Now, after many years on the periphery, VR is heading back to the mainstream. The proliferation of cheap high-resolution screens, motion-tracking sensors, and microchips in mobile computing devices has vastly reduced the technological cost of creating virtual reality hardware, making high-definition immersive head-mounted displays commercially viable.

Enthusiasts Go Back to the Future in a Virtual Reality Boom | MIT Technology Review

This was supposed to be the year of virtual reality, but barely had 2016 started when Microsoft threw a spanner in the works with the announcement of HoloLens. Rather than taking us to a virtual world, Microsoft's headset pulls virtual objects into our own. Microsoft calls these objects Holograms, much to the chagrin of hologram enthusiasts, but most people know them as tenets of mixed, or augmented, reality. It's already being touted as the next next big thing.

This was the year of VR, until AR stole it

Just as Oculus and HTC should've been dominating the news cycle, Magic Leap, the secretive Google-backed mixed reality (MR) startup, finally broke cover with a Wired feature. Magic Leap is basically promising to do the same things as HoloLens, but better.

This was the year of VR, until AR stole it

Save yourself the wandering because we have found the gift that is perfect for everyone on your list. Remember the iconic View-Master from your childhood? It has gotten a huge digital upgrade and the View-Master Deluxe VR Viewer is one of the most coveted gifts this holiday season.

This is the VR headset you can gift everyone this holiday season (Mattel)

As far as Tim Cook is concerned, people are going to be much more interested experiencing the world through an augmented-reality headset than holing up at home strapped to virtual-reality goggles. That's a major takeaway from an interview Apple's CEO had with ABC News, published Wednesday, in which Cook said he saw bigger possibilities for AR than VR, since AR allows people to be more "present." "There's virtual reality and there's augmented reality -- both of these are incredibly interesting," Cook said in the interview. "But my own view is that augmented reality is the larger of the two, probably by far."

Tim Cook sees a bigger future for AR than VR - CNET

The key investor takeaway is that augmented reality definitely increases the demand for high performance gyroscopes and related products from InvenSense, but questions remain whether the company will obtain any increased business at appropriate margins. With an enterprise value of only $600 million, the stock should remain on any investors radar. The company though needs to demonstrate the ability to command premium pricing for their products before the stock will ever take off.

InvenSense: Is Augmented Reality A Real Opportunity? - InvenSense (NYSE:INVN) | Seeking Alpha

Marking its first acquisition in Israel, Snap is (Private:CHAT) buying augmented reality startup Cimagine Media for an estimated $30-$40M, the Calcalist reports. Cimagine has developed True Marketless Augmented Reality, which allows users to virtually place furniture and appliances they wish to purchase in the space of their home. With Snap looking to go public perhaps some time next year, it's quite possible that doing facilitating shopping through Snapchat might open up additional revenue opportunities.

Snapchat dips further into augmented reality - Snapchat (Private:CHAT) | Seeking Alpha

I had heard from many that Oculus have done a better job than HTC with the sound quality in Rift. I did notice that the way sounds seem to come from a distinct point in space, when wearing the Rift, was impressive, and helped the illusion of reality. Sounds really inhabit a three-dimensional space in Rift in a way they don’t in Vive.

Oculus, HTC VR Offer Thrilling Magic, Terrible Shortcomings - Tech Trader Daily - Barrons.com

Google Earth has to be one of the greatest uses of VR thus far, especially for those interested in exploration and education rather than gaming. You can pick any number of featured destinations, such as Manhattan island, and stand in the middle of a three-dimensional rendering of all the buildings in the city. It’s like you’re the 50-foot monster striding through Wall Street. You can do this block-by-block, all through the city. You can also raise the Vive wand up to the sky and you’re flying over the planet, to any place on Earth you choose. The feeling of flying from point to point is simply thrilling. The only thing missing here is finer resolution with which to see the details of every building and street.

Oculus, HTC VR Offer Thrilling Magic, Terrible Shortcomings - Tech Trader Daily - Barrons.com

The moment I tried on HoloLens during a "Holographic Academy" session with fellow journalists, I thought, "This is like having a PC on my face." It's not quite that functional yet, but that's how the headgear, and what you see and can do with it, makes me feel.

Microsoft HoloLens hands on review | TechRadar

It’s not clear yet when HoloLens will be officially up and running for the general public. In the meantime, however, Samsung appears to be challenging Microsoft to an AR face-off. Samsung’s own Dr. Sung-Hoon Hong suggested at the Virtual Reality Summit that the company’s hologram technology “is really, really realistic” to the point where it looks “touchable”.

Microsoft HoloLens hands on review | TechRadar

Facebook Inc.’s Oculus has acquired The Eye Tribe, a company that tracks eye movement in virtual reality to improve the experience. Oculus confirmed the acquisition of the Copenhagen-based startup, without stating a price. The acquisition was reported earlier Wednesday by TechCrunch. Eye Tribe is the latest in a series of tech acquisitions this year for Oculus. Facebook is especially interested in eye tracking because the company wants to take the lead in social interactions in VR. The ability to follow eye movement makes it easier to understand people’s expressions and let them communicate effectively with each other in a virtual world.

Facebook Acquires Eye Tribe for Oculus Eye-Tracking Software - Bloomberg

Yet massive amounts of money were flowing down to Dania Beach, Florida, a town of 30,000 just south of Fort Lauderdale. To date, Magic Leap has raised nearly $1.4 billion in venture capital, including $794 million this past February, reportedly the largest C round in history. Seemingly every blue-chip tech investor has a chunk, including Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins, Google, JPMorgan, Fidelity and Alibaba, plus there's backing from less conventional sources such as Warner Bros. and Legendary Entertainment, the maker of films like Godzilla and Jurassic World. Magic Leap was valued at $4.5 billion in its latest round of financing.

Inside Magic Leap, The Secretive $4.5 Billion Startup Changing Computing Forever

Magic Leap's innovation isn't just a high-tech display--it's a disruption machine. This technology could affect every business that uses screens or computers and many that don't. It could kill the $120 billion market for flat-panel displays and shake the $1 trillion global consumer-electronics business to its core. The applications are profound. Throw out your PC, your laptop and your mobile phone, because the computing power you need will be in your glasses, and they can make a display appear anywhere, at any size you like.

Inside Magic Leap, The Secretive $4.5 Billion Startup Changing Computing Forever

For that matter, they can make anything appear, like directions to your next meeting, drawn in bright yellow arrows along the roads of your town. You'll be able to see what that new couch you're thinking of buying looks like in your living room, from every conceivable angle, under every lighting condition, without leaving your home. Even the least mechanically inclined will be able to repair their automobiles, with an interactive program highlighting exactly which part needs to be replaced and alerting you if you're doing it wrong. And Magic Leap is positioned to profit from every interaction: not just from the hardware and software it will sell but also, one imagines, from the torrent of data it could collect, analyze--and resell.

Inside Magic Leap, The Secretive $4.5 Billion Startup Changing Computing Forever

In a mixed reality world, computing power isn't confined to a gadget on your desk. It's something that you can link to any object, real or virtual, giving it awareness of its location, intelligence about its purpose and insight on how you might want to use it. "Think of it as the future state of computing," Abovitz says, "where the world is your desktop." First we had mainframes, then PCs, then mobile devices. If Magic Leap has its way, the next generation will be virtual.

Inside Magic Leap, The Secretive $4.5 Billion Startup Changing Computing Forever

International Data Corp. says that worldwide revenues for the augmented and virtual reality market will grow from $5.2 billion this year to more than $162 billion in 2020.

Inside Magic Leap, The Secretive $4.5 Billion Startup Changing Computing Forever

Apple is working on AR as well, but it's unclear whether it is developing its own headset or adding capabilities to the iPhone. Silicon Valley startups like Meta (which has raised $73 million) and Atheer (a reported $23 million) are working on their own AR headsets and would presumably be natural acquisition candidates if they are successful.

Inside Magic Leap, The Secretive $4.5 Billion Startup Changing Computing Forever

It is well known that Microsoft’s Hololens uses two Himax manufactured Field Sequential Color (FSC) LCOS microdisplays. Additionally there are reports, particularly from KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo as reported in Business Insider that Magic Leap (ML) is also using Himax’s LCOS. Further supporting this is that of all ML patent applications, ML patent application US 2016/0327789 which uses LCOS best fits the available evidence. I have now from some additional evidence that ML is likely using LCOS. After discussing this new ML evidence, I will relay some Microsoft Hololens 2nd generation (or lack thereof) rumors.

Magic Leap and Hololens and LCOS | Karl Guttag on Technology

Interestingly, I could not find anywhere were ODG says what display technology they use in the 2014 R-6, but the most likely device is the Sony ECX332A 720p OLED microdisplay that Sony introduced in 2011. Following this trend it is likely that the ODG R-9 uses the newer Sony ECX335 1080p OLED microdisplay and the R-9 uses the ECE332 or a follow-on version. I don’t know any other company that has both a 720p and 1080p OLED microdisplays and the timing of the Sony and ODG products seems to fit.

Augmented Reality and HMD | Karl Guttag on Technology

Based on my experience, I would expect that ODG optical design will be cleaner/better than the waveguide designs of Microsoft’s Hololens. The use of OLED microdisplays should give ODG superior contrast which will further improve the perceived sharpness of the image. While not as apparent to the casual observer, but as I have discussed previously, OLEDs won’t work with diffractive/holographic waveguides such as Hololens and Magic Leap are using.

Augmented Reality and HMD | Karl Guttag on Technology

Want to develop for Microsoft’s HoloLens mixed-reality platform but don’t want to pay $3,000 for the developer kit? Until now, it looked like you were out of luck, but as Microsoft announced today, you will soon be able to use a HoloLens emulator to write your applications, even if you don’t own the actual hardware. The emulator, as well as all of Microsoft’s other developer tools for HoloLens, will become available before March 30, the shipping date for the first batch of HoloLenses. Using the emulator, developers will be able to test their apps in simulated rooms and walk around it using keyboard commands, a mouse and an Xbox controller.

Microsoft will soon offer a HoloLens emulator for developers | TechCrunch

Today at CES, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich announced that the company is planning to take its all-in-one Project Alloy VR headset into productization by year's end. To do so, it's working with some of its "top OEM partners." "We're committed to really making Project Alloy an open platform," he said. So, open source is a given. The question is if any of its hardware partners actually will makes the headset. It could turn into a quagmire very quickly; OEMS can make these, but they have to want to first. A quick, hypothetical example: ASUS not supporting the headset because Acer might make one. That's before taking into account that people already own proven hardware like Oculus Rift and HTC Vive setups.

Intel's VR headsets could be ready as early as next year

Call it a virtual disappointment. Or virtually unsurprising. I'll just say I was virtually underwhelmed. Whatever pun you choose, the virtual reality industry has some explaining to do after this year's Consumer Electronics Show, during which the biggest product announcements can largely be categorized as "more of the same." Consider computer maker Lenovo, which showed off a VR headset whose primary selling point is that it's cheaper than competitors like the $599 Oculus Rift from Facebook or the $799 HTC Vive-- though Lenovo isn't discussing prices yet and the prototype on display doesn't actually work. There's also Osterhout Design Group, which showed a new pair of smart glasses, powered by Google's Android phone software and using the newest chips from Qualcomm. The glasses were supposed to be the latest entrant in the world of AR, or augmented reality, layering computer images on the real world you're looking at. (Think Pokemon Go.) But you'd be forgiven if you confused them with last year's model, though they promise better performance and visuals. It'll launch by midyear, costing as much as $1,500. Even Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, which is developing its own VR headset, gave a presentation using nearly year-old devices from Facebook's Oculus.

Virtually boring: VR really disappoints at CES this year - CNET

Lenovo is entering the augmented reality market, but unlike the original intent of Google Glass, the New Glass C200 isn’t meant for the average consumer. The New Glass C200 looks like a Google Glass prototype, with straps that rest on the top and back of the head. It features a monocular “Glass Unit,” like Google’s model, but the camera that sits next to it is a lot bigger. What makes Lenovo’s device truly unique is that it comes with its own wired Pocket Unit.

Lenovo's Smart Glasses Pair AR, AI and Targets Technicians | Digital Trends

Just a few days after Lenovo unveiled its Windows 10 VR headset, Microsoft showed off what HP, Dell and Acer are working on at a CES media event.

Check out the first Windows VR headsets from Dell, HP and Acer