With CES done and dusted for another year and the seemingly endless tidbits and teases from a wide swath of creators and developers being digested by all and sundry, it comes time for VRPorn.com’s assessment of where the industry is headed in the coming year. Of particular interest is the apparent boom in augmented reality applications. Meta’s mainstreaming of the Metaverse concept has predictably brought with it plenty of imitators and opportunists. The clear followers aside, some have embraced the metaverse as a unique opportunity, revealing their plans to capitalize on a truly virtual world. Augmented reality developers are perhaps the best example of this, and CES 2022 unveiled numerous AR products and concepts that we can expect to gain traction in the coming year.
Meet Your Candidates
Full-color waveguides and integrated speakers outfit Leinaio, the new XR smartglasses from TCL, with a solid hardware base as they retain a look very close to regular spectacles. Shown in teaser videos to offer video conferencing, directional displays, and various social media opportunities, among other uses, TCL hopes Leinaio can do what Google Glass could not: breakthrough to the mainstream. Vuzix Shield was unveiled at CES 2022 and delivered another sunglasses-style AR device, this time geared towards enterprise use. With green monochrome displays for both eyes, noise-canceling algorithms, and compliance with numerous workplace standards, Vuzix Shield may be for technical and industrial workers the most promising pair of smart glasses yet on the horizon.Already open for preorders – or, more accurately, “reservation with deposit” – Kura’s Gallium glasses claim to be an industry first that “solves the bottlenecks.” With a novel geometric waveguide eyepiece and customized micro-LED projection, Gallium brings an unlimited depth of field, 8K resolution per eye, a 150° FOV, and 6-DoF head tracking to a compact eyeglass form factor. Or, at least, it will upon release.
Whether these three concepts will be significantly adopted by their target markets remains to be seen. Still, all pose a strong challenge to the general customer resistance to AR glasses largely considered a result (or cause) of Google Glass’s ten-year-old abandonment of mainstream markets.Let Lust In
With the prevalence of AR content expected to hit in 2022, there’s every reason to expect the adult industry will come closer to fully embracing the tech within a similar timeframe. Where VR porn has excelled, AR porn has languished, with many creators finding it too difficult to produce and deliver. Once we’re all wearing smartglasses tied to a global 5G network, the sneaky transmission of saucy adult material into our lives will become much easier. Like all sexual endeavors, a solid partnership really helps. Thankfully, one epic collaboration was revealed at CES 2022 that promises to be a partnership worthy of your preferred mobile device.
Along with its new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, Qualcomm will enable Microsoft to “drive the metaverse ecosystem” with the development of new AR devices utilizing custom processors able to offer increasingly immersive experiences via 5G. This deal, along with industry analysts’ predictions that mobile AR will grow to be a nearly $200 billion sector by the end of the 2020s, offers a strong indication of just how ubiquitous AR could become. Once the porn world recognizes this potential and begins to capitalize on it via AR content, your zipper will be heading downwards both at home and wherever you roam. Digital companions won’t be limited to the family-friendly kind anymore. Of course, the ongoing problem this presents is that nobody wants to be that guy (or girl) caught getting themselves off in public.Virtually Ready
Along with these tantalizing AR teases, CES 2022 also brought out the big guns of the VR industry. During this year’s event, Sony introduced its next-gen VR unit, now officially named Playstation VR2, garnering enormous praise even before offering a full demo. Panasonic and Steam have teamed up to produce a pair of compact VR glasses called Meganex, while VR stalwart HTC remains dedicated to pushing VR forward with a wrist tracker for VIVE Focus 3. All of which are cementing a future that looks very bright for fans of all forms of immersive porn, AR porn, and VR porn in particular.
vrjoeker says
Neat-o!
chazinpuzzy says
Those TCL glasses look tight!
JustSquat says
Solid recap for the VR-AR space thanks