The expanding and shrinking space in virtual and augmented reality

Apple's new Vision Pro virtual reality headset is the cynosure of all eyes during Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) at the Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California, on June 5, 2023. Image: Josh Edelson / AFP

Innovating with gestures and eye movement, Apple Vision Pro may want to shift the way we look at technology but they aren’t the only ones. Innovation labs and companies have been at the forefront of pushing the boundaries of what's possible in AR/VR fields over the last couple of years. Selling has been an issue for most of them and the Vision Pro headset may also turn out to be Apple's lowest-selling product.

Unveiled after several years of development, a crime scene virtual reality room (holodeck) with a full-body scanner was developed by the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office. Thanks to high-tech and VR goggles, the scanner can create a virtual photorealistic "copy" of a user and crime scenes can be accurately recreated and walked through in three dimensions. 05 June 2023, Bavaria, Munich. Image: Sven Hoppe/ via Getty Images

An employee demonstrates the quality inspection of 300-millimetre wafers with augmented reality glasses during the production of semiconductor chips on the production line at the Bosch semiconductor plant in Dresden, eastern Germany, on July 12, 2022. Image: JENS SCHLUETER / AFP

Also read: WWDC 2023: From Vision Pro to MacBook Air, a round-up of Apple's major announcements

A customer tries out the Meta Quest 2 headset at the new Meta retail store on its opening day in Burlingame, California, U.S. May 9, 2022. Meta is scaling back its enthusiasm, following weak sales since their headset launch. Image: REUTERS/Nathan Frandino

A view of an exhibit at Arcadia Earth, the first immersive environmental art exhibit to use Microsoft HoloLens's augmented reality headset to spread awareness about the impacts of climate change, in New York City, U.S., April 28, 2022. Image: Roselle Chen/REUTERS

Primary school students experience VR science exhibits at the Artificial Intelligence Learning Experience Center in Qingzhou, Shandong province, China May 23, 2023. Image: Wang Jilin/Future Publishing via Getty Images

Podcast: Can Apple Vision Pro give developers, and so consumers, a whole new canvas?

Blind since birth, Parisian Laurence Jamet walks with a cane and the electronic device, called Rango, invented by the Lyon-based startup Gosense, which uses sound and augmented reality to warn visually impaired people before a collision can occur. Paris, France, September 21, 2021. Image: REUTERS/Manuel Ausloos

A drone pilot at Vodafone's Innovation Lab uses a Hololens and Gestiegen to control the DJI Matrice 210 RTK drone.  The Vodafone 5G Mobility Lab is at work to ensure jolt-free connections so that the drone can fly farther beyond one’s vision. North Rhine-Westphalia, Aldenhoven,  27 July 2022. Image: Oliver Berg/dpa via Getty Images

People view themselves in the AR Mirror at the 2023 Snap Partner Summit at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California, on April 19, 2023, where the focus was on immersive augmented reality experiences and tech for people attending music concerts. However Snap seems to be in no hurry to bring out a new version of its AR spectacles. Image: Frederic J. BROWN / AFP

An augmented reality (AR) metauniverse scene is seen through a mobile app at Hanzhong Road subway station in Shanghai, China, December 6, 2022. At China's first subway AR space in Hanzhong Road subway station, multiple application scenarios can be presented to users, including art exhibitions, commercial and public service advertisements, subway route guidance and so on. Image: CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images

Also read: Apple launches its own augmented reality headset at WWDC23

A screengrab of the augmented reality of Eminem and Snoop Dogg performing onstage during the 2022 MTV VMAs at Prudential Center on August 28, 2022, in Newark, New Jersey, USA. Image: MTV VMA 22/Getty Images

Soldiers don a prototype of the U.S. Army’s Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) during a Soldier Touchpoint 3 (STP 3) squad reconnaissance mission test training event at Fort Pickett, Virginia, U.S., October 21, 2020. Image: Courtney Bacon/U.S. Army via REUTERS

A Flightradar24 app shows, via augmented reality, the live position of planes in the area, on a smartphone in Los Angeles, California, on August 5, 2022. Tracking their jets have upset freight companies and celebrities. Flight-following websites and Twitter accounts offer real-time views of air traffic–and sometimes major news like Nancy Pelosi's Taiwan trip–but that exposure draws pushback ranging from complaints to gear seizures. Image: Chris Delmas / AFP

Also read: How metaverse can change the economics of museums

This photo taken on July 10, 2022, shows the Tencent headquarters in Shenzhen, in China's southern Guangdong province. Tencent, a Chinese digital titan, abandoned its VR plans in February. Image: Jade GAO / AFP

Artist Kianne Patrice Hutchinson of Jamaica presents her photography which employs augmented reality technology at PRIZM, an art fair showcasing artists of the African and Latino diasporas during Art Basel Miami Beach in the Design District on December 2, 2022, in Miami, Florida. Image: Photo by Sean Drakes/Getty Images​