AR+VR Weekly: CES news, ODG’s 20 year journey ends & AR+VR’s road to $80 billion

Catch up on the latest AR+VR highlights, funding news & launch announcements: Week of Jan 14

Source: Nreal (featured in Launch Announcements)

By Tom Emrich

Highlights

It’s been another busy week in AR+VR! In addition to keeping you up-to-date on the top AR+VR news, funding activity, and launch announcements, here are there three stories you need to know: CES news, ODG’s 20 year journey ends and AR+VR’s road to $80 billion.

CES wrapped up its 51st year last week in Vegas with a ton of AR and VR announcements including new hardware from HTC including the HTC Vive Cosmos and HTC Vive Pro Eye, new smart glasses from Nreal, RealMax and Rokid, a VR driving ride from Holoride and more. Check out some of the launch announcements from the show below.

Meanwhile, TechCrunch released an in-depth look at ODG’s 20 year journey as an AR pioneer leading up to its reported patent sale after failed attempts at acquisition.  

Finally, Digi-Capital published a whack ton of stats and forecasts for AR & VR including a look at potential revenue of $70 billion to $75 billion for AR and VR $10 billion to $15 billion by 2023. The post also includes some insights into what is needed to take us from “AR/VR 1.0 to AR/VR 2.0”.


Funding News

ThreeKit raises $10 million to turn static images into ‘3D experiences’ (VentureBeat)

Nreal raises $15 million for its consumer focused smart glasses (VentureBeat)

Scape Technologies raises $8M to let machines visually understand their surroundings (TechCrunch)


Launch Announcements

RealMax debuts its light, fully wireless AR headset with 100-degree FOV (VentureBeat)

Nreal debuts smartglasses which will ship sometime around Q3 this year (The Verge)

Rokid debuts Project Aurora computing interface (TechCrunch)

DigiLens unveiled DigiLens Crystal reference design for inexpensive, lightweight smartglasses (Next Reality)

ThirdEye releases its next generation X2 which is its smallest mixed reality glasses yet (Next Reality)

Vuzix showcases a new waveguide technology with increased fields of view (Yahoo Finance)

Human Capable Inc. introduces Norm Glasses (AP News)

HTC launches Viveport Infinity content subscription (Road to VR)

HTC launches Vive Cosmos PC VR hybrid consumer VR headset (TechCrunch)

HTC partners with Mozilla to bring Firefox’s virtual reality browser to Vive (The Verge)

HTC announces new Vive Pro Eye virtual reality with native eye-tracking (The Verge)

3DRudder launches support for PSVR (TechRadar)

WayRay shows off itsAR tech with the Hyundai Genesis G80 and illustrates its tech beyond the car (CNET)

Oculus Rift updates adds Facebook livestreaming (VR Focus)

TPCAST unveils its 2nd generation wireless solution for the entperrise (VR Focus

DisplayLink showcases 60GHz wireless adapter reference design for Oculus Rift (Road to VR)

Arvizio updates its Mixed Reality Studio tool with cross platform capability (Next Reality)

Mimesys launches its AR Video calling powered by Intel RealSense on Magic Leap (Next Reality)

OrCam debuts wearable camera MyEye (The Times of Israel)

Pico debuts its 4K resolution stand-alone VR headset (Digital Trends)

CareOS debuts Artemis smart mirror for salons, hotels and homes (Next Reality)

Audi VR startup Holoride puts VR in cars featuring content from Disney (The Verge)

Perfect Corp launches Beauty 3.0 AI-based augmented reality tools (TechCrunch)

Addison debuts its Virtual Caregiver which leverages Amazon Sumerian (PR Newswire)

SyncThink announces its eye-tracking analytics application is now available for the Magic Leap (SportTechie)