Microsoft Invites HoloLens Devs To Purchase Kits, Shipments Begin On March 30

[kcarbotte]

Starting today, developers who showed interest in getting in on the ground floor of holographic computing will be invited to purchase Microsoft HoloLens developer kits and start creating software for the company’s upcoming computing platform.

Microsoft Invites HoloLens Devs To Purchase Kits, Shipments Begin On March 30 : Read more

 

[d_kuhn]

Wave 4... so I'll get mine midyear or maybe a bit later.

 

[DeadlyDays]

I look forward to when this matures and they decided to start pushing it towards normal consumers(at consumer price levels), though I may get it before then

 

[hoofhearted]

$3K for a dev kit! This is alot more than the competion (Oculus and Vive) charged. Does this mean the retail will be expensive too? Seems like Microsoft is doing the same thing with this as the did with the XBone -- Charge more than the competition (PS4) but market it as a media entertainment system rather than just a gaming system.

 

[DeadlyDays]

This is a traditional devkit, not some startup offering people development models. They DON'T want normal consumers to have one of these. If they did, they would get the wrong impression on how the consumer version would work and that would develop bad press for them. They don't trust normal consumers, and they shouldn't. The price not only helps them pay for the kits, which are undoubtedly this expensive to manufacture since they are being produced in small batches, but to also keep it out of the hands of people who do not intend to develop on it, and thus not get a ton of people buying it and misusing the dev kit and then creating bad press on it. I'd charge more honestly, because AR is something I want hardcore, and I really don't want some bad hype ruining it coming out en masse sooner rather than later. The main designer of this system at Microsoft has said outright, they don't have something that would appeal to normal consumers yet, and so they don't want to release to them. Once they have something they believe might work, I'm sure they'll release it and do so at a price point that is reasonable for normal consumers(because it wouldn't be viable if it wasn't affordable/comfortable to use)

 

[RedJaron]

$3K for a dev kit! This is alot more than the competion (Oculus and Vive) charged

This is also a more complex product in a lot of ways. In the simplest terms, the Rift is a split display that tracks head movement. It needs something else to do the processing and feed it the pictures. The HoloLens generates its own images and tracks your environment on its own.

 

[memadmax]

"HoloLens runs Windows 10 natively"

I stopped right there and changed the webpage being viewed...

>_>

 

[vaughn2k]

Don't let your eye pop on the price. The reason it is expensive, is because it is produced in small quantities, for developers of course. Wait till it goes mass production, and the price will go down eventually.

 

[Bloob]

$3K for a dev kit! This is alot more than the competion (Oculus and Vive) charged. Does this mean the retail will be expensive too? Seems like Microsoft is doing the same thing with this as the did with the XBone -- Charge more than the competition (PS4) but market it as a media entertainment system rather than just a gaming system.

It's not a consumer device, I believe the developer versions of consoles are about the same price.

 

[d_kuhn]

$3K for a dev kit! This is alot more than the competion (Oculus and Vive) charged. Does this mean the retail will be expensive too? Seems like Microsoft is doing the same thing with this as the did with the XBone -- Charge more than the competition (PS4) but market it as a media entertainment system rather than just a gaming system.

It's not really competing with the Rift or Vive. It's not a "VR kit" but rather an "Augmented Reality" kit. I'm engaged for the potential business applications for the tool. VR headsets could also potentially have business apps... but they're not really targeting that space. This kit is being marketed to the traditional Microsoft Developers channel as opposed to the VR kits that were modeled more like "open source" projects.

 

[ammaross]

I can't stress enough to all those "Vive" and "Rift" people, this IS NOT VR! This isn't meant to be some screen-in-the-face VR system. This is more like a HUD that responds to movement and gestures (without requiring wands and controllers). It's also a complete computer in the unit and not a phone-tether device. Uninformed masses....

 

[hdmark]

like someone said higher up , i cant wait till this goes mainstream. Working at an industrial gas plant... this would be amazing to have. I could see uploading the P&ID into the lens and going out to the plant having the pipes labeled on my glasses.

someone make this please!!!

 

[ammaross]

like someone said higher up , i cant wait till this goes mainstream. Working at an industrial gas plant... this would be amazing to have. I could see uploading the P&ID into the lens and going out to the plant having the pipes labeled on my glasses.

someone make this please!!!

I really doubt these are Cat1Div2. (Gas&Oil here too)

 

[hdmark]

like someone said higher up , i cant wait till this goes mainstream. Working at an industrial gas plant... this would be amazing to have. I could see uploading the P&ID into the lens and going out to the plant having the pipes labeled on my glasses.

someone make this please!!!

I really doubt these are Cat1Div2. (Gas&Oil here too)

well not yet!! lol soon enough.
id be really impressed if they could get it to scan the installation direction of check valves and other components

 

[DeadlyDays]

I imagine if you have a 3d build of the blueprints on a location, you could program something to interpret essentially where you are in the blueprint(or just have you tell it initially), then it could follow along and give you an overlay of what is where and even tell you if something differs from the 3d blueprint.

AR is pretty much as cool as it gets short of matrix

 

[bit_user]

This is also a more complex product in a lot of ways. In the simplest terms, the Rift is a split display that tracks head movement. It needs something else to do the processing and feed it the pictures. The HoloLens generates its own images and tracks your environment on its own.

Right. Unlike VR, it must perform simultaneous localization & mapping, and it must project the synthetic imagery at the same focal plane as objects in the real world that are at the same depth, since its display is transparent. They're most likely using a sophisticated lightfield projector, which requires a lot more rendering horsepower than a simple 2D display.

I didn't think AR would be this advanced, for a few more years. It blew me away, when MS announced this, early last year.

Given the amount of resources this required and the amount of time it took, it truly deserves to be called a moonshot project. I even had to muster some respect for Steve "Monkey Boy" Ballmer, when I learned of it.

 

[DotNetMaster777]

Why this is so expensive? When this gadgets will be cheaper ???

 

[DeadlyDays]

The only sad part is it can't render black at this stage(technological limitation) since it is just adding light to your vision. Hopefully they come up with some sort of trick for this in the future though I'm not sure I see how they would, maybe requires contact lense and LCD's to block light?

 

[bit_user]

The only sad part is it can't render black at this stage(technological limitation) since it is just adding light to your vision. Hopefully they come up with some sort of trick for this in the future though I'm not sure I see how they would, maybe requires contact lense and LCD's to block light?

Well, the most conceptually straight-forward solution would be to use a lightfield camera and a lightfield projector. That would turn it into something more like a VR headset with a pair of cameras (a bit like HTC Vive, but much better).

Though imperfect, I think a LCD layer might be acceptable. Of course, with dark objects seeming to have halos around them, I could imagine that earning it the nickname HaloLens.