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Second version of HoloLens HPU will incorporate AI coprocessor

microsoft.com

21–30 of 93 posts

Re: Second version of HoloLens HPU will incorporate AI coprocessor

#21

I used a Hololens and it was awesome (it fit over my glasses). Inference on Hololens could make you do so much more. Maybe you could use it to take scans of parts from a CNC or the CNC tool and create a system that could tell you if a similar piece will fail in the future. From what I have seen compared to Google Glass I think it could be possible for richer interactions and also it uses both eyes. But, I haven't hea…

We got a couple at my company and I've built some protoypes for it, and threw up a little blog for it. The cool thing is the HoloToolkit which seems to be maintained by some xbox developers, and scripts all the functionality you need to get off the ground.

The hard part has been coming up with prototypes that go beyond a cool experience, and solve some customer's problem. It doesn't recognize what it's looking at, as much as it's just recognizing the shape of what it's looking at. You have to write the functionality to then determine what it is. Though the HoloToolkit does have scripts that will recognize walls, floors, tables. But it falls really short of the wild ideas my co-workers come up with. There are some example projects out there that will show you how to determine faces, which is cool. But the best ideas most people have, the beta Skype app already knocks it out of the park.

Re: Second version of HoloLens HPU will incorporate AI coprocessor

#22

Any idea who makes it? It's probably close in architecture to GPUs, the kind of thing Nvidia and AMD are positioned to capitalise on.

Maybe:

http://www.general-vision.com/ ???

No idea, actually - but they are one of a handful of companies selling such a part.

Re: Second version of HoloLens HPU will incorporate AI coprocessor

#23
post #10

Serious question: what is an AI coprocessor technically? Some machine learnt models burned on a chip? Or some kind of a neural net with updatable weights?

Probably also enough high speed memory to store the weights without needing to go to RAM.

Re: Second version of HoloLens HPU will incorporate AI coprocessor

#24
post #10

Serious question: what is an AI coprocessor technically? Some machine learnt models burned on a chip? Or some kind of a neural net with updatable weights?

I was in the audience at CVPR when it was presented. They were doing semantic segmentation using resnet-18, so I'm guessing it speeds up convolutions and some linear algebra during inference. I'm guessing it won't be used for training.

Re: Second version of HoloLens HPU will incorporate AI coprocessor

#25
post #7

I remember HoloLens being announced to be available in "windows 10 timeframe". Still awaiting (EDIT:) Cheaper consumer version.

HoloLen hardware can be purchased here https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/hololens/buy

Hardly the device for my kids to play Minecraft on like MS hyped. Starting to feel like another Kinect - the preview movie was amazing, the actually shipped one, meh.

Re: Second version of HoloLens HPU will incorporate AI coprocessor

#26
post #13
post #2

Is it time to recognize that "AI" is the meaningless buzzword of 2017? "Nothing is cooler because it is cyber." -- J.D. Falk, RIP.

How is AI meaningless? I mean, I guess the term can be seen as silly, but I mentally map it to "statistical computing." [edit] Since I'm getting down votes, can someone clarify? I wasn't being contrarian with the above comment. Is my mental map of what AI means as an industry term incorrect?

'AI' is often a delicate term (in the sense the real meaning is often hotly debated). It represents what many people worked decades of their lives for, but it is still really as hard and as abstract since the idea was first conceived.

Using the term might get points for marketing, but you'll only get contempt from the people who realize what it really stands for.

Re: Second version of HoloLens HPU will incorporate AI coprocessor

#27
post #21

I used a Hololens and it was awesome (it fit over my glasses). Inference on Hololens could make you do so much more. Maybe you could use it to take scans of parts from a CNC or the CNC tool and create a system that could tell you if a similar piece will fail in the future. From what I have seen compared to Google Glass I think it could be possible for richer interactions and also it uses both eyes. But, I haven't hea…

We got a couple at my company and I've built some protoypes for it, and threw up a little blog for it. The cool thing is the HoloToolkit which seems to be maintained by some xbox developers, and scripts all the functionality you need to get off the ground. The hard part has been coming up with prototypes that go beyond a cool experience, and solve some customer's problem. It doesn't recognize what it's looking at, as…

What is it about the beta Skype app that is so compelling?

Re: Second version of HoloLens HPU will incorporate AI coprocessor

#28
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is AI meaningless? I mean, I guess the term can be seen as silly, but I mentally map it to "statistical computing." [edit] Since I'm getting down votes, can someone clarify? I wasn't being contrarian with the above comment. Is my mental map of what AI means as an industry term incorrect?

Any term/phrase can be rendered meaningless by overuse and misuse. The person you are responding to isn't claiming AI, as it actually is and what it actually means, is meaningless. They are claiming that "AI" the phrase is becoming meaningless.

Understood and my point was that anytime I see AI used in articles these days, they seem to be referring to statistical computing solutions. I know AI can also refer to rule based algorithms, but I rarely see it applied in those contexts these days.

Put another way, does anyone read the above statement and think "MS is developing a chip to accelerate A*?"

Re: Second version of HoloLens HPU will incorporate AI coprocessor

#29

Any idea who makes it? It's probably close in architecture to GPUs, the kind of thing Nvidia and AMD are positioned to capitalise on.

I was thinking it might be closer in spirit to AMD's APU which combines graphics and compute onto the same chip.

Re: Second version of HoloLens HPU will incorporate AI coprocessor

#30

I used a Hololens and it was awesome (it fit over my glasses). Inference on Hololens could make you do so much more. Maybe you could use it to take scans of parts from a CNC or the CNC tool and create a system that could tell you if a similar piece will fail in the future. From what I have seen compared to Google Glass I think it could be possible for richer interactions and also it uses both eyes. But, I haven't hea…

The use cases are pretty varied. We're using some for a medical study looking to see if the HL can help lessen pain through distraction (tested against normal distractions like iPads). The HL is nice, as it lessens incidents of simulator sickness. We're also trying to get the thing to be used to scan the homes and backyards of long-term stay patients so that they can 'go back home' for a little bit while hooked into the hospital. Honestly, in our experiences, it seems like the best use of VR is 'live' events like concerts, sports games, minecraft, etc.

As an aside, you know you are a real adult when you are given the HL for the first time ever, full of 3-d potential and amazing sound and all the coolest things your 10 year-old-self could think of, and you immediately dive into the wireless and firewall settings.

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