Positional tracking is a feature for high-end VR headsets that allows them to track the pitch and angle of your head as it moves around. Currently, mobile VR headsets like Samsung's Gear VR only track the direction in which you are looking. Headsets like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive use a camera, or external sensors, to achieve this effect.
It's an extra layer of data that significantly helps to immerse you in a VR experience - which is why mobile VR headsets have lacked the "true" VR feel. It's an issue Oculus CTO John Carmack has been attempting to solve - getting positional tracking to work with mobile VR, without the need for external sensors (which would defeat mobile VR's ease-of-use and portability).
One method is known as "inside-out" tracking. Since mobile VR headsets have a mobile phone slotted into the device, this method would use the phone's camera to identify objects and use them to track its current position - as opposed to a camera which faces the headset, like with the Oculus Rift. Carmack has offered some updates on his progress, but it doesn't look entirely promising:
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As UploadVR hypothesises: "There’s a good chance at least one more new VR headset will be released this year powered by Oculus because late 2016 is the right time for Samsung to release the Note 6, which would actually be the third generation of that phone to work with the Oculus platform. We’ve heard rumblings Samsung is likely to release a new Gear VR with the phone too."
If that were the case, such a headset would be the perfect opportunity for Carmack's potential solution - should it get to that point - to debut in a commercial mobile VR headset. And if mobile VR gets positional tracking right, they'll actually be able to properly compete with the Rift, Vive, and PlayStation VR.
