The Augmented Reality ecosystem is advancing fast, overcoming hard technical challenges and driving digital innovation in communication and collaboration across many industries. Here are the top stories of this month.

We are excited to announce that we have joined the Qualcomm XR program launched last year to drive the adoption of XR technologies (AR/VR) across various industries. The initiative will give immersive technology providers access to a global community of resources, business development, co-marketing opportunities, and visibility into upcoming Qualcomm’s products. We cannot wait to start creating new synergies!

Augmented Reality is a major enabler of the digital transformation within enterprises. Over the last few years, its growing improvement is empowering a more cohesive and productive use of other staple enterprise technologies such as Digital Twins, Cloud services, Machine Learning, and IoT architectures. In his article for Forbes, Nallan Sriraman, the Global Technology Strategist of Unilever, highlights all the benefits, use cases, current and future benefits of managing assets through AR solutions within a company.

Meanwhile, the spatial computing era seamlessly integrating digital with reality seems to be approaching faster than ever. Besides Apple and Facebook, Niantic is also trying to be the first to create the virtual 3D infrastructure replicating the real world, sometimes referred to as Mirrorworld, especially after acquiring 6D.ai, the leading startup in AR mapping systems. This new digital paradigm will allow live real-time AR experiences with other people sharing the same version of a location.

On the consumer side, The New York Times is changing the storytelling game through AR. Its internal AR  Lab creates filters for Instagram that any user, not only The NY Times readers, can engage with. The initiatives aim at raising awareness in a more interactive way on specific topics. For example, they released a filter showing air pollution based on the location of the user.

As Augmented Reality applications and devices become pervasive, the privacy problem looms over solutions providers, end-users, and the public at large. We need a set of new rules to protect basic human rights as personal privacy and safety. The Electronic Frontier Foundation denounces the risk of constant surveillance, which can be counteracted by clear laws, privacy-by-design engineering, and a limit to data collection from companies.