Microsoft doesn’t have its own VR headset. It has five — last year, Acer, Asus, Dell, HP and Lenovo all signed on to make wearable screens for Windows PCs. There’s just one thing: Microsoft insists that these five devices aren’t virtual reality headsets. They’re “mixed reality.” This week, as Acer starts shipping the first developer-oriented …

LG looks like another upcoming player in the VR landscape. LG is developing a VR head-mounted display, Valve said in a release Monday. A prototype of the headset will be demonstrated at Valve’s booth at the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco this week. LG experimented with VR in a pair of mobile goggles about a year ago, but the …

I’ve played Zelda games on the Nintendo 3DS, and DS and Game Boy Advance. I’ve played Zelda games on the GameCube, Wii and Wii U. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild arrives as an unusual launch game for the Nintendo Switch, because the Switch isn’t exactly a pure handheld or TV console. It’s a tweener. As I played …

Would you use carpooling over a paid car service? Google’s Waze crowdsourced navigation app has been exploring carpool services since last year, testing it in the San Francisco area and Israel. Now it looks ready to expand to other cities in the US and Latin America, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. The difference with Waze’s ride sharing is …

Paying via messaging app is becoming more common, thanks to bots. Facebook Messenger has added another one, via TransferWise, a UK-based global money transfer service. Facebook’s messaging app already supports Alipay, international money transfers via Azimo, PayPal, Stripe and major credit card companies like Visa, Mastercard and American Express. TransferWise makes payments via bot, which could be useful for some …

Wearables and smartwatches aren’t all disappointments. While Fitbit is expected to announce a holiday sales letdown over the last quarter, rival Garmin’s fourth quarter earnings financial results saw an overall 10 percent revenue increase, and the success was due to the company’s fitness and outdoors products. Garmin’s outdoor, fitness, marine and aviation units, in particular, saw the greatest growth. The …

My work colleague in the elevator sees what’s in my ears, barely. More discreet than AirPods, he says. Black, plug-like, they nestle in and keep a low profile. But he notices them. Wearing them, I notice them too. Putting regular earphones in your ears may not be enough. Soon, maybe, we might get “always-in” earbuds. Something like the Here One, …

“Hi everyone — the photo you are all excited about is NOT what you think it is.” So said Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz on Twitter earlier this month, responding to the latest PR crisis embroiling his Florida-based augmented reality (AR) startup. Days before, Business Insider published what it said was the first photo of Magic Leap’s secretive, never-before-seen hardware. …

If you like wearing things on your head, 2017 is looking like a good year. Toy Fair is here in New York this weekend, and with it comes a taste of the geek toys of the year. At Hasbro’s preview event, the most notable headgear was a Guardians of the Galaxy high-end Star-Lord helmet. It won’t be out in time …

Now playing: Watch this: Hasbro’s getting your kids to code with princess robots… 1:25 Throwing coding into toys is a trend that’s gone full-force over the last year or so, and Hasbro isn’t letting up. Two new spins on coding robots in 2017 include Belle from “Beauty and the Beast,” and a little hairless puppy with a transparent torso called …