[vincentschen]

I agree that there are much fewer applications of VR "now", but let's consider its timeline: the first mainstream HMD (Oculus Rift) was released in 2012. Last year (2016) was the first time that hand-tracking was introduced by Oculus and HTC. If anything is holding back the industry right now, it's the lack of content, but keep in mind that we are still incredibly early!

[santaclaus]

The timeline goes further back than 2012... VR has been around for what, 30+ years?

[cr0sh]

VR as we know it today basically started when NASA built a rig sometime in the 1980s, using portable "pocket" TVs for the screens (Casio brand, IIRC). You can find pictures of these early systems (as well as early VPL datagloves) with a google search of course.

Before that, there was Ivan Sutherland's "Sword of Damocles" - arguably the real beginning of AR/VR (Philco had an earlier system, but it was meant for tele-operation, whereas Sutherland's system used computer generated graphics):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sword_of_Damocles_(virtual...

Interestingly about this system - and isn't mentioned much - is a part of it called the "Twinkle Box" - it was a three-dimensional position tracking system that used light "beams" (generated by some form of slit-scanning mechanical system) to track an object...sound like anything familiar?

http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1500278

Further back than that? Well - Hugo Gernsback had some kind of idea about a TV or such you strapped to your head:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/05/ralph-124c-41-a-...