Microsoft Opens Windows Holographic For A New Era Of Mixed Reality

[HardOCP News]

Wednesday at Computex 2016, Microsoft Corp. invited its Windows 10 hardware partners to create virtual reality (VR) devices, augmented reality devices and everything in between with Windows Holographic, the platform that powers Microsoft HoloLens. In opening up Windows Holographic to partners, Microsoft shared its vision for mixed reality — a world where devices interact with each other to change the way people work, communicate, learn and play.

With over 80 million virtual reality devices expected in the market, per year, by 2020, the business opportunity for virtual reality is vast. Yet, today’s devices are built with related but differing technologies — ranging from virtual to augmented reality. These devices and experiences do not work together today, because of different user interfaces, interaction models, input methods, peripherals and applications. Most virtual reality experiences can’t mix real people, objects and environments into the virtual world, making creation and collaboration difficult.

 

[Zion Halcyon]

So, tin foil hat time again. I sense a strategy here.

AMD is pushing Polaris as a "VR" solution. AMD partnered with MS on DX 12. MS is now pushing their VR solution, Hololens, to 3rd party developers.

The timing is interesting.


I guess less tin foil hat, and maybe perhaps an intentional strategy between business partners to try to kick the door down in the VR market?

 

[Twisted Kidney]

Real reality is surreal enough, I'm not sure if I'm ready for mixed reality.

 

[Zion Halcyon]

Real reality is surreal enough, I'm not sure if I'm ready for mixed reality.

I'm telling you, aside from the crime aspect and "precogs", Minority Report is a great indicator of where technology is going.

The guys who made that movie did extensive research into what tech was being developed by different companies - and we're not that far off now from that.

 

[Derfman]

All the big brother fun stuff aside. I think it's advantageous to MS to offer an open platform in hopes others jump on board with support for it. For years we lambasted MS for its closed platform approach to everything, specially to markets where they were freshmen entering a class full of seniors.

Why create another closed platform just to have to revert course later (anyone ever heard of that little obscure company known as Blackberry? Didn't think so.) or drop out of the market altogether.

 

[DPI]

All the big brother fun stuff aside. I think it's advantageous to MS to offer an open platform in hopes others jump on board with support for it. For years we lambasted MS for its closed platform approach to everything, specially to markets where they were freshmen entering a class full of seniors.

Yeah well MS is still that closed-platform company, and people don't forget overnight. They'd never be doing this is devs were flocking to Hololens, else they would've done it out of the gate. Now it just reeks of desperation and yet another dead platform, while all the real attention and development activity is happening in VR which they bet against.