Playing around with an AR sandbox

Turning 2D illustrations into 3D models with AR

Coloring books capture the imagination of children and provide them with one of their earliest opportunities for creative expression. This two-minute video shows an augmented reality coloring book app in which children color characters in a printed coloring book, their drawing is detected and tracked, and the video stream is augmented with an animated 3-D version of the character that is textured according to the child’s coloring.

How AR could reshape construction

Wired's Grant Imahara visits Los Angeles, where he witnesses how augmented reality will be a key component of how builders will do their jobs in the future.

Explore persistent 3D environments with Marble

Marble is a spatial AI system built by World Labs, a San Francisco startup focusing on world models (rather than large language models). Using a text prompt (or a single image or video), users can generate a "world" and move through it, edit it, or export it. The company and project are part of the broader spatial intelligence area of AI, where AI can simulate environments.

A 1992 failed parachute test provided the hardware for the first mixed reality system

The Virtual Fixtures platform was developed to improve human dexterity by merging physical and virtual objects with haptic feedback from an upper-body exoskeleton. Tight budgeting and significant equipment needs nearly canceled the project, were it not for salvaging and repairing cameras and sensors from a smashed experimental parachute rig.

Create digital maps of Earth with custom sketches and labels

In this interactive, users can apply layers to various base maps to display natural and human features, including geological activity, biomes, ocean currents, population densities, and light pollution. Custom legends, markers, and drawings can be used to highlight prominent features.

Watch a first-person demo of Microsoft's HoloLens

The headset enables users to interact with projected objects in augmented reality by combining Windows Mixed Reality with eye- and head-tracking sensors, a hand-operated controller, and a microphone that can pick up voice commands.

Check out this interactive 3D animation of a virtual renewable energy-powered island

The US Department of Energy’s Renewable Energy Discovery (REDi) Island invite explorers to discover clean, renewable energy options by navigating a virtual island filled with energy efficient power generation and desalinization technologies.

An interactive of the deep sea

An AI-built pixel map reimagines New York City as a video game

Isometric NYC is a zoomable pixel-art map that renders the city in game-style perspective (think SimCity), helpfully clarifying the dense geography and architecture. The makers built the project tile-by-tile using satellite data and generative AI. Zoom into building-level views or out to see all five boroughs.

Get your hands dirty in this archaeology video game that's actually about archaeology

How many of us have played a video game with an archaeologist protagonist whose main idea of fieldwork involves spying, back flips, and destroying the historic sites they're meant to be preserving? Exactly.

Building the solar system to scale in the Nevada desert

On a dry lakebed in Nevada, a group of friends build the first scale model of the solar system with complete planetary orbits: a true illustration of our planet's humble position in space.

View the surface of Mars from NASA's Perseverance

Simulate a visit to the red planet with the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover. This 3D interactive experience lets you explore various locations on the martian surface. See closeup images the rover has taken and view key points of interest. It's the next best thing to being there and certainly far safer!

How are scientists turning deserts into farmland?

This article explores how engineers are using a liquid nanoclay solution to transform barren deserts into productive fruit farms, drawing inspiration from how clay particles carried by floodwaters in the Nile Delta used to improve the fertility of...

Explore an optical table to create quantum physics experiments

This interactive teaches users to create quantum experiments through lessons resembling video game levels. Users can also use the virtual lab to visualize landmark quantum experiments like entanglement, teleportation, cryptography, and quantum computing, or create their own experiments with drag-and-drop elements.

See top-down views of Washington state's geology with cutting-edge lidar

Lidar is a revolutionary tool that creates visual models of landscapes using rapid light pulse measurements. Geologists in Washington state have deployed the technology to study the state's fault lines, landslides, tsunami inundation zones, and much more.

An immersive curation of the world's rock art

A living archive of humanity’s ancient art and symbols, our shared history that is embedded as rock art and cave art in the landscape

In 2025, AI detected a previously unknown geothermal reservoir

Utah-headquartered startup Zanskar Geothermal & Minerals found it beneath a part of the western Nevada desert using an AI trained on previously known blind sites—reservoirs with no visual evidence for their existence. The discovery represents the first industry-discovered blind site in more than three decades.

A guide to what you need to get started in VR

From Oculus Rift to Google Daydream, VR is getting plenty of hype. But what system should you buy? And what should you play?

Sand 'batteries' can store excess electricity from the power grid as thermal energy

Energy collected from solar or wind power is used to heat insulated silos full of sand to temperatures as high as 450 degrees Celsius (842 degrees Fahrenheit), which can be retained for long periods. These thermal energy storage systems can be designed to boil water and generate electricity when needed.

What can be found underneath the Saharan sands?

Watch this 19-minute video to learn more about what can be found under the Sahara Desert, which spans almost all of northern Africa and is one of the largest deserts in the world. Deep under the Sahara desert sands lies evidence of life that once...

Watch 'Airhead,' a short movie created by Sora and post-production FX

Using OpenAI’s video-generation tool Sora, a user can create impressive, hyper-realistic video footage from a simple text prompt. This short film features a whimsical look at a balloon-headed person navigating the world.

Scientists monitor volcanoes with a suitcase-sized observatory called SKATE

Short for Setup for the Kinematic Acquisition of Explosive Eruptions, the device is left to record heat, sound and visual data while volcanologists remain at a safe distance. The $58,000 tool is the successor to the FAMoUS (Fast Multiparametric Setup) prototype.

Particle accelerators have been used to reveal detailed ant anatomy

Using a synchrotron facility at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, a pair of X-ray beams swept across about 2,200 ant specimens to create over 200 terabytes of projection images from multiple angles. The images were compiled into micrometer-resolution 3D reconstructions of 792 species, which are freely accessible on the Antscan platform.

Wafaa Bilal had a camera surgically implanted in the back of his head

The artist programmed the camera to capture one image per minute of his daily life. He explained that the project was meant to document his past—in a rather literal way—as it slipped away from him, in a mode that gestured at both surveillance and the radically objective nature of photos. Viewers can expect an immersive installation featuring thousands of mundane images transmitted to a website, challenging traditional photography and exploring the intersection of public and private information.

Watch this video that uses Lego bricks to explain how venture capital works.

Explore the known asteroids, comets, and spacecraft involved in asteroid studies within our solar system with 'Eyes on Asteroids,' a 3D visualization from NASA.

See how the Winter X Games course is built

Winter X Games courses are custom-built over weeks, with crews moving thousands of tons of snow to create features like halfpipes and jumps—incorporating athlete input to ensure challenging designs that push progression and safety.

After 25 people used virtual reality headsets to practice flying with virtual wings—flapping their arms—their visual cortex responded to the wings almost as if they were real arms, treating them as body parts.

According to the physics of black holes, our 4D reality may be a hologram—a projection of information coded on a 2D surface on the edge of the universe.

Explore chaos in this simulation of two double pendulums, where small differences in the release angles produce wildly different outcomes.

Artificial coral reefs have been 3D printed from nontoxic, biodegradable terracotta clay, which coral polyps have used as a foundation for rebuilding marine ecosystems.

This site reaches millions of visitors who are tired of AI chatbots and seeking human connection. Pretend to be an AI chatbot and ask questions, provide answers, and draw for people in real time.

The animatronic shark from Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws,' the first modern blockbuster, was a complex underwater apparatus called 'Bruce.'

Visualize how CRISPR-Cas9—a type of immune system used by single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses—targets and makes precise changes to a gene's DNA.

Planeterrellas create artificial auroras that mimic the atmospheric displays of light by setting up an electric field between two metal balls in a jar filled with a small amount of air.

Watch how deep-sea mining equipment collects and processes polymetallic nodules—metal-rich, potato-shaped rocks—from the ocean floor and creates environmentally damaging plumes of sediments.

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

See these 16 pieces of art evoking phobias of snakes, flying, spiders, and more. 

Play the role of a student in a game where you try to navigate college and remain debt-free, selecting different income levels, high school experience, race, ethnicity, and more.

Waves off the coast of Nazaré, Portugal, can reach over 100 feet and are caused by the area's deep underwater canyon geography

The Great Salt Lake's distinct dual coloration results from high-salinity organisms that only live in the northern portion and produce a purple protein.

Children are now three times more likely to say they want to be a YouTuber when they grow up than an astronaut, with some even attending 'YouTube camps' that teach kids how to create content for the platform.

Dorothy's famous entrance into Oz in 'The Wizard of Oz' relied on analog tricks, including a body double and sepia-toned paint, as much as it did on technology

Stanford built a Google Maps for the Roman Empire, revealing how much it cost to travel in the ancient world

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

The history of many kitchen appliances involves unexpected discoveries and applications, including wartime radar turned hamster defroster and replacing an 'ice king' with heat-stealing boxes.

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

Take a 3D tour of the Hajj, Islam's annual pilgrimage to Mecca, undertaken by over 1.5 million Muslims.

In 2018, 26-year-old missionary John Allen Chau was killed by tribesmen after attempting to reach and evangelize on India's isolated North Sentinel Island

The original copy of the Declaration of Independence is not a pristine document, and even features a smudged anonymous handprint in the bottom left corner.