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Microsoft's 2015 HoloLens Demo

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Microsoft shows off their new fancy augmented reality tech demo. This is to be featured in Windows 10. It's essentially apps but with the novelty of wearing goggles and being able to place them in an augmented reality space and interacting with them in such.

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Why would anyone want to watch an exceedingly low quality TV, virtually-projected onto a wall in their home, when they already have a perfectly usable high definition TV, which everyone in the room can see without all the extra tech?

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This looks cool from an artistic point of view, and may have innovative uses (think of apps making good use of the augmented reality). I can imagine stuff like 3D maps and home idea generators (i.e. visualize virtual decorations in your room before you buy anything). I hope your skepticisms won't be confirmed.

Maybe the free apps will have ad posters (and not just posters) in the virtual space!

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Hopefully this will be successful, because it is a cool idea. Moreover, the implications of its usefulness should be apparent; provided the image is of high quality. But I would love for there to be no headset whatsoever eventually. Maybe a holographic projector(s) that covers the room.

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Kontra Kommando said:

Hopefully this will be successful, because it is a cool idea. Moreover, the implications of its usefulness should be apparent

The implications are, certainly. Have they demonstrated that usefulness, though? In my opinion - no - they have not. Instead all they demonstrated was a gimicky and expensive method of watching TV.

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hardcore_gamer said:

Another useless feature that looks awesome visually but serves no actual practical purpose.


Not true at all. A number of potential highly useful purposes have already been mentioned on the 'net, such as virtual human bodies for medical students to examine and "dissect", and the ability for NASA and other space agencies to explore representations of Mars and other planets using data captured from their probes.

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DaniJ said:

The implications are, certainly. Have they demonstrated that usefulness, though? In my opinion - no - they have not. Instead all they demonstrated was a gimicky and expensive method of watching TV.


Well, it would expand your user interface of your PC, to be projected where ever you go. Watching TV is only one aspect of what it will be capable of. Did you miss the part that had holographic NPCs, and applications? Its a means of projecting 3D objects within reality. This would be benificial to a 3D artist, no doubt. But I like to think about the implications it will have for gaming in general. Dismissing this as some kind of gimmick is egregiously selling it short by a long shot, imo.

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DaniJ said:

Why would anyone want to watch an exceedingly low quality TV, virtually-projected onto a wall in their home


Also, where did you get this idea that the image is going to be of low quality? Thus far, all I've heard is praise for its ability to project such a high quality image. If anything, there is some critiism about it working better for smaller scaled objects. But surely, the technology will improve overtime. Its not even on the market yet.

It’s not so much an issue of picture quality, but rather the size of your field of view. If they are able to get holographic images to wrap around a person's eyes in a panoramic view, it will meet my expectations for this product.

If they're expecting people to buy this for "more than a console", they need to make the FOV bigger.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/1/8527645/microsoft-hololens-build-2015-augmented-reality-headset

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Kontra Kommando said:

Well, it would expand your user interface of your PC, to be projected where ever you go.

I have been able to do that with my mobile phone for many years already.

I am not interested in potential future applications during a product demonstration. I want to see the practical uses for it now.

where did you get this idea that the image is going to be of low quality

My own reasoning - are you telling me I missed the memo about this being a head-up 4k display? Furthermore, transforming a video image through 3D perspective projection inherently results in a loss of quality.

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DaniJ said:

I have been able to do that with my mobile phone for many years already.

I am not interested in potential future applications during a product demonstration. I want to see the practical uses for it now.


Do I literally have to re-post or re-quote what I had stated in two posts above? Or what NiGHTMARE had posted about this being used by NASA or medical students?

DaniJ said:
My own reasoning - are you telling me I missed the memo about this being a head-up 4k display? Furthermore, transforming a video image through 3D perspective projection inherently results in a loss of quality. [/B]


No, there never was such a memo. But you did miss the fact that the image quality has been universially prasied by those that had a chance to test it out (with the exception of the small FOV). Also, it will never be 4k, because it doesn't utilize pixels; it uses photons to project images.

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Why does the little robot on the coffee table make me think of the Microsoft Office paper clip so much?

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But it looks like it will be no more useful than the versions of Kinect they had in the past..

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Kontra Kommando said:

Do I literally have to re-post or re-quote what I had stated in two posts above? Or what NiGHTMARE had posted about this being used by NASA or medical students?

No because it was ineffectual the first time. Do I literally have to re-state that I could care less about the marketing overload surrounding this? I am supposed to be impressed that NASA is involved with some of the research (er, they're working in practically every industrial and technical field there is)?

I do not care what it may or may not do ten years from now, when the technology has matured. What does concern me is the practical applications for this thing in the near term.

Presently, how does one interact with the "holograms"? All they've shown is "air tapping" and that interface surely lacks the precision needed to be useful for anything other than basic navigation of menus. You won't be creating detailed 3D models, or painting on your coffee table any time soon.

I get that people dearly want to see the potential future they've seen in movies like Minority Report realized today. However, you have to balance and temper those expectations with the practical reality of technology as it exists today.

Personally I'm clearly within the target demographic, particularly with regard to the creativity applications. Thus far however, they've not shown anything that I would actually want to use on a daily basis.

Also, it will never be 4k, because it doesn't utilize pixels; it uses photons to project images.

Right. And how are those photons projected, then? Are they in a regular grid array and thus directly comparable to other kinds of traditional display? ...I'll reserve judgement, thanks.

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DaniJ said:

No because it was ineffectual the first time. Do I literally have to re-state that I could care less about the marketing overload surrounding this? I am supposed to be impressed that NASA is involved with some of the research (er, they're working in practically every industrial and technical field there is)?

I do not care what it may or may not do ten years from now, when the technology has matured. What does concern me is the practical applications for this thing in the near term.

Presently, how does one interact with the "holograms"? All they've shown is "air tapping" and that interface surely lacks the precision needed to be useful for anything other than basic navigation of menus. You won't be creating detailed 3D models, or painting on your coffee table any time soon.

I get that people dearly want to see the potential future they've seen in movies like Minority Report realized today. However, you have to balance and temper those expectations with the practical reality of technology as it exists today.

Personally I'm clearly within the target demographic, particularly with regard to the creativity applications. Thus far however, they've not shown anything that I would actually want to use on a daily basis.

Right. And how are those photons projected, then? Are they in a regular grid array and thus directly comparable to other kinds of traditional display? ...I'll reserve judgement, thanks.


lmao that's fine dude, you don't have to be impressed. But if those examples aren't good enough, I doubt anything will be. But I think your criticisms are not valid when there are multiple reviewers claiming the opposite. All of your cynical reservations are based on conjecture.

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Dude should have been Minecrafting like their earlier preview of the tech. Even a basic gimped version of Minecraft would have worked, because showing off games with the thing would just be one step closer to a holodeck :)

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Am I being unreasonable by asking them to demonstrably show how their product improves a creative workflow? All I'm seeing are flashy gimmicks.

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DaniJ said:

Am I being unreasonable by asking them to demonstrably show how their product improves a creative workflow? All I'm seeing are flashy gimmicks.


Ultimately, we'll need to see multiple reviews of the final product before we can come to a clear assesment of its worth.

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chungy said:

Dude should have been Minecrafting like their earlier preview of the tech. Even a basic gimped version of Minecraft would have worked, because showing off games with the thing would just be one step closer to a holodeck :)


I wonder if it would be possible to play it with something like GTA V; it would be like playing the early GTAs with the overhead sky view.

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Kontra Kommando said:

Its a means of projecting 3D objects within reality.

I get the impression HoloLens is little more than a 3D headset with a few more sensors than the competition and a built-in Windows PC. When it's capable of projecting 3D holograms that can be seen by someone other than the headset wearer, I'll show some interest.

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