A Look at Windows Mixed Reality Shell

Megalith

Megalith

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Microsoft is shipping Mixed Reality headsets this month, and here’s a video that may help you decide whether you want to invest in one or not. It looks like there are still plenty of bugs to be dealt with, but the author does manage to do some wild stuff, like set up a virtual home and use a variety of Windows apps from different rooms. I will probably get one if it lets you set up a virtual multi-monitor setup.

Windows Mixed Reality (previously Windows Holographic) is Microsoft’s shell for navigating content when wearing VR and AR headsets, and is expected to reach the mass market this year as part of the Creators Update and a wave of cheap Mixed Reality headsets from a wide variety of Widows OEMs such as Acer. The video shows one of the main differentiating features of the Windows Mixed Reality platform—the ability to access a wide range of UWP apps from inside the environment, but another surprise is being able to move outside your “home” and we can see all kinds of customization possibilities such a large world could open up.
 
Is this HoloLens or some form of VR Windows? It's hard to tell in the video and I didn't watch it completely because it was quite bland (some just bumbling around the interface). I'd love if HoloLens could make us have multi-monitor support without multi-monitors, it'd make being on the go really nice, as long as it's not dorky looking.

I sometimes like to work from cafe's and libraries simply for a change of atmosphere, so adding it to my on-the-go workspace would be a no-brainer.
 
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The graphics quality is going to have to improve in a major way for me to take this seriously.
 
RAutrey said:
The graphics quality is going to have to improve in a major way for me to take this seriously.
Click to expand...

I generally just assume people are cynical about MS endeavors no matter the quality, but I watched this video and your comment is spot on. This was embarrassingly bad.
 
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Oh look. Microsoft trying to enter into another hardware marketplace. That has always gone so well for them.
 
This looks like a direct ripoff of Bigscreen Beta, combined with the ghost of Microsoft Bob.

The narrator is what really bothers me. He acts like this is his first time in VR ever, and seems to think the chaperone system (or whatever MS calls their version) is 'mixed reality'

This demo does not, in any way, demonstrate mixed reality.
 
Spidey329 said:
Is this HoloLens or some form of VR Windows?
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Hololens was a bust that failed to attract consumer or developer interest (the tiny, mailslot FOV and 3k prototype price tag did it no favors), so its been mothballed - the official company line is they're "skipping v2, and thinking about a v3 - for release several years from now". It's dead.

They thought they knew best doubling down on AR while the VR wave passed them by, so what we're seeing now is Microsoft trying to figure out which departed Something-Reality bandwagon to jump... And most likely going to create confusion in the process.

Their "Windows VR" partner hardware for example are just personal theater devices badging themselves with VR, that will "run Windows Store applications on a virtual screen similar to PlayStation VR’s cinematic mode". Oh boy.
 
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This is too bad. I had hopes for Hololens. I had hoped that the cost would come down as it became more widespread....but this demo is garbage.

Oh well...
 
I almost installed this, then discovered that it is (still) restricted to a headset that (still) isn't available yet, and doesn't work with the Vive.

They mention that it runs on Unity, which makes the lack of support for Rift/Vive purely intentional. There is nothing special about what they are doing in that demo video, which couldn't also be done on existing VR hardware.
 
what the hek is that, what's the point ?
at first i thought it was like a simple 360° animated wallpaper for your windows desktop, i said to my self that could be cool, then i started watching, and what the hek, a virtual smarthouse... best productivity tool ever created...wast of money.
 
Hardware from Microsoft? No thanks, not after the complete piece of garbage that was the xbox360.
 
The only reason Microsoft is trying to be a player here is because they need to find some way to make people use their god forsaken store. Windows RT didn't do it. Windows phone didn't do it. Windows 10 isn't doing it. Not even Minecraft is doing it. They insist on trying to get people to run not even good enough for cell phone apps on their computer and can't figure out why no one is keen... "Lets make it part of Window Holographic!" Someone in Redmond shouted... sigh.
 
So no actual mixed reality in the video right? (I just skimmed it)

FYI Microsoft: I'm not going to sit in my house, in my office, and put a headset on if the only compelling use case you can show is walking around my virtual house and looking at screens in a office or living room...
 
1o57 said:
This is too bad. I had hopes for Hololens. I had hoped that the cost would come down as it became more widespread....but this demo is garbage.

Oh well...
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You and me both. I have been passively skimming fleabay for a used one that isn't the 'at cost' price point of 3k or more.
 
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