the back of Facebook Connect this week, YouTuber Marques Brownlee released an insightful conversation with Mark Zuckerberg talking about the long-term future of AR and VR technology, and Facebook’s goals for how to get there.
We recommend watching the full video if you’re interested in Zuckerberg’s thoughts on how VR and AR (especially the latter) will play out in the long-term. However, we’ve also summed up 5 of the biggest talking points from the video below with direct quotes.
1. Facebook’s investment in AR and VR
“Our company is probably investing the most in virtual and augmented reality of anyone else in the world,” Zuckerberg told Brownlee.
They went on to discuss a lot about AR as opposed to VR, and the ways in which Facebook are working toward the eventual goal of producing AR glasses. “We have thousands of people working on [AR] at Facebook,” said Zuckerberg. “Because I just do think this is going to be the next computing platform, even if it takes several years to get there.”
2. Holographic TVs?
“Once we have really good, mature AR glasses, we won’t even necessarily need other kinds of screens anymore,” said Zuckerberg. “Things like TVs, tablets, all these things could just be digital holograms.”
“I think there is going to be a crazy amount of creativity that gets unlocked, and a lot of innovation, when a lot of stuff…can just get turned into an app that can be a hologram that you can give to someone. I think that’s going to be wild.”
3. Human sonar capabilities
“Haptics are one area where you wanna feel something, you pick up a rock or an object and it kinda has more weight… that’s kinda hard to model. But I do think we’re going to get other senses through augmented and virtual reality that may not be possible in the physical world. Let’s say for example I’m feeling around my desk and my hand is getting close to a water bottle.
“Today, you don’t feel the water bottle until you touch it but it’s possible in AR and VR that we can provide some kind of sense so that as you start getting close to an object, you start feeling some kind of resistance or some sense that you’re near something, which is of course how some other animals navigate the world through sonar and different things like that.”
4. ARsthetics
“[AR] has a very high bar for aesthetics [of the device/glasses] and feeling like it’s a normal pair of glasses,” said Zuckerberg, in response to a question about whether the quality of the experience or the form factor of a VR/AR device is more important.
“If you think about the range of glasses — really thin-rimmed glasses to really thick-rimmed glasses — I don’t know if we can cram all the electronics into a very thin-rimmed glasses anytime soon. But the goal is going to be to try to get all the electronics and things we need to produce that into a normal thick rimmed glasses pair of glasses. I think that matters. But then in the mean time, for virtual reality we just want to get it as light as possible.”
“We’re definitely going to focus on just smaller, faster processor, better screens, until you get down to the retina displays.”
5. Thoughts on Google Glass?
Marques also asked Zuckerberg for his thoughts on Google Glass, and whether the device was ahead of its time. “Well I think the idea that you’re going to want some information and context there [in your eyes/glasses], it makes sense to work on that,” responded Zuckerberg. “We’ll see other types of other glasses I imagine, I don’t know what Apple or others are working on, but there’s one version that the tech can take which you can kind of think of as a smart watch on your face.”
“[A Google Glass/smart watch-style AR device] is not personally the thing that I’m super excited about building for a number of reasons,” he continued, with a shrug.
“Firstly, I come at this from the perspective of ‘How do we connect people better?’ So having some information in the corner of your eye is just not as powerful, from my perspective, as having hologram Marques here with me and being able to interact, or share objects or play a game together. That, I think, is just a completely different value proposition that is going to be harder to build, but is worth waiting for to get to that.”
“Google glass was sort of an early take on the smart watch on the face thing. I don’t know, I’m sure others will try that too, that’s not the main thing that we’re focused on trying to build.”
What did you take away from Zuckerberg’s talk with Brownlee? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
Building on the success of its augmented reality apps for smartphones, Niantic surprised attendees at Qualcomm’s December 2019 Snapdragon Tech Summit by announcing plans to offer its own consumer AR platform — hardware, software, and support for a third-party developer community. Today, the company is announcing the Niantic Planet-Scale AR Alliance, a collection of cellular partners that will help distribute “exclusive 5G ready AR content” and demonstrate 5G consumer AR experiences to the public.
Niantic’s initial partners are Deutsche Telekom, EE, Globe, Orange, SK Telecom, SoftBank, Telus, and Verizon, representing countries ranging from the United States and United Kingdom to South Korea, Japan, Australia, the Philippines, and parts of Europe. Collectively, the group’s marketing efforts and large number of retail locations could play a critical role in popularizing consumer AR across the world.
Today, Niantic said it’s “working to make AR experiences mirror the real world” and be persistent in the real world so its augmented experiences can be shared by “tens of millions of Niantic explorers.” As of now, the company says it has over 7 million “interesting and mapped locations” — likely gathered through use of the Pokémon app — as well as over 1 billion downloads of its existing apps. The company says its carrier partnerships will enable it to test the “reality blending” and synchronous multiplayer features with 5G capabilities like ultra-reliable low latency communications and edge computing, which are still in early deployment stages across the world.
Niantic’s deal with Qualcomm was one of the bigger and more closely held surprises at the Snapdragon Tech Summit, spotlighting the potentially game-changing appeal of the Snapdragon XR2 chipset. Qualcomm’s reference platform will enable OEMs to offer complete 5G-ready mixed reality headsets, including considerably more horsepower than is found in headsets such as today’s Oculus Quest. While a follow-up to the Quest VR headset is expected to hit stores this year, Facebook has suggested that its own AR headset is years off, leaving the door open for smaller but still ambitious companies to develop the nascent AR space.
Niantic announced in a tweet yesterday that Pokémon Go will no longer support certain old iPhone and Android devices after an update coming in October.
This includes the iPhone 5S and iPhone 6, as well as anything running iOS 10, iOS 11 or Android 5. While you might still be able to play for now, if you fall into one of those device categories then Pokémon Go will not be supported on your device after the October update releases.
The iPhone 5S and 6 released in 2013 and 2014 respectively, while iOS 10 and 11 launched in 2016 and 2017 and Android 5 in 2014.
In an upcoming update to Pokémon GO in October, we will end support for Android 5, iOS 10, and iOS 11, as well as iPhone 5s and iPhone 6 devices. Trainers with devices not specifically listed here will not be affected and don’t need to take any action.
This end-of-support announcement affects iPhone 5S and 6 users the hardest, as there’s no option besides buying a new phone. On the other hand, if you’re using a newer iPhone model running iOS 10 or 11, you can update your operating system to iOS 12 or above to continue to enjoy Pokémon Go after October. The same goes for Android 5 users, assuming your phone supports an update to Android 6 or higher.
While it’s always sad when a new app update ends support for devices that previously worked fine, it seems unlikely that this will affect a huge portion of the Pokémon Go player base. Nonetheless, it sucks if there’s even a few hardcore fans still enjoying the game on an iPhone 5S or 6, who will now have to purchase a new phone if they want to keep playing.
Pokémon Go launched in 2016 and became a worldwide hit. The game has been updated with lots of improvements and new content since release, including the recent addition of AR occlusion for Android devices.
Felix & Paul Studios is developing its first augmented reality (AR) project, titled The Storyteller: The Seven Ravens.
The project will feature an all-new chapter continuing the story from anthology TV series The Storyteller, created by Jim Henson in the 1980s. The new AR experience will feature a storybook that comes to life in augmented reality, with an accompanying story narrated by Neil Gaiman.
Unrelated to AR, a new Storyteller TV series is also currently in the works, led by the Jim Henson Company and written and narrated by Gaiman. According to Felix & Paul, The Seven Ravens AR experience will focus on a young girl who “sets out on an adventure to save her seven brothers from a curse that turned them into ravens.” The AR book will allow users to “interact with, explore, and re-explore the detailed and robust world of The Storyteller through the lens of The Seven Ravens tale.”
The project is co-produced by the Jim Henson Company and Felix & Paul, alongside funding from the Canadian Media Fund, the Magic Leap Independent Creators Program, Epic MegaGrants, and SODEC Quebec.
A preview of the project was shown last week at this year’s SIGGRAPH conference, held virtually, however you can also view some footage in the tweet embedded above.
Felix & Paul are known to have put out fantastic immersive VR content over the last few years, and a portal for the studio’s content became available for Oculus Quest earlier this year. The Storyteller: The Seven Ravens will be the studio’s first foray into AR content.
