From blankets to towels to clothing to upholstery, humans are in contact with textiles for almost all their lives. Textiles, used for warmth, comfort, and aesthetics, can be combined with electronics to gain exciting new functionalities.

Spatial computing promises to transform the way we interact with our devices as computing goes truly 3D, with early signs of change already underway. While Apple's upcoming Vision Pro is bringing new excitement to this space, gaming-focused VR (Virtual Reality) headsets from companies including Meta, Sony, and Pico have sold millions of units, and AR (Augmented Reality) glasses from Vuzix, Microsoft, and more have found a valuable place in industry.

Wednesday 29 November 2023 - Outlines how the vergence-accommodation conflict is holding back XR from its full potential; Lays out the landscape of potential solutions in augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) headsets, from light field displays to geometric phase lenses; Compares these approaches by benchmarking on the promotion of social acceptability, manufacturing feasibility, and other factors to lay out the most likely path to integration of these technologies into immersive devices with mass appeal

Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR and AR) headsets share, on the surface, 90% of the same component parts. However, two key technologies separate the former product category, which has sold in the millions on the consumer mass market, from the latter, which is yet to crack the mainstream market. Near-eye optics form one part of the puzzle, but display systems offer an equal challenge.

Tunneling magneto resistance sensors are rapidly disrupting the automotive and wearables industry. These tiny sensors leverage quantum phenomena to provide a performance edge over classical incumbents, including industry mainstays such as Hall effect sensors. Although they don't depend on the more exciting effects such as superposition and entanglement, in this article, IDTechEx highlights the lessons to be learned from the success of TMR sensors in the emerging quantum sensor market.

Wednesday 1 November 2023 - The state of the wearables market in 2023; Assessing the value proposition of combining AI with wearable data; Case studies across multiple form-factors - Smart watches - could AI unlock advanced medical monitoring applications?; Skin patches - is AI software the key to unlocking the consumer market for continuous glucose monitors?; Brain computer interfaces - will AI gift earphones with mind-reading powers? Outlook for the future: hype vs. reality

As reported by Nvidia's Q2 financial statement, its second-quarter data center's revenue was a record US$10.32 billion, up 141% from the previous quarter and up 171% from a year ago. With the increasing demand for high-performance servers in data centers, IDTechEx has seen challenges in data center thermal management and tremendous opportunities in this industry.

The road to fully autonomous vehicles is, by necessity, a long and winding one; systems that implement new technologies that increase the driving level of vehicles (driving levels being discussed further below) must be rigorously tested for safety and longevity before they can make it to vehicles that are bound for public streets.

In 2023, almost every VR device uses LCDs (Liquid Crystal Displays) to replace the real world with digital content, but a shift might be underway in 2024. Apple's Vision Pro is set to be one of the earliest VR devices to use OLED-on-Si technology, also known as micro-OLED, in a move to shrink headsets down whilst offering extremely high-quality images.

Wednesday 27 September 2023 - AI capabilities, and why these matter; Market revenue forecasts for AI chips at the edge up to and including 2034; Analyses relating to multiple key industry verticals, such as consumer electronics and automotive; Discussion of trends within these industry verticals.

Thursday 21 September 2023 - Seeing Is Believing: Exploring the Future of XR Display Technology - An introduction to how XR device types affect display requirements; Discussion of recent innovations in the XR display industry and their potential impacts on the future of XR devices; The bottlenecks and technology gaps holding back XR display development, with potential solutions identified; A roadmap for the development of the industry, with key player technologies highlighted

Since the introduction of Artificial Intelligence to the data center, AI has been loath to leave it. With large tracts of floorspace dedicated to servers comprising leading-edge chips that can handle the computational demands for training the latest in AI models, as well as inference via end-user connections to the cloud, data centers are the ideal environment for facilitating much of what AI has to offer.

Spatial computing promises to transform the way people interact with their devices as computing goes truly 3D, with early signs of change already underway. While Apple's upcoming Vision Pro is bringing new excitement to this space, gaming-focused VR (Virtual Reality) headsets from companies including Meta, Sony, and Pico have sold in the millions.

The increasing power density of data center racks, driven by technologies like cloud computing, generative AI, and crypto mining, has led to the exploration of liquid cooling as a thermal management solution.

With the continuous increase in the thermal design power (TDP) of chips, traditional air-cooling methods are struggling to meet the cooling requirements of modern hyperscale data centers. As a result, liquid cooling has emerged as a promising solution due to the high specific heat capacity of liquids.

Thursday 20 July 2023 - Navigating the Liquid Cooling Dominance in Data Centers - An IDTechEx Roadmap; Air cooling: An overview of the traditional air-cooling approach and its benefits and limitations; Direct-to-chip/Cold Plate Cooling: An exploration of cooling methods that involve direct contact between the cooling medium and the chips or the use of cold plates; Immersion cooling: An examination of cooling techniques that utilize immersion of servers or components in dielectric fluids; Coolant comparison and regulations: A comparison of different coolants used in liquid cooling systems, along with relevant regulations; Single-phase and two-phase cooling: An analysis of single-phase and two-phase cooling methods and their applications in data centers; Thermal interface materials (TIMs): An overview of the importance of thermal interface materials in efficient heat transfer within cooling systems.

Sony recently announced 'Project Q', comprising the development of a hand-held PlayStation and corresponding high-end earbuds. The inclusion of earbuds initially seems surprising since headphones and earphones are amongst the most mature in the near hundred billion-dollar wearables market.

Over the past 16 years, the thermal design power (TDP) of GPUs has quadrupled. With the increasing demand for AI, cloud computing, and crypto mining, IDTechEx expects the power consumption of server boards and data centers to continue rising.

On June 5th, Apple ended years of speculation and finally announced a mixed reality (MR) headset. The US$3499 Vision Pro headset confirmed some expectations and confounded others. IDTechEx has been tracking the mixed, augmented and virtual reality markets since 2015, with reports on headsets and accessories and optics available now and a report on displays for AR/VR soon to be released. This insight into the AR/VR industry and associated technologies provides context to IDTechEx's initial analysis of Apple's headset design philosophy.

Consumer technology available today is impressive but still not as cool as promised by many classic sci-fi movies. Our dreams of hoverboards and holograms have been replaced by stagnating smartphone designs and doom-scrolling. Yet things look set to change.