Hardware

AR without cameras is kind of pointless, imo. The creep factor is huge, though. It would be reasonable (not easy, but reasonable) if people could curate what information about themselves was available to whom, but that would preclude the corporations having access to whatever information they could glean about everyone. And if they have it, why couldn't they provide it to whoever is willing to pay them a small monthly fee for it?

Until that problem is solved, AR is going to be a very tough sell.

Other than a steering wheel, I would put a vr headset as critical for a racing Sim setup. I can't go back to screens after that level of immersion. Its so insane being able to stick your head out of the window while you're drifting. I'd take a quest 2 over the most expensive screens you can buy.

Edit: also flying sims, especially dog fighting. You have to really be able to look around and vr makes that possible. Before that you would have to build one of those bubbles with a projector and it would look so shit.

I don't see a point to AR without cameras. Text translation and context-based information are all I would want, maybe a navigation aid, everything else just seems annoying to have right in front of me.

Stephenson actually specifically addressed how people would feel uncomfortable around AR users from a privacy standpoint back in Snow Crash (as well as the fashion side).

It's a gargoyle, standing in the dimness next to a shanty. Just in case he's not already conspicuous enough, he's wearing a suit. Hiro starts walking toward him. Gargoyles represent the embarrassing side of the Central Intelligence Corporation. Instead of using laptops, they wear their computers on their bodies, broken up into separate modules that hang on the waist, on the back, on the headset. They serve as human surveillance devices, recording everything that happens around them. Nothing looks stupider, these getups are the modern-day equivalent of the slide-rule scabbard or the calculator pouch on the belt, marking the user as belonging to a class that is at once above and far below human society. They are a boon to Hiro because they embody the worst stereotype of the CIC stringer. They draw all of the attention. The payoff for this self-imposed ostracism is that you can be in the Metaverse all the time, and gather intelligence all the time.

Gargoyles are no fun to talk to. They never finish a sentence. They are adrift in a laser-drawn world, scanning retinas in all directions, doing background checks on everyone within a thousand yards, seeing everything in visual light, infrared, millimeter. wave radar, and ultrasound all at once. You think they're talking to you, but they're actually poring over the credit record of some stranger on the other side of the room, or identifying the make and model of airplanes flying overhead. For all he knows, Lagos is standing there measuring the length of Hiro's cock through his trousers while they pretend to make conversation.