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Tuesday, January 11, 2011

AR comes another step closer.

I'm usually a week behind in most news, so you may have already read this press release. Vuzix has demonstrated it's latest HMD glasses, called "Raptyr". Here is a news story with a picture showing the prototype. What makes these special, is that they're finally achieving true see-through functionality.

Right now, the tech industry is in a mish-mash of hardware offerings. The biggest buzz right now is 3D television. So all the research is going into making eyewear that you can watch 3DTV with. As far as I know, Vuzix is the only company that is still actively pursuing augmented reality eyewear. But what concerns me is, ironically, that the TV industry is trying to get away from using glasses! It's not a bad thing, but that just makes Vuzix that much more a fish swimming upstream.

Another thing that concerns me, is enthusiasm has already peaked for augmented reality. It's a mixed camp. The majority of people that were early adopters on smartphones have reached the "ho-hum" point. Some have already written it off as "just like that dumb VR stuff". Granted, I've been critical of the pace of development of HMDs. But if the tech is to mature, I think the companies that have been in the forefront of AR need to throw some support behind Vuzix. They at least have the momentum going forward to get us where we want to be.