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Microsoft HoloLens Mind BLOWN

Peteo
Expert Protege
Holly crap:
HoloLens has see-through, holographic lenses. Built-in high-end CPU and GPU. We invented a third processor, a holographic processing unit. No wires, no phone required, no connection to a PC needed.

Microsoft has been working with NASA secretly for this technology.


http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/21/7867593/microsoft-announces-windows-holographic

Will be out in windows 10 time frame

wired mag hands on: http://www.wired.com/2015/01/microsoft-hands-on/

More hardware info here:
http://www.wired.com/2015/01/microsoft-nadella/
scroll down until you seed the head set







Kipman’s prototype is amazing. It amplifies the special powers that Kinect introduced, using a small fraction of the energy. The depth camera has a field of vision that spans 120 by 120 degrees—far more than the original Kinect—so it can sense what your hands are doing even when they are nearly outstretched. Sensors flood the device with terabytes of data every second, all managed with an onboard CPU, GPU and first-of-its-kind HPU (holographic processing unit). Yet, Kipman points out, the computer doesn’t grow hot on your head, because the warm air is vented out through the sides. On the right side, buttons allow you to adjust the volume and to control the contrast of the hologram.

Tricking Your Brain
Project HoloLens’ key achievement—realistic holograms—works by tricking your brain into seeing light as matter. “Ultimately, you know, you perceive the world because of light,” Kipman explains. “If I could magically turn the debugger on, we’d 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.”

To create Project HoloLens’ images, light particles bounce around millions of times in the so-called light engine of the device. Then the photons enter the goggles’ two lenses, where they ricochet between layers of blue, green and red glass before they reach the back of your eye. “When you get the light to be at the exact angle,” Kipman tells me, “that’s where all the magic comes in.”

Thirty minutes later, after we’ve looked at another prototype and some more concept videos and talked about the importance of developers (you always have to talk about the importance of developers when launching a new product these days), I get to sample that magic. Kipman walks me across a courtyard and through the side door of a building that houses a secret basement lab. Each of the rooms has been outfitted as a scenario to test Project HoloLens.

A Quick Trip to Mars
The first is deceptively simple. I enter a makeshift living room, where wires jut from a hole in the wall where there should be a lightswitch. Tools are strewn on the West Elm sideboard just below it. Kipman hands me a HoloLens prototype and tells me to install the switch. After I put on the headset, an electrician pops up on a screen that floats directly in front of me. With a quick hand gesture I’m able to anchor the screen just to the left of the wires. The electrician is able to see exactly what I’m seeing. He draws a holographic circle around the voltage tester on the sideboard and instructs me to use it to check whether the wires are live. Once we establish that they aren’t, he walks me through the process of installing the switch, coaching me by sketching holographic arrows and diagrams on the wall in front of me. Five minutes later, I flip a switch, and the living room light turns on.

Another scenario lands me on a virtual Mars-scape. Kipman developed it in close collaboration with NASA rocket scientist Jeff Norris, who spent much of the first half of 2014 flying back and forth between Seattle and his Southern California home to help develop the scenario. With a quick upward gesture, I toggle from computer screens that monitor the Curiosity rover’s progress across the planet’s surface to the virtual experience of being on the planet. The ground is a parched, dusty sandstone, and so realistic that as I take a step, my legs begin to quiver. They don’t trust what my eyes are showing them. Behind me, the rover towers seven feet tall, its metal arm reaching out from its body like a tentacle. The sun shines brightly over the rover, creating short black shadows on the ground beneath its legs.

Norris joins me virtually, appearing as a three-dimensional human-shaped golden orb in the Mars-scape. (In reality, he’s in the room next door.) A dotted line extends from his eyes toward what he is looking at. “Check that out,” he says, and I squat down to see a rock shard up close. With an upward right-hand gesture, I bring up a series of controls. I choose the middle of three options, which drops a flag there, theoretically a signal to the rover to collect sediment.

After exploring Mars, I don’t want to remove the headset, which has provided a glimpse of a combination of computing tools that make the unimaginable feel real. NASA felt the same way. Norris will roll out Project HoloLens this summer so that agency scientists can use it to collaborate on a mission.
154 REPLIES 154

benplace
Rising Star
I need to see more about this and how it works. It looks AMAZING....

VizionVR
Rising Star
Want
Not a Rift fanboi. Not a Vive fanboi. I'm a VR fanboi. Get it straight.

DevHaste
Honored Guest
Here's the video they made to show what it's like. (One of the best examples of what Augmented Reality is like that I've ever seen)



Still many many questions, such as FOV, Resolution, Horsepower in the HPU/GPU, weather the overlay is transparent or not. We should hear more on these questions once people manage to test them at the event later today.

kojack
MVP
MVP
They've got a kinect inside of a headset?


I wonder how much battery life this thing will get.
Author: Oculus Monitor,  Auto Oculus Touch,  Forum Dark Mode, Phantom Touch Remover,  X-Plane Fixer
Hardware: Threadripper 1950x, MSI Gaming Trio 2080TI, Asrock X399 Taich
Headsets: Wrap 1200VR, DK1, DK2, CV1, Rift-S, GearVR, Go, Quest, Quest 2, Reverb G2

nosys70
Expert Protege
seems CastAR has found some big shot to buy them

Wireline
Explorer
I need to buy a cabinet for all the VR and AR devices I am going to end up owning.

kojack
MVP
MVP
I just ordered an Intel Realsense 3d camera the other day (no idea when that will ship, I think I'm in a queue to get into a queue), now there's another 3d camera based thing for me to get.

I was interested in CastAR too, I've been waiting for sdk info to come out, but this seems to beat it in most ways.
The one thing CastAR seems cabable of that Hololens isn't is easy collaborative viewing. Since it uses markers, multiple CastAR users have a common point of reference, while Hololens is using point clouds from the mini kinect, that's going to be much harder to synch between people in different positions. Solo use, Hololens. Groups sitting around a table, could be CastAR's field.
Author: Oculus Monitor,  Auto Oculus Touch,  Forum Dark Mode, Phantom Touch Remover,  X-Plane Fixer
Hardware: Threadripper 1950x, MSI Gaming Trio 2080TI, Asrock X399 Taich
Headsets: Wrap 1200VR, DK1, DK2, CV1, Rift-S, GearVR, Go, Quest, Quest 2, Reverb G2

jeonunh
Explorer
It will be interesting to see what they mean by releasing the product "Within the Windows 10 timeframe" That could mean they plan to release it near the launch of Win10, or it could mean they will launch it sometime between the launch of Win10, but before the launch of Win11.

In any case, if the experience is even remotely close to what they just showed in the demos I think they are light years ahead of what I was expecting from Microsoft. Light years... Wow. I get that this is AR and not VR, but their AR is better than anyone's VR is at the moment..

mattnewport
Protege
Very exciting announcement and the demos look promising but the information released so far raises more questions than it answers. I'd love to hear more info about how this works (is the 'holographic' stuff just hype / marketing or is the display actually based on some type of light field display technology?), what kind of specs the hardware in the headset has (CPU/GPU, what exactly does the 'HPU' do?), what do the APIs to interact with this look like (do you still render two stereoscopic views of the scene or is there more to it as the 'holographic' claims would imply), does the display have the ability to block out light from the real world (giving scope for full VR rather than just translucent looking AR)?

Hoping Microsoft will release more information soon. Also very interested to hear reports from some of the journalists who get to demo it in person.