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Smartphone-based augmented reality (AR) and the AR headset explosion will bring 3D holograms into our lives everywhere. Meanwhile, though, the real AR hologram revolution is being ignored.

A hologram is a 3D virtual object that is not actually there, but looks as if it were, either floating in the air or standing on a nearby desk or table.

The holo in the Microsoft HoloLens headset is a reference to holograms. And when we think of these future AR holograms, we think of headsets, goggles such as HoloLens or smartphones running applications created with Apple ARKit or Google ARCore.

Technology is increasingly becoming ubiquitous, and companies are racing to win market domination. A competitor to the HoloLens, the Lightware headset from secretive Magic Leap, has been in the news lately, after six years of development at a cost of $2 billion, for two reasons.

The first is that the company unveiled the Creator Edition of the headset in December. Now we know what it looks like: something right off the cover of a vintage sci-fi novel.

The second reason is rampant speculation that Apple might buy Magic Leap to accelerate its own AR goggle development, speculation driven by Apple analyst Gene Munster.

In other 3D hologram fan headset headlines, Dell this week announced that it will start selling, on Feb. 15, the $1,495 Meta 2 developer kits, which include the Meta 2 AR headset, for business deployments. The company said the Meta 2 is supported by several business-class Dell Precision Workstation PCs.

What are holograms good for, anyway?

Think of 3D holographic desk fan displays as the next step in making digital content more human-compatible.

Humans see the world in 3D. Our computer and phone screens show us a 2D version of the world. It’s artificial.