Telefónica’s innovation can be directly relevant to the media sector — it owns Spanish pay TV and SVOD operator Movistar Plus+, Europe’s largest film and TV investor among telcos. But it will play out over a far wider scale. The focus at Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress was largely on gaining cost efficiencies in mobile operators complex systems, observes James Barford of London-based research company Enders Analysis.

“You can make an enormous amount of money from a kids TV show and it can be more successful than almost any other large format,” agrees Tom Harrington, analyst at Enders Analysis. “It travels well, language can change easily, there’s a new audience every couple of years and lots of merch opportunities. But to get commissioned in the first place is very difficult. In the UK there’s so many limits on what ads you can put around it so there’s no demand from advertisers and it’s not a good business for commercial broadcasters.”

As Jamie MacEwan, who covers tech for Enders Analysis, puts it: “The idea of seamlessly blending entertainment and productivity into the world is exciting. But still theoretical, as manufacturers have a mountain to climb first. You need an affordable, lightweight device that’s comfortable to wear but has decent battery life, compelling applications and a good enough display to be truly usable.

“These glasses simply don’t do enough to change the world. But they are closer to the form factor and pricing that will sell AR than Apple's headset."