Tony Rogers is a former Air Force Special Ops veteran and currently the Founder & CEO of VAai, where he’s doing strategic consulting and R&D work around augmented reality.

After a career as an electronics warfare specialist and a second career in battery backup systems, Tony turned his attention and considerable technical capabilities to all things augmented reality.

In addition to providing strategic consulting to Fortune 500 companies, you will find Tony creating and sharing video explainers on the technologies behind smartglasses, including displays, optics, gesture recognition, reality capture, and more.

In this conversation, Tony and I geek out on some of the key components of the new Hololens 2, including the butterfly waveguide optics and the laser beam scanning display. We talk about what they are, how they work, and some of the challenges associated with them.

We go on to talk about microLED microdisplays, video pass-through mixed reality, and Apple’s possible plans in 2020.

Tony also shares some thoughts on the the best AR ecosystem within which to develop today, and he shares his perspective on some of the marketing spin put out by Microsoft, Magic Leap, and others.

We also explore Tony’s own journey through the struggles of learning how to learn.

You can find all of the show notes at thearshow.com.