HoloLens, Microsoft’s forthcoming AR headset, was today revisited at the company’s ‘Build 2015’ developer conference. Along with a number of tantalizingly smooth on-stage demos, the company also released a video showing some early prototypes, as well as an exploded model of the ‘mixed reality’ device’s inner workings.
Microsoft calls this video “A Close Look at the Hardware,” but websites like iFixit might take offense to the notion that this was anything but a very brief overview. What we do see is a rapid flash of prototype units, one bulkier than the next. A testing station makes an appearance with some sort of physical marker pattern, the later of which HoloLens reportedly doesn’t require for what likely is an ‘inside-out’ computer vision tracking system.
We have what Microsoft obtusely calls “advanced sensors,” a pair of “holographic high-definition lenses,” (which doesn’t mean anything at all really), and a “custom holographic processing unit,” their so called HPU. Built-in speakers on the device make head phones unnecessary. Needless to say we’d love to know more about how it all works, but understand that an unreleased device can be as secretive or open as its makers dictate.
And despite all this marketing gimmickry of Holo-this and Holo-that, we still want to try it, love it, and hope it delivers all the cross-platform app compatibility we’ve been promised with the upcoming Windows 10 ecosystem.
See Also: Microsoft – “All Windows Universal Apps Work as Holograms”
The device still doesn’t have a purchase price or solid release date to boast, but we’ll be following any first-hand experiences with HoloLens, a device which, according to project lead Alex Kipman, has been produced in the hundreds for Build 2015 conference attendees to try.