While companies like HTC and Oculus (now owned by Facebook) work hard to develop virtual reality goggles, Microsoft is betting on augmented reality glasses.
I had the opportunity to try the glasses HTC lives and Oculus Crescent Bay in recent months and have been fascinating experiences where the first transported me completely virtual worlds, while the latter showed me what could be a movie in the future.
Now, I had the opportunity to test HoloLens glasses in the Microsoft developer conference, Build 2015, to really see what the holograms that Microsoft has talked so much in recent months to be treated have a clearer view of differences with sunglasses HTC and Oculus and how much profit would offer.
All of a process
Test glasses HoloLens was like meeting star of show visit an important member of the government (I’ll talk about this later).
We checked in Moscone West, where he was performing Build 2015. A representative took us to a hotel which was only a few blocks. There he introduced us to another representative of the company that took us a lift to a floor that had booked the company for testing and introduced us to an “ambassador” (the term used by the company to designate persons in charge of guiding us in the demonstrations or tests), who led us to a room to check in again and could take some pictures of the glasses, which were protected by a glass case.
After this, it was necessary to go to another room to leave all our belongings in a locker so we could not record or take photos during testing.
The ambassador took us to another room to wait our turn, but after another ambassador took us to another floor above for guidance. There, make a small test to measure the distance between our eyes -. the result is written down on a card Microsoft then had to take the test
Other Ambassador took us down the aisle of that apartment where a person stationed in front of each door of each room and each of us was assigned a room or person.
On one occasion I lay in a corridor wall while waiting and asked me to sit down on the other wall . With this, I can note that Microsoft showed a very good service and extreme safety in all aspects – we were always with a guide or a class escort to move from side to side like we were movie stars or like we were to visit an important president.
Viewing and manipulating holograms
Once in the room, the lighting is much better than the hallways. There is a model of architect on one side and on the other hand, a person with a Surface take my card with the result of the measurement of the distance between my eyes and enter the information in the Surface.
The show he focused on showing how HoloLens glasses can help architects and builders.
With the help of one of the people in the room, the glasses are placed on my head. A small wheel on the back of my head fits and the viewer glasses can zoom in and out of the eyes. The latter setting ensures that the vision is appropriate to move the viewer to the point where you can see all the corners of the rectangle properly.
Then I explained that architects have to change several times the models to achieve the ideal design, which can be very expensive. With HoloLens modifications are possible without generating such high costs. A building created in the Sketchup program the other computer appeared in front of me directly in the center of the model, where it was planning the building. With the mouse I could make changes to the building on the computer screen and then I could move the mouse to the visual field of the hologram to change it directly in the model and not on the computer. It was fabulous
Looking down I could see was a small doll that the Microsoft representative told me to look and select the up and down my finger. – similar to the movement that taught us the Chavo del 8 with his famous phrase “that, that, that …”, but only after making the move.
This opened a view similar to Google Street View to offer a perspective of how they could see the building in real life and technology allows to make changes to the material of the building to display it on the street. This view let me see from the corner and around the building, it was only necessary to move my head to see different angles of sight, but did not have the freedom to move.
The second part of the test was held in the other half of the room represented a room or office building on the inside – about 1.80 square cm. The idea was that without traveling to Denver, Colorado – where the building was being constructed – could see some problems in the structure. In addition, HoloLens creates, like seeing and hearing virtual notes to maintain good cooperation with others. I could select a virtual note with the same movement of Chavo to hear the message, but I could also see what I had left written.
The sound was pretty good, considering he had no hearing aids and that breed only through speakers in HoloLens glasses. The note told me a problem with a column that affect the location of a door, so the note suggested moving the door to another location.
As the pipeline and other infrastructure were in the system, I could also see all these components around the room to shake my head. Thanks to this I managed to find that a pipe was in the middle of where the other person suggested placing the door. I created a voice memo making the same movement of Chavo to inform others. Although he did not talk very high, HoloLens managed to capture my voice clearly through his microphone.
It was wonderful to see the excellent response time of HoloLens to move my head around the room to see pipes and structures of the room. The glasses identified corners, ceiling and floor, and marked me as a kind of sketch.
The good thing about my experience
The glasses are really light. Although Microsoft has not disclosed details of the glasses, feel relatively well in the head -. but would not put more than a couple of hours
The quality of the images varied in the model, the images looked translucent, as it could actually be a hologram. but in the second part of the demo images they were razor sharp, similar to those experienced with HTC lives, but less real. In any case, it is clear that the images are graphic representations similar to Google Street view View showing pixelation of images and colors were not quite real.
Although I only heard the voice memo I ‘left’ another person and the voice memo I left, the sound crisp and powerful microphone managed to capture my voice easily, but also captured some background noise.
As I mentioned, the response of HoloLens when moving my head around the room was excellent, although it was not completely natural way where I could select things with my eyes – you may not adjusted well enough glasses, but sometimes I had to look down to my regular visual field
It’s amazing how well recognized and. responds to different surfaces of the real world, allowing you to see virtual objects really interact and perceive the dimensions of the real world.
The bad and we do not know
The visual field it is very small. You can not put all images in your visual field, only a small portion would represent in some way the silhouette of a TV in front of you. So if you look a little side, the pictures are cut. If you are very close to an image or hologram, it is also short. This, for example, happened with the model. I had to take two steps back to see virtually the entire building was designed.
The experience was very, very controlled. So it’s hard to know how to really work in the lives of different people or in different applications.
In addition, the other person in the room seemed to be controlling what was happening in my augmented reality. I was told, I was just controlling the experience like a PowerPoint presentation.
On the other hand, do not know how much would last your battery, how independent is (although HoloLens were not connected to any cable ), how useful it can be for consumers (apart from business and education world), when it would be available and what would be its price. In addition, Microsoft has said that universal apps could run on Windows Holographic (HoloLens system), but it is unclear whether this means that all these apps usually appear as single windows or if really these apps may be more interactive designs without the need that developers will invest a lot of extra time.
Conclusion
The HoloLens are really fascinating and can be very useful in the business and educational world. Although I saw another demonstration of how one might use Skype (I could not test), in which the user or users across the video call can write and share virtual objects in the world of the person who has the HoloLens, I’m not sure yet how could be beneficial for the regular life of a consumer – other than just be fun for a few short moments Of course, price is a key part of this and we hope to meet in the coming months
Although they are different.. technologies, the experience I had with the Live HTC remains one of my favorite and if I had to pick one of these systems at this time, for the same price, would probably buy the HTC lives.
However, Oculus surprised me with a cinematic experience of the future that would like to experience more often, and HoloLens could be very useful in multiple industries and would not complain if I could use from time to time in my life. Its small field is something that will disappoint many.
Neither HoloLens or Oculus Crescent Bay, or HTC lives are finished products and there are still many doubts. The future of these devices is very promising, but better wait until they are available for a more specific answer to those questions.
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