Tapping a Trillion-Dollar Trend

This post Tapping a Trillion-Dollar Trend appeared first on Daily Reckoning.

His rags-to-riches story had Forbes magazine dubbing him “the most interesting man in the world.”

Now James Altucher is back, unveiling new information about a potential trillion-dollar trend that could be bigger than the internet boom of the ’90s.

And today he’s sharing his insights exclusively with you.

Read on below for all the details.

Regards,

Amanda Stiltner
for The Daily Reckoning

By James Altucher

“Everyone’s going to want to use it for porn,” I said.

I was talking with my friend Steven Kotler, author of several of my favorite books, like Bold and Tomorrowland and one of the foremost thought leaders on the state of the future. We were talking about virtual reality.

I wasn’t right about the porn. Well, maybe I was. I’ll guess we’ll find out.

But the truth is virtual reality has the power to impact our culture like no innovation before. We will literally be living in a new world.

One thing Steven mentioned is that, for reasons too complicated to dive into, VR will be able to release the five most potent pleasure chemicals in our brain: norepinephrine, dopamine, serotonin, anandamide and endorphins. These chemicals make VR really fun and addictive. Like a video game on crack.

Sign me up.

Your World Revolutionized

This has big implications even outside of the porn industry. For instance, in education. That cocktail of happy hormones is really good at improving brain function and memory. This could be revolutionary for our education system in terms of customized learning and equal access for all kids.

Or jobs. Think about it. A virtual world opens up literally endless possibilities in terms of a brand-new marketplace. Why go to a store to buy a shirt when you can try on and purchase a customized fit without leaving your house?

Hell, you could climb Mount Everest if you wanted to or go to the polar ice caps to study global warming.

VR has the capacity to launch the largest migration in human history. As in we could basically be living entirely in a virtual world. Working, making friends, having meaningful experiences.

I have to admit this to you: I’m a little scared. I don’t know exactly what this world will look like. What will this mean for the nonvirtual world? Will any of us ever leave our couches again?

But the truth is it doesn’t matter if you’re scared. People are already buying VR headsets. The future is here, and it’s virtual reality. And we have to pay attention.

So here’s some good news.

Technology is constantly accelerating. Every year, it’s getting faster and faster, developing and expanding exponentially. And when it does this, it creates huge opportunity. VR is going to create an opportunity like we’ve only seen twice before.

First there was the internet. This was a trillion-dollar opportunity. It’s still ongoing, but the internet is the present — not the future.

The app store was the second trillion-dollar opportunity. The entire ecosystem of smartphones and tablets and the cloud and applications moved computing into our hands.

And now, the third trillion-dollar opportunity has finally arrived: virtual reality. This year for virtual reality is like 1994 for the internet. The first commercial AI headsets have been launched. The chips are being improved upon. The storage is getting better. The entire infrastructure for the third trillion-dollar opportunity has been created over the past 20 years.

Many of the companies creating the technology and hardware are private. But some are public.

The Big Players Are All In

If you think that virtual reality is a rising opportunity (and you really should), then these are some public companies on the forefront of the technology.

Facebook has the Oculus Rift headset, which sells for around $600. The company has already sold 240,00 units in 2016.

The company posted great sales in 2016, but it won’t be profitable for Facebook until 2021 at the earliest. It’s interesting in the same way that Amazon is interesting — it doesn’t make money, but it’s the platform of the future, so the stock rises.

Alphabet is there, too, with their Google Cardboard, which is a simple cardboard viewer that wraps around a smartphone and costs as little as $15 (not including the smartphone).

They’re the simple viewer as an entry for a $200–400 version that will launch in the near future. For what it’s worth, the app that you use with Google Cardboard has been downloaded 15 million times already.

Google has also invested in Magic Leap, a startup that’s developing augmented reality (AR) technology. Unlike VR, AR projects holographic images over the current surroundings. It’s an interesting twist, like a heads-up display for regular life.

Google may have failed reaching mass market with Google Glass, but they learned a lot about what the consumer wants with the technology. This could potentially give them a first-mover advantage over some of the other companies they are competing against.

Sony also has a working VR headset for the PlayStation, and it’s interesting because Sony has an established user base to sell to (PlayStation owners). The company expects to sell 120 million PlayStation 4s during the device’s lifetime, and PlayStation VR works directly with the PS4, eliminating the need for extra hardware or a dedicated gaming computer.

Apple is also a significant player in the VR space. It acquired a software company called Metaio in the spring of 2015 for about $32 million and holds several VR patents. Before that, Apple bought PrimeSense, another VR company, in 2013 for about $345 million, firmly staking its claim in the future of VR.

PrimeSense engineers are best known for designing the first motion sensors for Microsoft’s Xbox Kinect. I can’t imagine Apple won’t get in on this somehow, and the stock is beaten down, so it’s a good time.

Microsoft has gone the same route as Google, with the HoloLens augmented reality device that overlays high-definition holograms in your field of vision.

Its focus is new ways to teach, create and collaborate. HoloLens devices became available to developers in the United States and Canada in the first quarter of 2016.

The trends and changes in VR tech are happening fast, and 2016 was a benchmark year for development. Meaning 2017 is the year for you to be a first mover and potentially bank big returns.

Things are only going to keep heating up in VR tech, and you won’t want to miss out on the chance for life-changing returns.

Regards,

James Altucher
for The Daily Reckoning

The post Tapping a Trillion-Dollar Trend appeared first on Daily Reckoning.

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