Earlier this week, Microsoft announced the
development of the world’s first holographic computing goggles, called
HoloLens, and I could really get used to life like this.
Invented by Alex
Kipman, the man behind Xbox Kinect's voice-response technology, the wireless
HoloLens will create a kind of augmented reality for its users, where
holographic images can be mapped onto anything you like - your walls, your
kitchen counter, your desk, and even the air around you.
you’ll see the technology
being used to design a life-sized model of a motorbike, teaching home plumbing
over Skype, and playing the most amazing game of Minecraft you could ever
imagine. The technology is said to track the position of the user’s hands at
any given moment, which means you can grasp holographic images and move them
around wherever you like. You can project three-dimensional weather forecasts
onto your counter, and your email interface on your fridge. If Microsoft has it
their way, you’ll never take this thing off.
Which, of course,
raises some interesting questions. As DJ
Pangburn writes at Motherboard
"While Microsoft
believes HoloLens will become a new engine of creation and communication, with
developers creating apps that exploit the headset's depth camera, the blending
of realities will result in people spending more time, if not staring at an
actual screen, computing nonetheless.
As we’ve seen
with the ubiquity of mobile devices, there has been an erasure of offline and
online existence. With virtual objects, interfaces, and experiences mapped onto
the territory of our analog worlds, the obliteration of the line separating our
offline or unplugged lives from our online ones will only be amplified.”
The whole thing is
pretty out-there, but it kinda has to be to change the future. Jesse Hempel at Wired was
lucky enough to get a hands-on trial with the HoloLens, and describes the
prototype as "amazing".
Hempel describes how the depth camera has a field of vision that spans whopping
120 by 120 degrees, so you can stretch your arms out as far as you like, and
the HoloLens will have no problems tracking them. Sensors in the headset
communicate with the system at a rate of several terabytes per second, but the
computer won't feel hot on your head, because it's got air vents on either side
to keep it constantly cool. Holograms can be adjusted using a set of buttons on
the side of the device.
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