How well known is the market?

This is about how many people are aware of Virtual Reality. (Sony Gear VR - Oculus Rift, Google Cardboard) All the attention these things have gotten in various media -- including Sony's advertising, and most people don't know about it.

Even fewer know about Augmented reality. 

Eventually people will figure it out. NDAs are out there so that it's a surprise that results in a frenzy of buying someday soon.

Maybe they need to talk to whoever is writing and producing ads for Micromax.


Power Gaming UK

Despite 2016 seeing virtual reality break into the mainstream market, headset manufacturers such as Sony, Oculus and HTC still have a lot of work to do in order to educate the masses, according to a new study.

In the Consumer Strategies and Use Cases for Virtual and Augmented Reality white paper, released by market research firm Parks Associates, research found that 63 percent of all Americans were unfamiliar or knew nothing whatsoever about virtual reality.

Another EETimes article

This basically points to Microvision

I saw this before and didn't get it posted right away. 

Thanks Bart.


EE Times Valve Corp

Today Valve Corp. (Bellevue, Wash.) has a VR headset that is "10 generations ahead anything available today", according to McCauley, by using more accurate head tracking by replacing the camera Oculus uses with a rotating motor driven line-laser. The line laser is essentially a gigantic laser housing a motor spinning a curved mirror mounted on the wall across from the user, that scans across head mounted IR detectors to determine how far away the head is by measuring the time between IR sensor intercepts.

At McCauley Labs they will replace the bulky moving laser mechanism, with a MEMS mirror and a line-laser (or alternatively a 2-axis MEMS mirror and a point laser to raster scan in the manner of a one-mirror pico projector) to perform the same kind of head location geometry and calculation as the Valve System, but micro-miniaturized.

How SnapChat could justify a $25 Billion Valuation

The valuations page will be getting an update soon, but I've often based my view on 10% of worldwide annual smartphone sales. (1.4 Billion sold last year.) I need to up that somehow for near-eye displays and 3D scanning. (The outlook keeps getting better.)

10% of the 1.4Billion smartphones is 140 Million -- more than the 60 million daily users of SnapChat.

If we do a straight market-cap comparison of MVIS to something that has sold tangibly in the recent past, like Oculus Rift -- Microvision, in my opinion has a far superior product, more useful to more people in wider markets -- that sold for 2 billion in cash... could we see market cap valuations like $25 Billion? [ Different chapter of the same story? ] I think absolutely we can, which is why I am holding tight to my position.


Yahoo News

It’s official: Snap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat, is going public in an IPO that could value the company anywhere between $20 billion and $25 billion.

To be sure, it’s a landmark moment for the photo-messaging app, which cofounders Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown launched just over five years ago and now attracts over 60 million daily active users. But is Snap Inc. really worth as much as $25 billion?

One need look no further the top line of Snap Inc., whose main product involves sending self-erasing photos to your friends. Earlier this year, leaked documents revealed the startup expects to generate between $500 million and $1 billion in revenues in 2017, a healthy figure backed by third-party digital research firm eMarketer. Indeed, eMarketer expects Snap Inc. to make $935.5 million next year, up from $366.7 million in ad sales in 2016.

“The revenues are really good quality revenues,” explains Li, who views a 20 to 1 ratio of valuation to revenues as solid. “These are brand marketers who are saying, ‘Hey, they are shifting brand dollars — real brand dollars on other parts of the budget — to Snapchat.’ More than anything else, because people are engaging with them, it is also a way to tap into something that is completely private as opposed to Facebook or Twitter.”