Microsoft HoloLens [Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Holograms]

[Deleted member 11852]

The possibilities are endless. Sure you can do a lot of the things with a combination of devices. But then modern life is full of things that let you consolidate actions into once device. After all, wasn't that the attraction of the PC? And tablets? And smartphones? This has the potential to move all of that onto one device.

Cool post, thanks. I try not to be negative but I've been a lot of cool promising technology that hasn't seen its potential realised so I tend to ground my expectations on what things have been shown to do, not what it may be able to do if they fix issues, X, Y and Z.

I think the biggest challenge to the image generation technology is the muted/dull image and low resolution - which is something a number of people lucky enough to get a personal demo noted. Maybe they can improve this but what quality video would you really get from a holo projected 100" TV? Or even a cinema-sized projected screen in a warehouse? When I look at my TV, currently showing BBC News 24, will I be able to read the news captions clearly? How about the clock? Or the news ticker? What about subtitles of TV and movies?

How about interacting with information. Wouldn't it be cool if emails appeared Harry Potter-style like flying envelopes and you can grab it and open it in front of you. Will the resolution be sufficient to make the letters readable without using a large virtual typeface size? How about responding. Virtual keyboard appears? Can you see which letters are on the keys?

I think their demonstrations showed objects, rather than actual information, for a this reason. That doesn't take away from how cool that Minecraft thing was and I'd dearly love to have a play on this thing. But cool isn't the same thing as useful.

 

[Arwin]

In the light of this reveal the purchase of minecraft is certainly interesting.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

In the light of this reveal the purchase of minecraft is certainly interesting.

It certanly makes their demonstration immediately relatable to a huge number of people - particularly the journalists covering the event.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Meh. The Meta concept showed the same thing without needing to spend stupid money on the Minecraft brand.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I want to know about text input. I'm assuming speech to text is going to be the primary means, but what happens if you have to enter a password. Will they use a "look and select" method, like the stage demo?


As for the screen, they're calling it HD, but I have no idea how that's mapped to a pixel resolution for their display which does not use pixels.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Are you sure it doesn't use pixels? That'd require an analogue imaging source. It may not be an ordered grid (I expect it does), but I'm confident there are discrete portions of the image assembled into the whole image.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I

Are you sure it doesn't use pixels? That'd require an analogue imaging source. It may not be an ordered grid (I expect it does), but I'm confident there are discrete portions of the image assembled into the whole image.

I mean it doesn't have a display with pixels. However they're bouncing light through and into your eyes, I have no idea what the effective resolution is other than it being "HD"

 

[eastmen]

windows weekly talked about this a bit.

Paul said that this was a gaming only thing until 6 months ago when the new ceo said this would be great on its own.

Paul and Mary both feel this could be out the end of the year.

They were also both blown away by it which is interesting to me because Mary Jo hates gaming and was totally uninterested in the rift.

I want to know about text input. I'm assuming speech to text is going to be the primary means, but what happens if you have to enter a password. Will they use a "look and select" method, like the stage demo?
As for the screen, they're calling it HD, but I have no idea how that's mapped to a pixel resolution for their display which does not use pixels.

Why can't you just use a keyboard ? or better yet why can't it just pop a keyboard up in your field of view.

Of course you can always get one of these

 

[Michellstar]

Omni-tool from mass effect

 

[fehu]

I want to know about text input. I'm assuming speech to text is going to be the primary means, but what happens if you have to enter a password. Will they use a "look and select" method, like the stage demo?

passwords would be the most secure in the world
you can use a virtual keybard that nobody can see
or click on a sequence of symbols randomly placed in the air

 

[Cyan]

I don't think the VR vs AR argument is something we'll need to worry about for too long. Clearly both are just two sides of the same basic technology and I see it as inevitable (likely wthin 10 years) that there will ultimately be headsets that can provide both full VR or AR as the user desires. On top of that is the general trend of miniaturization which will ultimately see such a device (again within 10 years) being little bigger than a regular pair of sun glasses. Add to that very quickly developing technologies of natural voice recognition and hand gesture control, and combines with eye tracking I am reasonably confident that within 10 year, glasses of this sort will have replaced smart phones completely.

Imagine, if they are not much bigger that a normal pair of raybands, cover your full field of vision, Wifi/mobile network enabled, can switch between AR/VR/Normal vision seamlessly and are fully controllable through voice, eye tracking and gesture then they would make todays best smart phones looke utterly archaic by comparison and almost completely redundant - and all that tech is easily within our grasp within a decade. Retina scan security (your glasses only work on your head) would also be a pretty awesome and obvious progression.

I thought smart watches would replace phones in the long run, but you might have a point there.

Plus, if you need to call someone or you are just watching your whatsapp or writing a message, you could finally -and actually- do that privately for a change -same with entering your credit card code to perform a transaction or whatever- 'cos no one can creep up on you and your phone or whatever.

Nobody can see what you are seeing, especially if it uses a password and "knows" who is its owner.

In addition, I also believe VR + AR will be huge in the future. I wonder how my issue with VR .-not only being bulky, but actually isolating you from the real world- can be solved, 'cos it's a big no no for me, especially when phone calls, people around you, etc, might be oblivious to you.

 

[onQ]

I want to know about text input. I'm assuming speech to text is going to be the primary means, but what happens if you have to enter a password. Will they use a "look and select" method, like the stage demo?


As for the screen, they're calling it HD, but I have no idea how that's mapped to a pixel resolution for their display which does not use pixels.

If it has a camera that's tracking your eyes there is 2 or even more ways to handle passwords. 1 is using your eyes to navigate through the letters as you click them with a hand gesture. another way is to just use bio-metric identification scanning your iris.

 

[Scott_Arm]

...

Why can't you just use a keyboard ? or better yet why can't it just pop a keyboard up in your field of view.

Of course you can always get one of these

I'm sure you could use a keyboard, but if you're taking it around your home, your not going to keep dragging the keyboard around with you. That would be a huge error on their part to rely on a physical keyboard as input.

 

[Scott_Arm]

passwords would be the most secure in the world
you can use a virtual keybard that nobody can see
or click on a sequence of symbols randomly placed in the air

Yah, I suppose there's no real reason that a password has to be text. That's already true for lock screens on smartphones.

 

[Cyan]

GameIndustry.biz has an interview with Peter Molyneux on HoloLens, and the inevitable comparisons with Kinect that it's attracted, given the similar style of reveal.

It's obviously Molyneux-slanted but makes for an interesting read. I had forgotten he was a Microsoft Executive and he states he was around during some of the early testing of HoloLens some years back. This is mostly his perspective having seen the unveiling.

...says the creator of Milo. And he also admitted lying to keep journalists awake:

http://www.neoseeker.com/news/16034...bout-game-features-to-keep-journalists-awake/

The fact of the matter is that it is still early days, but at least journalists have tried the Hololens, with unalike results but mostly positive reviews.

 

[Cyan]

Meh. The Meta concept showed the same thing without needing to spend stupid money on the Minecraft brand.

Call it a sponsor. I am not into Minecraft, although I have the X360 version, but it's like if Mario sponsored the event. That's how the Amiboos are selling out leaving some people frustrated, or why Frozen is so big in Japan.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Imagine you're standing in a white room and the "hologram" is being projected onto one of the walls. The "hologram" is a window playing a video clip. Parts of the frames of the video are black, or near black. How the hell is that going to work? The previous tenant in my apartment painted the living room blood red, and I have't changed it. If I use this thing in my living room, and it's displaying a hologram that's blue, is the hologram going to look purple?

 

[Scott_Arm]

IGN hands-on

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2015/01/...adset-feels-like-science-fiction-come-to-life

 

[dobwal]

I'm watching UT and KU in a close basketball game while on my iPad right now. Both are reflecting the light creeping through the blinds of the windows which are opposite of the wall my TV is mounted on. My brain basically ignores it.

I'm sure people will be able to deal with the less than perfect imagery HL will probably produce as there are issues with just about every tech that people readily accommodate.

 

[Scott_Arm]

But what I'm saying is black is the absence of light. Black surfaces absorb light. So how do you put a black hologram over a white wall, or pretty much any light coloured wall? The light bounces off the wall and hits your eye. Do you cancel it out, or block it somehow? How else do you make your eye see black?