Designed for comfort.
The headband is designed like a performance car with
great weight distribution for a comfortable fit. Weight is distributed around
the crown of your head, saving your ears or nose from undue pressure.
Power and grace.
Containing more computing power than the average laptop,
Microsoft HoloLens is passively cooled without fans. With no wires, external
cameras, or phone or PC connection required, you can move freely and
untethered.
Adjustable fit.
The adjustment wheel in the headband ensures a
comfortable fit for a wide range of adult head sizes.
Sensor fusion.
Microsoft HoloLens has advanced sensors to capture
information about what you're doing and the environment you’re in
Spatial sound.
Using
a scientific model that characterizes how the human ear receives sound from a
specific location, Microsoft HoloLens synthesizes sound so that you can hear
holograms from anywhere in the room.
Sensor fusion.
Microsoft HoloLens has advanced sensors to capture
information about what you're doing and the environment you’re in.
Built-in speakers.
A
precise audio experience without headphones that is immersive, yet won’t block
out the real world.
Expectations
During its announcement, Microsoft said that
HoloLens would be released “within the Windows 10 time frame.” That leaves a
wide-open window for when we see a market release of HoloLens.
All the devices Microsoft brought to Build 2015
are prototype builds, so we expect a number of design enhancements and likely
technological enhancements before anything becomes available for businesses or
consumers. As such, no specifications were provided, no hardware features were
revealed, and few questions were answered.
Microsoft did offer that the developers that
engaged in more detailed demonstrations had high-praise for the platform. Given
Microsoft’s Universal platform for apps, HoloLens has an important role to
play.
What we got to use was clearly still a work in
progress, but Microsoft is putting considerable resources behind the effort.
That is a doubled-edged sword, expectations are being set very high early in
development. That means HoloLens must be an undisputed home run once it reaches
end-user heads.
Still, this is undoubtedly the future, and
Microsoft has set a very high bar. We wrote it twice so far, and will write it
again: This tech is really cool, and it is going to change the world
The first stop
in the demonstration was a live performance given by Dan and Joe. Joe donned
HoloLens while Dan went backstage and manned his PC (running Windows 10 of
course). Joe executed a Skype video call with Dan. After showing how the video
image (called a card) could be moved and pinned to certain parts of the room,
the two then began trading holograms and each could manipulate the virtual
space.
HoloLens, Skype,
Minecraft, and 3D printing
One of
those holograms was a caricature city skyline of San Francisco. They made some
changes to it and then sent it to a 3D printer. After that, Dan showcased a
model of the Seattle Space Needle he created in Minecraft. He then passed it to
Joe in the HoloLens environment where both of them could manipulate and resize
the model. Joe scaled it down, and placed it on a shelf in the make-shift room
that was the stage setting.
With the
mind-share that Minecraft occupied during the second day of Build, from the
Keynote to HoloLens demonstrations, it is clear that the next big chapter for
Minecraft is that as a hologram creation environment.
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