Microsoft HoloLabs

[sonofsanta]

Minecraft. Minecraft will sell this, assuming MS price it competitively.

 

I'm not sure how cheap they can make it though - unlike Oculus Rift, HoloLabs is all in, a complete device full of chips and sensors and circuitry. But they may well take the same approach as Facebook/Oculus Rift and price it at cost in order to establish the platform.

 

In the Ars article I linked to earlier, the author said they preferred it to OR as being able to see the real world still solved the motion sickness problem; I suspect it'll be less disorienting and headache-incuding that VR.

 

I still want both, though

[Garacesh]

Minecraft. Minecraft will sell this, assuming MS price it competitively.

I honestly don't reckon it will. "price it competitively" is the operative phrase there, and I can't see this coming cheap. Let's face it - Microsoft bought Minecraft so that they have a stake in the younger generation, but the younger generation are funded by mummy and daddy. If mummy and daddy can't see the use of this outside of basically being a glorified controller for one game, they're not going to buy it if it ain't cheap as dirt.

 

'course this is all speculative opinion. I might be utterly wrong and you all can point and laugh at me later on.

 

Truth be told, I don't want a rift. I do want this. I just can't see a use for it in my life

[JRowley]

We shall see, it definitely has uses, NASA announce in the event that they are going to be using it in conjunction with the Mars rovers by July this year, as they can virtually put people on Mars with it, very clever stuff.

[nathan]

This is a good lunchtime read, that talks about the HoloLabs and how Satya Nadella's leadership of the company has changed the way MS works (to allow things like this to happen) and how it will shape the launch plans: Satya Nadella's Got a Plan to Make You Care About Microsoft. The First Step? Holograms | WIRED

 

I am liking the direction of MS these days, compared to Ballmer's day: more interesting things are coming out of them; they're being a lot more open (Office on iOS and Android would never have happened a year ago); and professionally speaking I have to love things like Student Advantage and the Technology Access Program.

 

But this isn't a product that has been thought up and developed whilst Nadella's been in charge. This has been in the works for at least the last 5 years when Ballmer was in charge.

[nathan]

A whole class interacting with 3d scenes as part of the learning process? Surely this is an easy one for education and better than most other products on the market?

 

I can see that being amazing. I think this was mentioned previously in this thread but imagine a teacher showing the class the solar system. Being able to place anything on the walls, that changes and could be different for each child.

 

There are many many uses for this in education.

[JRowley]

But this isn't a product that has been thought up and developed whilst Nadella's been in charge. This has been in the works for at least the last 5 years when Ballmer was in charge.

 

Well, yes they started working on it years ago, but Microsoft has whole departments set up to just come up with random product ideas. Nadella decided to run with this one, it may never have been pushed into production without him, though that's speculation.

 

I can see that being amazing. I think this was mentioned previously in this thread but imagine a teacher showing the class the solar system. Being able to place anything on the walls, that changes and could be different for each child.

 

There are many many uses for this in education.

 

That was me too! I'm really excited about it actually, substantially more interesting to the kids than a tablet and arguably more useful than just looking at a smaller screen. Plus it doesn't throw you out of the room like with Oculas so you can actually have people interact with each other in the usual way as well.

Edited January 22, 2015 by JRowley

[Garacesh]

I can see that being amazing. I think this was mentioned previously in this thread but imagine a teacher showing the class the solar system. Being able to place anything on the walls, that changes and could be different for each child.

 

There are many many uses for this in education.

 

If something like that worked, it would be amazing, but combined with the issue of kids breaking stuff, would it be worth it for schools to invest in? (Yeah, I am being a pessimist now. Kids vandalising our kit royally P-s me off.)

Plus I'd imagine (again, all speculative) that the cost-of-entry will be quite high, so to get ~~31 of them in (30 kids, + teacher) isn't going to be a small number..

[sonofsanta]

But this isn't a product that has been thought up and developed whilst Nadella's been in charge. This has been in the works for at least the last 5 years when Ballmer was in charge.

 

Yeah, I saw; the article has the designer of the HoloLens (Alex someone) claiming the Kinect was only ever a stepping stone to this, it's been bubbling away for that long.

 

Nadella will shape the launch, though, which is almost more important than the product when it comes to Microsoft - Windows Phone is brilliant, but was hardly a successful launch, the Surface Pro tablets are beautiful, but still undersell - and those are products that did get a launch, least. What was that dual-screen folding tablet-book thing called? The internet was completely in love with the idea, and... nothing.

 

MS feel like less of a lumbering Brontosaurus to me now than they did a year ago.

[Grey-gear]

Looks impressive but will it look like what we have been shown when it's lunched only time will tell. But hey the last augmented reality device did well... oh wait no it didn't.

[nathan]

Yeah, I saw; the article has the designer of the HoloLens (Alex someone) claiming the Kinect was only ever a stepping stone to this, it's been bubbling away for that long.

 

Nadella will shape the launch, though, which is almost more important than the product when it comes to Microsoft - Windows Phone is brilliant, but was hardly a successful launch, the Surface Pro tablets are beautiful, but still undersell - and those are products that did get a launch, least. What was that dual-screen folding tablet-book thing called? The internet was completely in love with the idea, and... nothing.

 

MS feel like less of a lumbering Brontosaurus to me now than they did a year ago.

 

It was the Currier.

 

I read an article the other day that said Apple had become boring in what they release. There products are mainly an iteration. This is similar to what Microsoft were like in the 2000's, failed to truly excite people but still made lots of money. I think that could Apple could fall back a bit and Google/Microsoft move ahead.

 

It's interesting times.

[Grey-gear]

I'm going to guess the head sets going to have a big price tag though?

[JRowley]

I'm going to guess the head sets going to have a big price tag though?

 

It's a whole computer, so I would expect a reasonably high price tag, but who knows maybe Microsoft will price it low to drive sales and develop the market initially.

[Arthur]

It was the Currier.

Courier.

 

I read an article the other day that said Apple had become boring in what they release.

... and their software is becoming buggier.

 

• glog.glennf.com/blog/2015/1/6/the-software-and-services-apple-needs-to-fix
  
• daringfireball.net/2015/01/apple_eras_of_flux
  
• marco.org/2015/01/04/apple-lost-functional-high-ground
  
• mondaynote.com/2015/01/18/apple-software-quality-questions
  

Here's a link to the article you mentioned...

 

www.engadget.com/2015/01/21/when-did-apple-become-the-boring-one

 

Their products are mainly an iteration.

You could say the same about Porsche. They're still doing well though.

 

https://signalvnoise.com/posts/3426-the-porsche-911-an-ode-to-iteration

[sonofsanta]

Apple's problem at the moment is "me too" invention. For a company whose revival was built on disruptive devices - iPod, iPhone, iPad - what's it done recently? The iPad Mini to ape the Nexus 7, iPhone 6+ to ape flagship Android devices, the iWatch to ape Android Wear... it's the same school of design that saw MS release the Zune, Bing etc., and look how popular they were/are.

[Arthur]

what's it done recently?

Design one of the best SoCs available in any mobile device?

 

The next item of note is the A8X, which represents a return to dedicated SoCs for the iPad line. This is presumably done to preserve performance parity at native resolution for the iPhone and iPad line, and the extra CPU core is intriguing as it represents a shift away from the two CPU core system that Apple has stuck with for a while. In practice, this makes the iPad Air 2 one of the fastest ARM-based tablets on the market. Only NVIDIA’s Tegra K1 is able to compete with its GPU performance, and at the cost of greater heat and power consumption. (Source)

[Grey-gear]

All those hand motions started remind me of a character in Heavy Rain

 

Edited January 23, 2015 by Grey-gear

[Garacesh]

MS release the Zune, Bing etc., and look how popular they were/are.

Apple advertised better. They managed to create this air of the 'exclusive club' and people have been flocking to it ever since. The iPod controls, for example. That wheel? Terrible! Too sensitive, too finicky, often you'd go to press PLAY and it would move a track or two forward and then play. The price point? Huge for an mp3 player at the time. The overall aesthetics? Yeah, I'll give them that one, they funnel wheelbarrows full of cash into their design department and it does pay off.. So that 'exclusive club' thing seems to be working out well for them. An iThing is (for the layman) more a status item - any tablet would work just fine, but it has to be an iPad because of the prestige that comes with it (with other iThing owners, anyway). I think it's also partially combined with the fact that Android, for example, have too many different devices with different specs and rather than get researching, they pick the 'easy' option of 'Latest iPad.'

 

But really, I don't think I ever saw an advert for the Zune.. And Bing is just way too late to the game where Google has the market dominance. Nobody liked Yahoo! search. Nobody liked Ask Jeeves. Nobody likes Bing. The only chance of knocking Google off their search engine throne is if people become privacy conscious and use DuckDuckGo or another similar engine, but that's not going to happen any time soon. Not en-masse.

Edited January 23, 2015 by Garacesh

[sonofsanta]

Design one of the best SoCs available in any mobile device?

 

With the best will in the world, though, nobody cares about that except us and our ilk the hardware & innovation in MS devices was often top of the line, but it's not enough - Average Joe just doesn't care for it.

 

It's still early days for both CEOs, Tim Cook and Satya Nadella, but it feels to me like the momentum is shifting. Based on nothing more than hunches and gut feelings, mind you!

[peterp]

castAR | castAR Glasses looks more impressive.

[JRowley]

castAR | castAR Glasses looks more impressive.

 

But you need another device to use them with right? HoloLens is completely standalone.

[nathan]

If they could make it the price of an iPad i think they could sell really well.

 

Honestly though I think they'll be around $1000

[Gatt]

And we are getting closer to this:

 

[sted]

And we are getting closer to this:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]28687[/ATTACH]

hope the safetys cant fail then

[Gatt]

hope the safetys cant fail then

 

Yeah could prove fatal if playing something like Half Life or Left4Dead....

[Arthur]

This can't be true, surely?

 

Magic Leap CEO: Stereoscopic 3D will cause permanent brain damage, so avoid devices like HoloLens

 

New technology paradigms have always been surrounded by skepticism as well as excitement, but when there is competition between companies at the bleeding edge there will surely be plenty of misinformation. Recently the CEO of a Google backed start up Magic Leap has claimed Microsoft's HoloLens could cause permanent brain damage and to no one's surprise Magic Leap has a 'better' and 'safer' competing product. Without giving any details Rony Abovitz, the CEO of Magic Leap, says consumers should avoid HoloLens when it comes out and stick to products made with superior technology.