I put my mind where my money is recently.
I got to experience some of the latest virtual reality (VR) technology. Wow.
Bottom line… if you don’t think this technology will be all around us within the next few years, think again.
What I’m so excited about has nothing to do with the scary stuff that so many headline writers have glommed onto. Virtual reality won’t soon replace dinner with the family or sex with a real, live human.
It won’t wipe out the business world. It won’t destroy religion… nature… or, despite widely circulated images of cows wearing VR headsets, the food we eat.
Just as the internet has changed the world, what’s coming next will be the realization of some mighty big promises. It will be the intersection of two very powerful ideas. When augmented reality meets the internet, it will unleash a world of possibilities.
Very, very rich possibilities.
A Big Promise
That sounds a bit odd coming from a fella who thinks social media should come with a surgeon general’s warning, but what’s coming has little to do with bragging about your social life or griping about the latest neighborhood happenings.
This technology will be much more useful.
It’s like I told my Manward Letter subscribers in their newest issue (where I also recommended a fast-moving stock to take advantage of this opportunity)…
The applications for this sort of “smart reality” are limitless. On the simple and innocent side, kids can tour a barnyard without ever leaving the classroom. On the industrial side, executives can explore a new machine without leaving the boardroom. And on the greedy and powerful side, wars can be waged without risking a life.
Surgeons can operate and have an overlay of augmented reality showing everything from key vital signs to CT scans right on their patient’s body. They can even have a machine – with data from a thousand other similar operations – highlight where to cut next and what to do when things go wrong.
Boeing (NYSE: BA), for instance, just unveiled technology that can afford its mechanics an augmented view of an aircraft or engine. Now they can quickly scan for abnormalities or see what lies behind a compartment. They can overlay their view with schematics straight from the engineers.
It’s not scary stuff… It’s world-changing stuff.
The Opportunity
Lots of things must happen for all of this to become reality. That’s what has me so excited. The profit potential is flat-out huge.
We need lots of processing power. We need huge amounts of cloud storage for all the data. We also need screens… ubiquitous high-speed internet… and loads of commodities… plus engineers, designers and other folks to make it all.
I’ve written a lot about how the internet changed the world of business and economics. I’ve researched the subject for years. Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) and eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) have had more of a hand on the deflationary throttle than the Fed could ever dream of.
And now it appears we’ve seen only the opening act.
I recently talked to the top tech analyst in the world. He’s a hall of famer whose track record is the best in the business.
He talks about technology not as a rigid idea but as a continuum, with one piece compounding onto the next.
It’s a key idea.
We’ve seen things move quickly over the last two decades… but the compounding is just getting started.
This technology is coming… and it’s coming fast.
Mark Zuckerberg just vowed to spend $10 billion a year on it. Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) just spent $68 billion on a metaverse play. And recently Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) said it’s investing in VR as well. Some analysts say sales from the segment could soon be bigger than the iPhone.
I’ve tried it. And I like what I see.
Be well,
Andy