After nearly a year’s worth of buildup, we are still nowhere near close to the coming of the HoloLens, Microsoft’s (pricy) all-in-one productivity computing solution with integrated augmented reality. But the roadshow goes on and so do the tidbit drops as we trudge through time.
Bruce Harris, one of Microsoft’s Technical Evangelists (isn’t that an awesome job title, by the way?), was on a recent jaunt to Tel Aviv to show off a non-functioning headset to games developers there.
The lounge get-together was more intimate than the usual convention space affair and Harris was fairly liberal about what he disclosed and what he allowed others to disclose — hence, the 22-minute video of him waxing poetic about HoloLens tech.
Here are some of the major points — with apologies for retreads:
- The HoloLens is a Bluetooth and Wi-Fi headset running a full version of Windows 10. Microsoft has no intentions to make wired versions.
- The battery will last five-and-a-half hours on light tasks like word processing and emails, two-and-a-half hours on graphics-intensive programs.
- The processing unit is kept away from close contact to the head. HoloLens will supposedly not get warm and will not irradiate your brain — at least, to testing labs’ and the FCC’s standards.
- It has an unspecified RGB camera, one or more microphones, head tracking sensors and 3D audio.
- Harris equates the HoloLens field-of-view to viewing a 15-inch monitor from roughly a foot away. Challenges come to glass manufacturing failure rate and battery consumption.
- Connecting the HoloLens to a server helps if heavy tasks require “billions of data points” from the cloud or passing it between geographically disparate locations.
- We don’t know of any affected-bandwidth consequences nor of any minimum specs when conferencing with HoloLens.
We have years to go before we have real products and for good reason.
Via: MobileSyrup