A review of Microsoft Hololens

By a kind invitation from Microsoft, I had the opportunity to experiment, from a user’s perspective, the new Microsoft Hololens. Basically, I was able to wear them for a while and to interact with a number of applications that were spread around a room.

From the outside, the result is not very impressive, as the picture above shows. In a room, which was mostly empty (except for the other guests, wearing similar devices), you can see me wearing the lenses, raising my hand to pull-up a menu, using the menu-pull up gesture.

From the inside, things are considerably more interesting. During configuration, the software identifies the relevant features of the room, and creates an internal model of the space and of the furniture in it.

Applications, both 3D and 2D, can then be deployed in different spaces in the room, using a number of control gestures and menus. Your view of the applications is superimposed with the view of the room, leading to a semi-realistic impression of virtual reality, mixed with the “real” reality. You can move around the 3D holograms in the room (in this case an elephant, a mime and a globe, like the one below, among others).

You can also interact with them using a virtual pointing device (basically a mouse, controlled by your head movements). 2D applications, like video-streaming, appear as suspended screens (or screens lying on top of desks and tables) and can be controlled using the same method. Overall, the impression is very different from the one obtained using 3D Virtuall Reality googles, like Google Cardboard or Oculus Rift. For instance, in a conversation (pictured below) you would be seating in a chair, facing an hologram of your guest, possibly discussing some 3D object sitting between the two.

Overall, I was much more impressed with the possibilities of this technology than I was with Google glasses, which I tried a few years back. The quality of the holograms was quite good, and the integration with the real world quite convincing. The applications need to be developed, though.

On the minus side, the device is somewhat heavy and less than comfortable to wear for extended periods. This limitation could probably be addressed by future developments of the device.

Microsoft HoloLens merges the real and the virtual worlds

The possibility to superimpose the real physical world and the virtual world created by computers has been viewed, for a long time, as a technology looking for a killer application.

The fact is that, until now, the technology was incipient and the user experience less than perfect. Microsoft is trying to change that, with their new product, Microsoft HoloLens. As of April this year, Microsoft is shipping the pre-production version of HoloLens, for developers.

The basic idea is that, by using HoloLens, computer generated objects can be superimposed with actual physical objects. Instead of using the “desktop” metaphor, users will be able to deploy applications in actual physical space. Non-holographic applications run as floating virtual screens  that will stick to a specific point in the physical space or move with the user. Holographic enabled applications will let you to use the physical space for virtual objects as you would for physical objects. For instance, if you leave a report, say, on top of a desk, it will stay there until you pick it up.

The IEEE Spectrum report on the device, by Rod Furlan, provides some interesting additional information and gives the device a clear  “thumbs up”.

The HoloLens, a self-contained computer weighting 580 grams, is powered by a 32-bit Intel Atom processor and Microsoft’s custom Holographic Processing Unit (HPU).

The following YouTube video, made available by Microsoft, gives some idea of what the product may become, once sufficiently powerful applications are developed.

Image and video credits: Microsoft HoloLens website.