Microsoft reveals HoloLens as the battle for VR goggles heats up
At Microsoft鈥檚 Windows 10 event Wednesday, the company gave the world a at the . This augmented reality (or 鈥渕ixed鈥� reality) device falls somewhere between Facebook's Oculus virtual reality headset and (the recently discontinued) Google Glass.
The work by producing interactive, hologram-like images that appear to pop out of thin air in the user鈥檚 immediate surroundings. Whether in a living room or an office space, the goggles act as a second layer of reality on top of the physical world in front of the wearer.
Microsoft's claims the goggles will create the illusion of virtual, adjustable televisions on a wall or Minecraft environments on a kitchen table. The video also shows a father giving his daughter a step-by-step guide to fixing a sink, complete with virtually drawing arrows and diagrams on the woman鈥檚 screen.
The circular headset sits on top of the wearer鈥檚 head like a crown and has two clear lenses over the user鈥檚 eyes. The device works by 鈥溾�� into perceiving light as matter, as the Wired鈥檚 Jessi Hempel reports.
鈥淯ltimately, you know, you perceive the world because of light,鈥� says chief inventor of Project HoloLens, Alex Kipman, in an interview with Wired. 鈥淚f I could magically turn the debugger on, we鈥檇 see photons bouncing throughout this world. Eventually they hit the back of your eyes, and through that, you reason about what the world is. You essentially hallucinate the world, or you see what your mind wants you to see.鈥�
HoloLens by mimicking the way our eyes and brains interpret light. 鈥淲hen you get the light to be at the exact angle,鈥� Mr. Kipman told Ms. Hempel, 鈥渢hat鈥檚 where all the magic comes in.鈥�
The HoloLens uses a to give the device a field of vision of . This allows for a wide range of interaction points with the user. Microsoft gave few details on the specifics of the device and its technology, but to Microsoft's Kinect 2 for insight into what the wearable device could offer.
Microsoft's for holographic technology was pitched by Kipman in 2008 and eventually yielded the original Xbox Kinect camera. The Baraboo Project, sometimes called 鈥淏,鈥� was the codename for a secret hologram project that began five years ago. Though many are looking to the Kinect 2 for clues to how HoloLens works, Kipman insisted to Wired that Baraboo would make the original Kinect look like the 鈥渕inor league.鈥�
This is a big step for augmented reality technology, but seems to be in no rush to get this product on store shelves. The company knows if the voice and gesture controls do not work well, customers will quickly dismiss the device. The only hint given for a release date was that it would happen in the same time frame as the release of . The company also mentioned that the device will be priced for consumers and enterprises alike, but gave no exact cost.
