Niantic has shared its vision of a “real-world metaverse” by launching the Lightship, an AR developer kit (ARDK) for AR experiences. On top of that, the company also opened a $20 million fund for developers.

John Hanke, founder and CEO of Niantic, has criticized the idea of virtual metaverse, calling it a “dystopian nightmare.” He proposed another concept of improving the real world with additional interactive objects and information using AR technology.

The Witcher: Monster Slayer, a new AR mobile game based on the famous franchise, has generated over 500K downloads in less than a week since launch. Developers, meanwhile, are now trying to fix numerous bugs and glitches.

After Microsoft got a new $22 billion contract for AR headsets, the company went on to defend its partnership with the US Army. However, a group of employees is opposed to the military deal.

Microsoft will deliver 120,000 AR headsets to the US Army. The device is based on HoloLens 2 and lets soldiers see in the dark and project additional information on a visor. The deal is worth $21.88 billion.

Facebook is developing its own operating system. Once it’s created, Facebook can move its hardware away from Android.

In 2020, XR market will be worth $8.5B. With that in mind, SuperData launched the first business intelligence platform that covers global and regional virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) segments.

Niantic is going to manufacture AR glasses and the accompanying software through the collaboration with telecommunications company Qualcomm.

Pokémon Company rolled out a new trailer for Pokémon GO in Japan saying that the game has been downloaded over 1 billion times.