REDMOND, Wash. — I needed help installing a light switch and got it from a person communicating with me over Skype.
But this was no ordinary video call.
The woman appeared in a window laid in space over the real physical objects of the room. She could effectively reach out into my world to draw arrows and diagrams, pointing directly to the screwdrivers, wires and other tools and components I needed to successfully complete the job, at just the time I needed them.
From her remote Skype location, my helper could see where I was and what I was doing. From my end, I could "pin" her virtual display in midair, and while I could still hear her, the idea was I wouldn't be distracted when I connected wires and screwed things in.
I was participating in a "proof of concept" demonstration of the Microsoft HoloLens technology that the company unveiled at a Windows 10 event on its campus here Wednesday.
I wore a primitive prototype of HoloLens. Strapped over my eyes and head was a large contraption that was more Oculus Rift than Google Glass, though different from both. The head contraption was connected to a box hanging around my neck that apparently contained all the computing power required to make this bit of wizardry possible. I was experiencing mixed reality — fully blending the physical world with the digital.
In another room a few minutes later, I donned an identical HoloLens prototype as I walked around and explored the surface of Mars, a 3-D virtual tour of the Red Planet that felt remarkably real indeed even as I could still see the physical world around me. I was partially guided during my brief expedition by a three-dimensional human-shaped robotic figure that addressed me by name and directed me to bend down at one juncture to more closely examine some Martian rocks. Microsoft is working with NASA's Jet Propulsion technology on software called OnSight that works if used in conjunction with HoloLens so that scientists can collaborate in real time.
In a third room I was treated to yet another demo, something called Holobuilder, which involved a version of Minecraft, the addictive game that is now owned by Microsoft. Because I again wore the HoloLens contraption, the castle and other Minecraft worlds that I interacted with appeared on, above and below tables and other furniture — in other words, Minecraft in the real world. The coolest part came when I "dug" holes in a very real physical bench, exposing the Minecraft-like world below. Characters in theMinecraft game tumbled into the Minecraft abyss I had just exposed. I then blew a hole in a real wall, which revealed another hidden Minecraft world.
In the last holographic demo of the day, Holo Studio, Microsoft showed how anyone could build and design 3-D objects through holographic computing, eventually printing such designs through 3-D printers.
All of the demonstrations took place in a controlled, guarded Microsoft environment. We weren't allowed to take pictures or video — Microsoft even confiscated our phones and bags before we entered the demo areas, which were paradoxically located below Microsoft's campus visitor center.
Microsoft isn't saying when this Windows 10-based HoloLens holographic computer will be available to consumers, much less at what cost. Who knows how long a battery might last or what other software you need to use it? But Microsoft has bold ambitions here, and is definitely onto something that is potentially huge. The company is counting on developers to design and produce holographic-capable apps.
The final HoloLens product, unlike the contraption on my head and around my neck, will be free from wires and not require any connection to a PC. It will presumably be more comfortable to wear and worlds more elegant. To use the prototype a Microsoft employee had to measure the distance of my pupils or some such, to properly calibrate the eyewear. Such a measurement will apparently be done automatically in the finished product.
But unfinished or not, I came away wanting to buy this thing, whatever this thing finally turns out to be.
How does it actually work? You engage HoloLens by moving your head, using voice commands or by making a fist and raising and lowering your index finger, an easy enough to master gesture that Microsoft refers to as an "airtap," the virtual equivalent of a mouse click. HoloLens has high-definition lenses, advanced sensors, spatial sound and an HPU, short for Holographic Processing Unit.
The complete package invites the inevitable comparisons to Glass, Oculus and Sony's Project Morpheus. Microsoft says holograms are different from virtual reality in that a VR user is seated and completely immersed in a computer-generated reality or virtual world. With HoloLens, you can see the real world at the same time you see the digital.
The way Microsoft explains it, a hologram is like any other object in the real world with one key difference: Instead of being made of physical matter, it is made entirely of light. You can view holographic objects from different angles and distances, just like physical objects, but they do not offer any physical resistance when touched or pushed because they don't have any mass.
So, while it's not quite here yet, it's no longer science fiction.
Source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/01/22/microsoft-hologram-cool-but-unfinished/22144121/
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