Latest news with #virtualreality
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Is Apple Stock In Trouble?
Apple has failed with its first foray into virtual reality. The company is falling behind in artificial intelligence. Apple stock trades at an expensive P/E ratio. 10 stocks we like better than Apple › Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) has entered a rough patch. The smartphone and computer giant is down around 10% in the last 12 months, while artificial intelligence (AI) stocks are soaring. Management has made some major missteps in virtual reality and false promises with its Siri and Apple Intelligence services. Revenue is growing slowly, and innovation seems to be lacking for this storied technology brand. Is Apple in trouble? Here's why investors should be concerned about owning shares of this stock. Back in early 2024, Apple released the Vision Pro, an expensive virtual reality headset that it promised was the next evolution in computing. The device sold for $3,500 and had a futuristic ski-goggle look and aimed to replace the personal computer for people working at home. Apple has been researching virtual and augmented reality technologies for years, but this was its first large foray into the cutting-edge computing space. Now in June 2025, the Apple Vision Pro looks like a total flop. The company had to scale back production because of weak demand, failed to attract developers to make applications for the device, and has sold fewer than 1 million devices (reportedly) since its launch. Even if it sold 1 million of these devices a year, that equates to $3.5 billion in annual revenue, compared to $400 billion in consolidated revenue for Apple. The device isn't going to move the needle financially. The Vision Pro can officially be called a flop. New versions may change consumer sentiment, but Apple has failed in its first foray into the virtual reality space. This company is still being driven by the iPhone and iPhone software and services. Speaking of smartphones, Apple has promised customers and investors that new AI-focused updates will be coming to Apple devices shortly. Bullish investors see this as a reason for customers to upgrade their iPhones, which has been a nagging issue for the company, as customers are sticking with older devices for longer. As with the Vision Pro, Apple talked a big game around upgrades for Siri and Apple Intelligence products. However, the actual products released have been lackluster. At its annual developer conference, the company delayed the launch of AI Siri to early next year. At the same time, AI competitors, such as Alphabet and OpenAI, are pushing forward with cutting-edge productivity tools, leaving Apple in the dust. Apple does have some power in the relationship that will help get these AI tools onto its devices, but it looks like it missed the boat on AI, just as it missed the boat on cloud computing. This is why Apple's revenue has barely grown in the last few years, while the other technology leaders, like Alphabet, keep compounding to new heights. Apple's business is still about the iPhone and its related software services. It will be for some time. It's not like Apple trades at a cheap earnings ratio to reflect this stagnant growth. Apple has a price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) of 31, compared to Alphabet's, which is less than 20. This makes Apple stock extra risky at the moment. If earnings growth doesn't accelerate, Apple will be a disappointing stock to own over the next few years. There are rumblings that could take Apple's earnings into negative territory over the next few years, too. Its high-margin fees on App Store sales are under threat as the United States courts ruled it had to allow alternative payment methods. The huge fee it gets from Google Search every year to be the default search engine on Apple devices is currently being decided by the courts as possibly anticompetitive. A verdict against Apple may mean the loss of more than $20 billion in high-margin revenue from this default payment every year. Risks are piling up, innovation is stalling, and its P/E ratio is high. Therefore, investors may fail to find anything to like about Apple stock today as the company may be in trouble. Avoid buying it for your portfolio right now. Before you buy stock in Apple, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Apple wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $659,171!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $891,722!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 995% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 172% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 9, 2025 Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Brett Schafer has positions in Alphabet. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet and Apple. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Is Apple Stock In Trouble? was originally published by The Motley Fool 擷取數據時發生錯誤 登入存取你的投資組合 擷取數據時發生錯誤 擷取數據時發生錯誤 擷取數據時發生錯誤 擷取數據時發生錯誤
BBC News
2 days ago
- Health
- BBC News
Glastonbury Festival get to experience nature through VR
Festival goers will be able to try virtual reality (VR) nature experiences that researchers say can help with mental health and pain Sam Hughes of the University of Exeter is to exhibit the benefits of nature though VR, art, sound and film at Glastonbury Festival later this director of Exeter Pain Lab said immersing people in nature can reduce the amount of pain they feel and VR made nature accessible to those with mobility Hughes said the festival was "a great way to showcase the ability to use VR to deliver nature and its benefits to people from the comfort of their own homes". 'Nature at home' He said the VR headsets would immerse festival goers in environments including forests, mountains and said: "Pain is inherently a psychological construct."If we can immerse people in nature what we've found is that this can actually reduce the amount of pain people experience."While "real nature is always going to be the gold standard", he added, VR can deliver "some of these beneficial therapeutic effects of nature at home".The immersive experience is part of Brainwaves and Birdsong, a public engagement initiative by a team of scientists, mural artists, music composers and wildlife documentary project is funded through the Chronic Pain Neurotechnology Festival is set to run from 25 to 29 June at Worthy Farm in Somerset.
CBC
14-06-2025
- Health
- CBC
Cutting-edge technology helping N.S. patients recover from major injuries
The new Upper Extremity Performance Centre recently opened in Halifax. It uses virtual reality to help patients in rehab recovering from life-altering injuries. Andrew Sampson has the story.
Android Authority
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Android Authority
This forgotten Google app let me explore Tokyo like an open world game, and it's surreal
Calvin Wankhede / Android Authority When I'm planning a trip to a new destination, I try to get a feel for the place before I leave — especially if I'm going abroad. Not that I'm trying to mitigate culture shock, but it's helpful to know what the areas I'm visiting actually look like. I prefer knowing how walkable the area around my hotel is and what kind of restaurants are nearby ahead of time. Google Maps is of course my first choice for this task, and I've spent hours mindlessly tapping away. But there's a better way. Nearly a decade ago, Google quietly released an app that lets you roam around the entire world and actually feel like you're standing in it. I'm talking about Google Earth VR, an app designed for the first generation of PC headsets but still works on modern hardware. It may not be the most accessible version of Google Earth, but it's a one-of-a-kind experience that has stuck with me and still offers first-person perspective immersion like nothing else out there. Google Earth, but you're the main character What makes Google Earth VR so special? The app wastes no time to demonstrate — the welcome tour opens with you suspended high above the Arches National Park in Utah at the crack of dawn. Press a button and time accelerates until the sun rises fully and the red rocks beneath are bathed in a warm glow. You get a few seconds to gaze at this endless vista surrounding you, but it's not long before you're dropped in the middle of Tokyo and surrounded by tall buildings instead. Finally, it shuttles you through a series of notable landmarks around the world, each at different times of day. By the end of the tour, you're familiarized with the controls and left to explore. This is where Google Earth VR shines — you can fly yourself up to float above entire countries or shrink down to ground level and strain your neck to see the top of super tall buildings. You have the option to rotate the world around you, change perspectives, or gradually drift through a city like a drone. It's all smooth movement and you always feel like you're in control. Google Earth VR lets you stand in the middle of a dense city or fly through it like a drone. The Earth VR app also really comes into its own when you're in a city where Google has collected detailed 3D imagery like Tokyo, New York, and Paris. Scale yourself down to street level and it feels like you're physically there, just without the crowds or traffic around you. But even the best photogrammetry looks like an AI-generated mess when you're within spitting distance of it. Buildings turn mushy, cars look melted, and fine detail disappears. Luckily then, the folks at Google employed a genius solution — moving a controller up to your head switches you into Street View. There's no better way to explain it than to say it's like standing in a Street View photo. You're at human height, free to look around with your head naturally. Better yet, you can teleport a few feet at a time to the next street view image or cross the street to see a different perspective. You can 'walk' through an entire city this way, ironically emulating an open world game. Street View in VR: A game changer for travel If you're unable to travel due to mobility limitations, Google Earth VR might be the closest alternative out there — and not in a gimmicky way. It offers a level of presence that flat screens simply can't match. From your own home, you can stand at the base of the Eiffel Tower, hover over the Golden Gate Bridge, or drift above the Sydney Opera House. The app includes a built-in list of famous landmarks that you can visit instantly. Even better, you're not stuck with whatever lighting conditions the real world had when the imagery was captured. With a flick of your wrist, you can rotate the sun's position in the sky to change the time of day, casting long shadows from buildings or nailing the desolate look in a desert at midnight. Google Earth VR lets you visit real world addresses, pop into Street View, and move around in human scale. But even as a frequent traveler, Google Earth VR is incredibly handy. This is because it lets you input any address, just like the Maps app on your phone, so you can quickly zero in on a particular location. If I want to see what the walk from my hotel to the subway looks like for my upcoming trip, I can simply fly down to the ground level and enter Street View. I did exactly this before leaving for Malaysia last year and walking around in Street View helped me realize that the city was far more car-centric than its Asian neighbors. It also helped me realize that one route to my hotel was much more accessible than another. With this information, I picked a different mode of transport that required some more walking but didn't force me to cross an eight-lane road. Of course, you can't get a true feel of the neighborhood without live traffic or pedestrian activity — this sadly isn't Microsoft Flight Simulator with its moving cars. But you can still glean a lot about a place just by looking for clues in the environment. Are shops open during the day? Is the sidewalk well maintained? The list goes on. For even the fundamentals of trip planning, Google Earth VR beats passively browsing maps on a phone. And even though the app hasn't received any major updates over the years, it pulls the latest Street View images from Google's servers. Any businesses or storefronts you see in the app, you will likely still encounter in the real world. See the Earth before Google sunsets it forever Calvin Wankhede / Android Authority I first tried Google Earth VR years ago on an original Oculus Rift, back when true virtual reality was still a novelty and required drilling three infrared cameras into my wall. Still, the sense of scale and freedom it offered was impressive. But I more or less forgot about it — until I picked up a Meta Quest 3 last year and decided to revisit my old Oculus game library. Google Earth VR doesn't run natively on the Quest, though. You'll need a VR-capable PC with a decent GPU and either a USB-C cable or decent router for wireless streaming. The idea is that your PC renders the game and streams the output to the headset. It may seem like a janky solution, but it's the only practical way for most people to experience this app in 2025. Google Earth VR hasn't been updated in years, and I fear it's on borrowed time. Setup complexity and hardware cost aside, Google Earth VR has never looked better than on the current crop of headsets. The improved visual fidelity makes it an almost surreal experience that I think everyone should experience. And yet, the app almost sits on the verge of abandonment today. I was a bit surprised that the app still pulls in live 3D and Street View data from Google's servers, but that access could stop at any moment. So if you're even remotely curious and can still get your hands on the hardware, go see the world while it's still online.
The Sun
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Apple created eerily lifelike AI ‘video clone' of me in 20 seconds – can you tell which part of my body is totally fake?
APPLE created an eerily-realistic virtual clone of me using AI in a matter of seconds. I took a trip to the Apple Park HQ in California where I was able to make a brand new "Persona" – a lifelike simulation of my head and hands that I can use online. 11 11 It's meant to be used for making FaceTime calls or hanging out online while donning the Apple Vision Pro headset. After all, people I'm calling can't see my actual face because it's covered in a great big pair of goggles - so a Persona can mimic my movements instead. Personas have been around since the headset launched back in February 2024, but Apple has just given them a major upgrade to add way more detail in the new visionOS 26 update. And when I met with Apple to try it out, it captured every part of my noggin in excruciating detail. But one part is totally faked – can you tell from the clip above? MAKING A PERSONA Right now, the only way to create a Persona is with an Apple Vision Pro. That's an expensive "spatial computer" – effectively a mixed-reality headset for playing with apps that float in front of your eyes – that costs about £3,500/$3,500. You start the process, remove the headset, spin it around, and let it scan your face. It'll make you blink, smile, and turn your head from side to side. And in a matter of seconds, you've got a virtual 3D rendering of your face created using AI tech that can mimic your movements while wearing the headset. It means if someone calls me up on video, they don't have to stare at a lifeless avatar – and can enjoy my lifelike Persona instead. Apples's big announcements from WWDC with a flurry new features for the gadgets you already own The new Persona is infinitely more realistic than the old one. When the new look was announced on stage during Apple's WWDC 2025 event earlier this week, it got a big reaction from the crowd. "Taking advantage of industry-leading volumetric rendering and machine learning technology, the all-new Personas now have striking expressivity and sharpness," Apple said. "Offering a full side profile view, and remarkable accurate hair, lashes, and complexion." 11 It's genuinely very impressive, and I think it captures my face pretty well. My colleague Jamie Harris reckons it's made me look a bit old – but I was pretty jet-lagged, so maybe my Persona was reflecting my tiredness. In any case, it's pretty much bang on. But if you look closely, there are two parts of me that are totally faked. The first is my glasses, which isn't a part of my body – so it doesn't really count. Instead, you get to pick from a selection of 1,000 different glasses variants. The second part of me that was faked tongue. Yes, the tongue you see my sticking out in the video was not mine. 11 11 11 I was curious to try it, as the headset didn't scan my tongue, so I wondered what would happen if I unleashed it in the name of journalism. And it turns out that the Apple Vision Pro fills in a vaguely appropriate human tongue. It knows you're sticking out your tongue (and the other facial movements you're making) thanks to internal cameras on the headset. So you can grin with teeth or without, raise both eyebrows or just one, and shake your head from side to side. I'm totally in control of my Persona – the only "AI" involved is in creating the fake face, but the movements are my own. Apple Vision Pro tech specs – the geeky stats The hardware details you're looking for... Storage: 256GB / 512GB / 1TB Display: Micro OLED 3D display system (23 million pixels) Refresh Rates: 90Hz / 96Hz / 100Hz Processor: 8-core M2 CPU (with 10-core GPU) + R1 coprocessor Camera: Stereoscopic 3D main camera system Spatial photo and video capture 18 mm, ƒ/2.00 aperture 6.5 stereo megapixels Sensors: Two high‑resolution main cameras Six world‑facing tracking cameras Four eye‑tracking cameras TrueDepth camera LiDAR Scanner Four inertial measurement units (IMUs) Flicker sensor Ambient light sensor Audio: Spatial Audio with dynamic head tracking Personalized Spatial Audio and audio ray tracing Six‑mic array with directional beamforming Supports H2‑to‑H2 ultra‑low‑latency connection to AirPods Pro (2nd generation) with MagSafe Charging Case (USB‑C) Battery: Up to 2 hours of general use / 2.5 hours of video watching Connectivity: Wi-Fi 6 / Bluetooth 5.3 Input: Hands Eyes Voice Supported Input Accessories: Keyboards Trackpads Game controllers Weight: 600 to 650 grams (21.2 to 22.9 ounces) FACE THE FUTURE It's extremely impressive, but there's an obvious downside: very few people can make Personas right now. They're totally tied to the Apple Vision Pro, which is financially out of reach for most people. But this is a sign of things to come. Eventually, these types of headsets won't cost so much – and won't be as massive on your face. 11 11 11 Just look at Meta 's Orion prototype glasses, which I tested out a few weeks ago in London. They don't have the same visual quality as an Apple Vision Pro, and they'll be wildly expensive, but they're basically only a little larger than a regular pair of glasses. You can imagine in the not-too-distant-future, these types of lifelike avatars will only become more important. Think of a future where smartphones are increasingly less common as people switch to "spatial computers" on their faces. They'll be able to scan what you see, take pictures wherever you go, and let you make video calls beamed directly to your eyes. When we get to that point, tech like Personas will become an essential part of video calling. And if they look this good now, imagine how realistic they'll be in 10 years.
