There's a format war you probably didn't even know was going on, right in front of your eyes. It's the battle of four 3D glasses manufacturers to take over movie theaters everywhere.

The New York Times has an excellent piece on the topic that I highly encourage you to read. It looks like a company named RealD has one up on the competition, as they've supplied the simple, polarized glasses distributed for Avatar (which cost about 65 cents each, btw).

Competitors include Masterimage, who uses a similar polarization technology, Dolby, who uses an RBG technology, XpanD, who uses a LCD-based shutter. The catch? Projectors can only be configured to support one of these systems at a time.

It's hard to imagine either Dolby or XpanD succeeding in the market—be they better or not—as both make glasses that are reusable but extremely cost prohibitive, running $28 and $50, respectively. Then again, until I saw Avatar, I didn't imagine 3D succeeding in the first place. [NYT]