Microsoft HoloLens in the back: the giant beaches in the retina

The holographic glasses HoloLens, which Microsoft presented at the Windows 10 preview last week, have made Microsoft's image cool again! A Microsoft employee in China has confirmed to Tencent that the product has been secretly developed by Microsoft headquarters and that the global Microsoft Research system is not aware of it.

Clearly, this is different from Microsoft's development habits in recent years, including Xbox,windows, office and other core products iterative and development, Microsoft is a global force division of labor, it is easy to see, HoloLens has been Microsoft as a secret weapon class products.

The Verge's report also confirms that, "Alex Kipman, the head of the project, Alix Kipman the end of 2013 with a team focused on developing wearable devices to run Windows, a project that has been brewing in secret laboratories, Even a lot of Microsoft employees do not know, the mysterious comparable to the Google X laboratory.

Kipman is not a nobody, and seven years ago, it was he who proposed to Microsoft the development of a somatosensory gaming device, Kinect. 2010 after the launch of the product, sales staggering, by the consumer's hot. He was therefore praised as "the father of the Kinect".

He believes that the PC is the last generation of computing technology, Project HoloLens belongs to this era. "The future of computing will no longer revolve around the original digital world, but with language and gestures to simulate the world, the new world needs a different set of rules." ”

At this point, including Microsoft, Samsung, Sony, Facebook and other first-line giants have joined the smart glasses of the market, although the technology used by each of the different, but there is no doubt that the future of the war on the verge of the fire. Obviously, the Giants can't wait to occupy the smart TV or other screens, and start the fight for the retina.

Augmented reality is 10 times times more complex than virtual reality?

In fact, the tech giants are trying to develop the next generation computing interface. They are particularly visible in the field of virtual reality (VR) and augmented Reality (AR). Last year, Sony released the virtual reality head-wearing monitor Project Morpheus, Samsung unveiled virtual reality equipment gear Vr;facebook spent 2 billion dollars to buy virtual reality equipment business Oculus VR, the virtual reality of the track on the slow emergence of the leader.

And the field of augmented reality seems to have yet to be taken, and opportunities remain. Google Glasses (Google Glass), which once sparked a wave of global wearable equipment, has been widely criticized in many ways, so that last week it started to stop taking orders. Although last week, Google Engineering director Ray Kurzweil in China, said that Google glasses is the right direction, but need to constantly iterate to meet the needs of users, we still do not have great expectations.

In addition, Magic Leap, the visual technology start-up company that Google invested heavily in last year, has recently applied for a patent for augmented reality, so it is unclear whether a sought-after augmented reality device will emerge at this year's Google developer conference.

Corresponding to Google glasses is a castar-augmented reality glasses, which can project holographic 3D images. November 2013, castAR debut platform Kickstarter, and great success. The inventor of this product is Jerry Elsworth (Jeri Ellsworth), founder of the technical Illusions company.

At the CES show earlier this month, CNET hosted a brainstorming forum titled "The Next Big invention: A new reality", with castAR inventor Elsworth, Oculus VR founder Lakki, sharing their insights into augmented reality and virtual reality technology.

Elsworth said, "Some people think that Google glasses is augmented reality equipment, in fact, it should be a greater degree of information equipment." "At the same time, she thinks the challenge is that for those who have not tried augmented reality, it is really hard to explain exactly what augmented reality is."

"There are many different kinds of augmented reality that can be explained 10 times times more complex than virtual reality," Elsworth stressed. Oculus VR founder Lakki says the two technologies of future augmented reality and virtual reality will eventually converge.

Why does Microsoft HoloLens stand out?

"Comparing Microsoft HoloLens to the next Google glasses is unfair because there are essential differences," Geithner analyst Brian Blau said in a media interview. "HoloLens did not imitate Google glasses, and did not copy Oculus Rift or Project Morpheus, which is a new and unique product.

Oculus Rift is currently a 360-degree gaming experience, playing games in the virtual world is one of its major features; Project Morpheus is a product developed by the Sony Gaming department and relies on the Sony ecosystem and relies on PlayStation 4 to operate Microsoft HoloLens is designed to be tailored for Windows 10, so it also relies on the Microsoft ecosystem.

HoloLens can both experience games and other scenarios, such as using HoloLens to initiate Skype video sessions, and thanks to its excellent demo, NASA has signed up with Microsoft to use the technology for this summer's mission.

This product main holographic experience, rendering lifelike holographic image, the effect is not as virtual reality as forced users into a computer-generated virtual world, but the use of augmented reality technology, the virtual objects superimposed into the real world scene, to achieve a sense of the real world, Let users enjoy digital life without leaving their surroundings.

Depth detection and gesture recognition should be said to be a big problem, but because Microsoft has accumulated these technologies earlier, so do the real world detection and gesture tracking recognition, real world and virtual world of real-time superposition is not a problem.

Wang Xiaoquan, founder and CEO of Sogou, wrote last week that the advantage of Microsoft's HoloLens information interaction is that it allows real-time, continuous access to scenarios and support for more natural gesture input. "If successful, Microsoft HoloLens will not only revolutionize and subvert, but will also lead humanity into a new era," he said. ”

James McQuivey, a Forrester analyst, also believes that Microsoft HoloLens this augmented reality experience, once successful, will eventually greatly expand the human-computer interaction approach. "Just as the human interaction between mouse and graphical interfaces in the the 1990s, and the introduction of Apple's iphone in 2007, triggered a touch-change industry, Microsoft HoloLens could become a landmark technology." ”

Combination of two technologies, triggering a change in the interactive mode of wearable equipment?

Alex Pentland, director of the MIT Human Power Laboratory, known as the "father of wearable equipment," said earlier that the most important part of wearable equipment is the sensor, in order to truly achieve the natural interaction of wearable equipment, voice, image, body sensing technology, etc. can not fall.

The virtual reality developer, Wang Ming Yang Yi, told Tencent that virtual reality and augmented reality technology required a complete interactive approach. At this stage, only rely on the glasses itself is not workable, but also need other ancillary equipment, such as body sense equipment, infrared equipment.

Microsoft HoloLens is still only a conceptual product, when it will be available, the price is how many of these issues at Microsoft's press conference did not have a clear answer, so HoloLens when the commercialization of the spring is not clear.

The current wearable equipment has been criticized not enough intelligence, not user-friendly, Google glasses is a typical example, then Microsoft HoloLens can lead the next wave of wearable equipment? It may be difficult in a year or two, but in the long run, with the combination of virtual reality technology and augmented reality technology, and its exponential growth trend, we have reason to believe that the next generation of wearable devices will change the way they interact.

(Responsible editor: Mengyishan)