Microsoft getting into the AR HMD game?

{% marginfigure "junk" "assets/uploads/2014/03/ms2-590x330.jpg" "All the patents you can eat!" %}

An interesting article came by today on geek.com titled Microsoft buys $150M worth of head-mounted wearable display patents.  I think it's interesting because while the focus is on "look, MS might be getting in the VR HMD game, following Facebook + Oculus and Sony's Project Morpheus", it also points out that the bulk of the purchased patents deal with see-through displays.  I don't know much about Osterhout Design Group (and as the article says, most people don't), so it remains to be seen if the patents are really worth much ($150M does not seem like that much in the patent game, so this may just be a defensive "we'll buy the possible junk patents that could let a troll target us" kind of move).  However, either way, it may signal that MS is interested in see-through AR (rather than cut-yourself-off-from-the-world VR) displays.  Which is pretty cool!