AWE
Augmented World Engines, which builds augmented reality apps for smartphones, is best known for its virtual reality walking tour of Fort York. As visitors walk around the site, they can use a headset to see computer-generated representations of the area at different points in history, including a 3-D rendering of what it would have been like to be among the British troops while Americans were invading during the War of 1812. AWE is currently working on a smartphone app, Geogram, that allows users to tag real-world spaces with digital photos and videos.
Impossible Things
This OCAD-based start-up, founded in 2016, created ReBlink for the Art Gallery of Ontario. When smartphone users load this whimsical app, they see AR versions of nine of the gallery’s canvases. A 1919 portrait of the Italian heiress Luisa Casati springs to life, as she reaches out a virtual arm to snap a selfie with a virtual smartphone on a stick. A 19th-century painting of three boys lounging on a brick parapet transforms into a shot of the three boys against the Toronto skyline, each holding a virtual smartphone.
ModiFace
A decade ago, Parham Aarabi, a prof in U of T’s engineering faculty, was trying to teach computers to read lips. His technology was so effective at tracking the borders of the human mouth that he soon discovered another application for it: virtual makeovers. ModiFace’s app allows customers to apply virtual makeup to real-time mirror images of their faces, then buy the products that look best—participating brands include Estée Lauder and Sephora.
We have hungry entrepreneurs, deep-pocketed investors, next-level start-ups and an infinite supply of brilliant ideas. Inside Toronto’s tech revolution
Toronto’s top entrepreneurs on start-up stereotypes, wild investor stories and who they admire most
A Q&A with Tanmay Bakshi, a 13-year-old techy YouTube star who has built apps for the App Store and written a coding textbook
Figure 1, OpenCare and other apps that are taking telehealth into the future
At U of T’s Creative Destruction Lab, tech wizards are banking on the quantum future
A Q&A with Julielynn Wong, a doctor who 3-D prints medical supplies in remote rural areas, in war zones and even in space
Inside the Deloitte Greenhouse, featuring an adorable AI robot, VR headsets and 3D printers
Five ex–RIM staffers turned tech tycoons
HackerYou, Lighthouse Labs and Bitmaker are pumping out tech geniuses
Five deep-pocketed American venture capitalists that are pouring millions into Toronto start-ups
Guess which of the Big Five banks has a neon-lit bowling alley and a speakeasy bar
Inside Thalmic Labs’s secret wearables warehouse
Everything you need to know about neuroinformatics
Huda Idrees, Candice Faktor and three other women rocking the tech sector
How Stratford, a town known for staging Shakespeare, became a hub for self-driving cars
Geoffrey Hinton and the Vector Institute are helping to make Toronto the AI capital of the world
Uber’s Raquel Urtasun is revolutionizing the automobile at U of T
The lowdown on Okta, Slack, Amazon and Thomson Reuters’s new digs
A Q&A with Toronto’s chief innovation advocate Michelle Holland
Why a bunch of Scandinavian start-up founders spent a week touring Toronto
Getting from Toronto to Waterloo is about to get much easier
Everything you need to know about Wealthsimple, Hubba and League
Glasses that help the blind see, a device that lets the disabled use smartphones and 3D-printed prosthetics
In the last year, Toronto created some 22,500 tech jobs—twice the number of new gigs as in New York City
“We have amazing talent here, and nobody knows it”
Jimoh Ovbiagele on Ross, his company’s AI assistant that helps lawyers find legal precedents for their cases
Including MaRS, the Ryerson DMZ, OneEleven and more
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AWE
Augmented World Engines, which builds augmented reality apps for smartphones, is best known for its virtual reality walking tour of Fort York. As visitors walk around the site, they can use a headset to see computer-generated representations of the area at different points in history, including a 3-D rendering of what it would have been like to be among the British troops while Americans were invading during the War of 1812. AWE is currently working on a smartphone app, Geogram, that allows users to tag real-world spaces with digital photos and videos.
Impossible Things
This OCAD-based start-up, founded in 2016, created ReBlink for the Art Gallery of Ontario. When smartphone users load this whimsical app, they see AR versions of nine of the gallery’s canvases. A 1919 portrait of the Italian heiress Luisa Casati springs to life, as she reaches out a virtual arm to snap a selfie with a virtual smartphone on a stick. A 19th-century painting of three boys lounging on a brick parapet transforms into a shot of the three boys against the Toronto skyline, each holding a virtual smartphone.
ModiFace
A decade ago, Parham Aarabi, a prof in U of T’s engineering faculty, was trying to teach computers to read lips. His technology was so effective at tracking the borders of the human mouth that he soon discovered another application for it: virtual makeovers. ModiFace’s app allows customers to apply virtual makeup to real-time mirror images of their faces, then buy the products that look best—participating brands include Estée Lauder and Sephora.
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