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Ask HN: What are your impressions of the HoloLens so far?

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Re: Ask HN: What are your impressions of the HoloLens so far?

#51

Post by yodon »

obsurveyor wrote: post #37
yodon wrote: post #27

HoloLens is cool but most of the HoloLens applications you write will be consumed on the $299 software-compatible Mixed Reality headsets that ship later this year (it's amazing how few people are paying attention to this announcement - Microsoft uses Mixed Reality as its branding but these are basically high end VR headsets with integrated tracking for a third the price of Rift and Vive devices)[0][1] From an applica…

You're mixing up $300 VR headsets with AR headsets. > it's amazing how few people are paying attention to this announcement It's not amazing because they're not showing anything except what appear to be fake, marketing videos. They've always been cagey with the HoloLens and what it was actually like and it looks like they're continuing down that line.

Please check the links on my post, and the places where I discuss the differences between HoloLens as AR and Mixed Reality as VR.

I'll also add I'm not sure what you mean by "they're always cagey with the HoloLens" it's been a shipping device for about a year now, they're available in the wild, lots of us outside of Microsoft have plenty of time in the HoloLens. The suggestion that they've been cagey about what's coming for the Mixed Reality headsets is similarly nonsense. If you want to stay a Microsoft hater because of something some guy said about Java more than 20 years ago, that's totally your privilege, I personally prefer to work in the present.

Re: Ask HN: What are your impressions of the HoloLens so far?

#52

Post by yodon »

obsurveyor wrote: post #50
falcolas wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to admit, if the resolution was good enough (the equivalent of 1920x1024 at arm's length would be sufficient to my mind), I'd be quite OK with this. Virtually unlimited screen space for tiling applications would be pretty awesome. One of the biggest problems I run into is even with a 30" 4k display, I'm always out of room to run concurrent windows.

You'd need like a 6k display to even start getting close to the 1920x1024 at arm's length equivalence. That's at least a generation or two ahead of where we're at today. That's why all this Mixed Reality stuff coming out of Microsoft today is just so much talk. I'm not arguing against them working on it, there should be a foundation but we're currently at the equivalent of the late-90s, early 2000s VR devices when it…

If you've not worn a HoloLens, I think you'll be surprised. There are plenty of things to complain about with the HoloLens but the resolution is amazing.

Re: Ask HN: What are your impressions of the HoloLens so far?

#53

Post by monk_e_boy »

andrewstuart wrote: post #28
monk_e_boy wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not on the ceiling above your bed. Not on the bus. Not in the passenger seat of your car.

A TV everywhere I go and in any direction I choose to see one is not something appealing in the least. In fact it's a repelling idea.

Don't buy it then.

I think glancing out to sea and seeing who owns the ships and where they are going would be neat. Then bringing up aperture and shutter speed for my old rangefinder so I can take the perfect photo. Looking up into the sky and identifying the planes and birds and stars and planets.

Seeing people's name tags next to them, maybe with some recent photos from facebook.

All stuff I can do on my phone, but without having to take it out of my pocket.

And before you go all Luddite on me ... "That sounds terrible!" I actually rarely take my phone with me and 90% of places I go have no signal. So for me this technology is almost like magic (if they can make it work)

I would like to remove my TV and put a plant there.

Re: Ask HN: What are your impressions of the HoloLens so far?

#54

Post by obsurveyor »

yodon wrote: post #51
obsurveyor wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're mixing up $300 VR headsets with AR headsets. > it's amazing how few people are paying attention to this announcement It's not amazing because they're not showing anything except what appear to be fake, marketing videos. They've always been cagey with the HoloLens and what it was actually like and it looks like they're continuing down that line.

Please check the links on my post, and the places where I discuss the differences between HoloLens as AR and Mixed Reality as VR. I'll also add I'm not sure what you mean by "they're always cagey with the HoloLens" it's been a shipping device for about a year now, they're available in the wild, lots of us outside of Microsoft have plenty of time in the HoloLens. The suggestion that they've been cagey about what's com…

Please link to any video from Microsoft that shows an actual, simluated view of wearing a current generation HoloLens.. I've been looking, still haven't found one. All I can find are marketing videos that show fantastical visions of what AR will look like some day but not today.

Re: Ask HN: What are your impressions of the HoloLens so far?

#55

Post by yodon »

obsurveyor wrote: post #54
yodon wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please check the links on my post, and the places where I discuss the differences between HoloLens as AR and Mixed Reality as VR. I'll also add I'm not sure what you mean by "they're always cagey with the HoloLens" it's been a shipping device for about a year now, they're available in the wild, lots of us outside of Microsoft have plenty of time in the HoloLens. The suggestion that they've been cagey about what's com…

Please link to any video from Microsoft that shows an actual, simluated view of wearing a current generation HoloLens.. I've been looking, still haven't found one. All I can find are marketing videos that show fantastical visions of what AR will look like some day but not today.

Random video from first page of a google search for hololens capture, someone somewhere in Asia is my guess, it's easy to shoot this kind of stuff when you have a hololens and Microsoft recently released an open source hardware kit for people who want to make more serious video captures.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bYpbvaGpCkE

There's plenty more, but honestly if an LMGTFY link like this can answer your question it sounds like you're actively trying to keep yourself from finding out what's going on. There are no conspiracies here, it's just tech, it works, it's very cool, and there are even fully functional simulators/emulators allowing you to code without access to the devices. It's a shame you're so sure there's something wrong that you're preventing yourself from getting involved with something that clearly interests you.

[edit] I see now you said you wanted a video "from microsoft" - that's in the very first video hit searching for hololens capture[0]. This video has other stuff in it as well, including discussion of an open source hardware and software system for making hololens captures, but there is absolutely straight hololens capture video in the link, just like in the other link I sent. Again, it feels like you're trying hard to not let yourself find or see this stuff.

[0] http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/13/14588178/microsoft-hololen...

Re: Ask HN: What are your impressions of the HoloLens so far?

#56

Post by jff »

monk_e_boy wrote: post #53
andrewstuart wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A TV everywhere I go and in any direction I choose to see one is not something appealing in the least. In fact it's a repelling idea.

Don't buy it then. I think glancing out to sea and seeing who owns the ships and where they are going would be neat. Then bringing up aperture and shutter speed for my old rangefinder so I can take the perfect photo. Looking up into the sky and identifying the planes and birds and stars and planets. Seeing people's name tags next to them, maybe with some recent photos from facebook. All stuff I can do on my phone, bu…

> And before you go all Luddite on me ... "That sounds terrible!" I actually rarely take my phone with me and 90% of places I go have no signal. So for me this technology is almost like magic (if they can make it work)

The way applications are written today, your HoloLens won't be able to show you information about planes and ships and such without an Internet connection :(

Re: Ask HN: What are your impressions of the HoloLens so far?

#57

Post by pmontra »

I tested one in November.

Very narrow field of vision: I had to fish for objects turning on myself and looking up and down. Not good for AR.

No black, obviously. They can't block light from going through rendered objects. This in turn makes colors somewhat ghostly.

Very stable. Once I get an object I can walk around it and it stays there like a real one.

"Clicking" on an object is hard, but maybe it was hard with a mouse when I used it for the first time.

Re: Ask HN: What are your impressions of the HoloLens so far?

#58

Post by Gaessaki »

evbots wrote: post #5
Gaessaki wrote: post #2

I've been doing development on it for a bank for about two months now. Things I like: -Let's you have an infinite number of virtual monitors with applications such as word, outlook, browsers etc. -Developing for it is really easy with tools like Unity -Battery life is not too shabby, rarely have to take it off to charge while I'm doing something -Great demo piece Things to work on: -Field of view isn't terrible, but…

Is there any kind of image stabilization? Or is that not needed?

In what sense do you mean exactly? the virtual objects stay perfectly stationary wherever you place them and though the gaze cursor is pretty sensitive, I never feel like I can't target what I want to interact with.

Re: Ask HN: What are your impressions of the HoloLens so far?

#59

Post by soylentcola »

Gaessaki wrote: post #2

I've been doing development on it for a bank for about two months now. Things I like: -Let's you have an infinite number of virtual monitors with applications such as word, outlook, browsers etc. -Developing for it is really easy with tools like Unity -Battery life is not too shabby, rarely have to take it off to charge while I'm doing something -Great demo piece Things to work on: -Field of view isn't terrible, but…

I think both FOV and price point are the most likely weak points to see continuing incremental improvements. Thinking back to my first smartphones in 2003-2004, it would've been easy to say "well yeah, the screens are too small, there's not enough RAM, and they're way too expensive!"

But over time, the steady improvement of touch displays, SoC's, and supply chains brought sub-$400 devices that are likely more powerful than my desktop PC at the time.

I think they made a reasonable compromise between FOV and ergonomics based on the current state of available hardware tech. While UI and software applications remain to be developed to make use of the tech, I'd be the least concerned about things like FOV going forward. It seems like a tradeoff that was made to avoid the bundles of tether cables and high-powered host machines seen in much of the current VR space.

Re: Ask HN: What are your impressions of the HoloLens so far?

#60

Post by Analemma_ »

Some bullet points I wrote when I tried it:

- The display technology is very nice. I was very impressed by how good the object permanence was: when you put an object somewhere, there is no lag or jitter when you move your head and it stays anchored to the spot. The holograms are reasonably bright and opaque.

- Also, when you pin an object somewhere, it stays there even when you walk around the room. It even stays if you pin it in like the middle of the room where there are no obvious reference points or anchors to use.

- The field of view is neither great nor terrible. It's usable but more would of course be better.

- The major downside is the interaction: "air-clicking" is not great and the gestures to trigger various actions aren't very reliable. It really needs hand controllers like the Vive has.

- The unit itself is comfortable, much more so than the Vive. There was an annoying lens-flare-like glare below the field of view. Not sure if that was my unit not set up correctly or a problem common to all of them.

Overall I'm quite impressed, although I probably wouldn't buy one even if I had $3,000 to burn. V2 will probably be the one to get, if they expand the FOV.

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