Hands-On with Microsoft's New Holographic Goggles • Hacker News Board

Re: Hands-On with Microsoft's New Holographic Goggles

#151

Post by snops » Wed, Jan 21, 2015, 9:50 PM UTC

nsxwolf wrote: post #139

aquark wrote: post #121

It looks impressive, but it would help to be able to tell the hype from reality: "Sensors flood the device with terabytes of data every second" ... somehow I doubt the aggregate bandwidth of the device is > 1TB\s Makes it harder to know how much of the rest of the 'explanations' are accurate.

Could the sensors be indeed flooding the device with terabytes of data, but the device can only sample that data at a more reasonable rate?

To give an example, a raw 4K stream at 12 bit is about 500MB/s, so unless it has 2000 4K cameras, unlikely.

Re: Hands-On with Microsoft's New Holographic Goggles

#152

Post by Coincoin » Wed, Jan 21, 2015, 9:53 PM UTC

saosebastiao wrote: post #68

be5invis wrote: post #51

It will definitely stamp its name on the page of history.

I might be ignoring something, but this appears to be the first ahead-of-the-pack innovation from Microsoft that I've seen in at least 20 years. Congrats to them.

Kinect was pretty surprising too, especially at that price point. EDIT: Granted they didn't develop 100% of the tech themselves, but still: depth perception, human skeleton recognition, in real time, on a crappy 360, for 150$? That was impressive.

Re: Hands-On with Microsoft's New Holographic Goggles

#153

Post by beloch » Wed, Jan 21, 2015, 9:53 PM UTC

VR is going to be a real game-changer for entertainment, but it's AR that's going to change how we work and live our everyday lives. The key to making VR work is reducing lag, but this is even more important for AR, which carries additional complexity in sensing and blending the virtual with the real. The difficulty of sensing and correctly modelling the real world in real-time is immense. There aren't many companies I'd believe could make the leap directly to functional, useful AR, but MS's experience in gaming, with the Kinect, gives them a huge head-start. This could be the real deal!

Re: Hands-On with Microsoft's New Holographic Goggles

#154

Post by rubencodes » Wed, Jan 21, 2015, 9:54 PM UTC

beloch wrote: post #150

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #140

I think Microsoft re-branding Augmented reality as "holographic" is hugely impactful and, with the new wave of AR and CV products that are coming onto the market [1] might be the thing that makes people take it seriously. It's just so much easier to explain to people what it is if you say Holographic vs Augmented Reality - even though it is technically wrong. Kudos to MSFT for making that leap. [1] Shameless plug for…

It makes no sense at all if you think of an actual hologram, but makes perfect sense if you think of a Star Trek hologram. This is like a wearable holodeck. Just add a haptic body suit (no doubt in the works)!

Note to self: Add to list of things I should make.

Re: Hands-On with Microsoft's New Holographic Goggles

#155

Post by gradys » Wed, Jan 21, 2015, 9:56 PM UTC

mhomde wrote: post #131

mentos wrote: post #62

What is the killer app that will get people to go out and buy these? I don't think Holo Studio is it. Where is your imagination racing to?

Virtual holographic Cortana assistant :)

The 3D modelling is already done!

Re: Hands-On with Microsoft's New Holographic Goggles

#156

Post by pbhjpbhj » Wed, Jan 21, 2015, 9:58 PM UTC

daemonk wrote: post #58

baby wrote: post #9

It was demoed just right now here: http://news.microsoft.com/windows10story/ It looks really really really impressive! It's a see through pair of glasses so not like Occulus and they said they invented a new technology: HPU. The glasses will have their own GPU, CPU and HPU and will be wireless.

It starts around 1:37 Live demo starts around 1:53

In which video, I looked at both on that page - http://news.microsoft.com/windows10story/ - and neither had a holo product demo at that time mark.

Re: Hands-On with Microsoft's New Holographic Goggles

#157

Post by arcticfox » Wed, Jan 21, 2015, 9:59 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #112

rndn wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is the product website with three promo videos on it: http://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-hololens/en-us

Reminds me of Google Glass's concept video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R1snVxGNVs I think Google over-promised initially which lead to many being underwhelmed with Glass. I hope Microsoft isn't making the same mistake here.

As far as I can tell, a big difference is that Google's concept video looks very little like actually using it, whereas Microsoft's is clearly just a better version of their live demo. The live demo was amazing.

Re: Hands-On with Microsoft's New Holographic Goggles

#158

Post by drzaiusapelord » Wed, Jan 21, 2015, 10:00 PM UTC

beloch wrote: post #153

VR is going to be a real game-changer for entertainment, but it's AR that's going to change how we work and live our everyday lives. The key to making VR work is reducing lag, but this is even more important for AR, which carries additional complexity in sensing and blending the virtual with the real. The difficulty of sensing and correctly modelling the real world in real-time is immense. There aren't many companies…

>VR is going to be a real game-changer for entertainment

I think the jury is still very much out on this. Personally, I hate VR. Its claustrophobic, asocial, dizzying, and I do not like the idea of giving software my entire field of view either. Cheap HMDs are going to be nice, but I don't know how well they're going to do outside the hardcore gamer demographic. I can't imagine watching a movie with friends with each of us wearing these things or even playing a console game with the other players in the room.

AR gaming, on the other hand, isn't something that gets much press, but I can really see some novel uses. Imagine playing something like "Gone Home" but in your home. Clues hidden in your real-life closets, drawers, etc. Or peering into the mirror in your bathroom and seeing the main characters face instead of yours. Or something in the background that's not really there.

Re: Hands-On with Microsoft's New Holographic Goggles

#159

Post by arcticfox » Wed, Jan 21, 2015, 10:03 PM UTC

vxNsr wrote: post #89

mynameisvlad wrote: post #77

The craziest part about this is that they were embargoed for four months.

Yeah, I'd guess that someone leaked to wired accidentally or on purpose (but the person wasn't cleared to leak) and to keep any info from getting out they gave Wired an exclusive on condition that Wired keep it's mouth shut until today.

It was almost certainly just an embargo in exchange for exclusivity until launch.

Re: Hands-On with Microsoft's New Holographic Goggles

#160

Post by trsohmers » Wed, Jan 21, 2015, 10:03 PM UTC

aquark wrote: post #121

It looks impressive, but it would help to be able to tell the hype from reality: "Sensors flood the device with terabytes of data every second" ... somehow I doubt the aggregate bandwidth of the device is > 1TB\s Makes it harder to know how much of the rest of the 'explanations' are accurate.

Terabytes is out there, terabits not so much... I'm developing a single chip with 3Tbit (384GBytes/s) aggregate external (chip to chip) bandwidth, and with 8TByte/s aggregate internal (core to core) bandwidth.