Hardware & Technical Forget Oculus Rift, here comes Microsoft Hololens

[Devil's Refugee]

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/01/hands-on-with-hololens-making-the-virtual-real/

The VR world is going to get very interesting soon, and I hope Frontier look at using Hololens in the future !

 

[Frank]

I'm reading a few of these reporters' accounts. The one thing I haven't heard answered is this: are the generated images in focus at infinity?

If they have succeeded in creating some sort of light field display technology then that's wonderful and it would be pedantic to say that it shouldn't be called holo-display.

If not then I guess it's nice to see Microsoft spending money to improve AR technology.

 

[jabokai]

Hololens is AR, not VR. It's CastAR who should be worried, not Oculus. At least, not yet.

 

[ZeeWolf]

Looks like another Microsoft R&D PR stint to attract interest in Windows 10. They tried this a few years ago with Microsoft Surface that was supposed to be a big worktop environment powered by Windows 7 and ultimately became a disappointing touch screen laptop. Then there was Kinect that was supposed to be powered by the demon child of Peter Molyneux but ultimately ended up being a console accessory for dance games. Then there was that thing that projected things around the living room while you played games that never became a thing.

Don't see this working like the Occulus rift.

 

[Issmir]

Hololens is AR, not VR. It's CastAR who should be worried, not Oculus. At least, not yet.

Was just going to say that. Looks like pretty cool AR if they can figure out the latency problem, but it may be a struggle to get meaningful content for it to take advantage of Elite Dangerous. That may just be my sense of imagination failing me though.

 

[CMDR Sheehy]

Actually, imagine sitting down with your PC, putting the screen aside and watching as the cockpit forms around you. You still can see your hands and keyboard.

It would be like the OR, but with access to your keyboard and mouse. Cake and eat it, guys, cake and eat it.

 

[remosito]

Actually, imagine sitting down with your PC, putting the screen aside and watching as the cockpit forms around you. You still can see your hands and keyboard.

It would be like the OR, but with access to your keyboard and mouse. Cake and eat it, guys, cake and eat it.

what would I need a mouse or keyboard for when playing ED in the Rift?

and seeing my IRL room would really break immersion a lot!

I already have my cake and am eating it daily.

Can't wait for consumerversion of the cake though


Now I understand for others, their preferred experience would be different....

and I couldn't be a happier camper knowing all of you might soon get more out of ED than a stupid monitor can give you!

 

[jabokai]

Actually, imagine sitting down with your PC, putting the screen aside and watching as the cockpit forms around you. You still can see your hands and keyboard.

It would be like the OR, but with access to your keyboard and mouse. Cake and eat it, guys, cake and eat it.

I think that would be a long way off though. Looking at the demo video, it's clearly about putting objects/"stuff" in the real world. To get the image to render exactly to fit around your arms and KB/controller (and no more, and deal with the movement), to get the lighting to adjust so it didn't look terrible, that all seems very far off to me. It's very cool and I will likely get a Hololens as well as a Rift (or whatever VR experience is the top tog). CastAR has promised much but I've nothing about it in ages.

 

[uncle bulgaria]

From what i've seen it looks like it has potential, i don't see it having much of a crossover with the OR though as it an augmented reality thing but it could have some good uses, particularly in the world of HTPCs/lounge gaming rigs.

Win10 actually looks fairly decent from what little i've seen. I found Win8 to be pretty good once I got used to it, Win10 does sound like what Win8 should have been though.

I presume from an OS core point of view there's not a huge difference so most games and software should be ok with it? As the upgrade is free i'll almost certainly roll it out on my two windows machines at home (gaming desktop and regular laptop)

 

[Polared]

Looks like another Microsoft R&D PR stint to attract interest in Windows 10. They tried this a few years ago with Microsoft Surface that was supposed to be a big worktop environment powered by Windows 7 and ultimately became a disappointing touch screen laptop.

can't agree with you about the surface, firstly the original surface became pixelsense, had nothing to do with the later tablet range, and is pretty darn good for specific uses. the surface tablet isn't too bad either, use mine (pro 3) way more than my ipad.
.
personally, i think microsoft make, have made, some pretty good hardware over the years.
.
but i can agree that it's probably just a big publicity stunt though : )

 

[Archvillain]

Actually, imagine sitting down with your PC, putting the screen aside and watching as the cockpit forms around you. You still can see your hands and keyboard.

It would be like the OR, but with access to your keyboard and mouse. Cake and eat it, guys, cake and eat it.

Yes, I am aching to build a physical cockpit for Elite, including tablet touch-screens for Elite-style control consoles (and instruments and readouts when the API is out), and Occulus Rift just can't handle that. But at the same time I also really really don't want to miss out on the 3D and immersion offered by a RV headset (or flight-helmet, to match the cockpit).
CastAR or HoloLens potentially offer the best and most immersive Elite experience of all... if there is support.

I'm hoping that because Elite has become such a go-to Rift demo to wow the crowds, CastAR and HoloLens teams will find some time in their busy schedules to collaborate with FD to help get Elite running their hardware too.

 

[jabokai]

Yes, I am aching to build a physical cockpit for Elite, including tablet touch-screens for Elite-style control consoles (and instruments and readouts when the API is out), and Occulus Rift just can't handle that. But at the same time I also really really don't want to miss out on the 3D and immersion offered by a RV headset (or flight-helmet, to match the cockpit).
CastAR or HoloLens potentially offer the best and most immersive Elite experience of all... if there is support.

I'm hoping that because Elite has become such a go-to Rift demo to wow the crowds, CastAR and HoloLens teams will find some time in their busy schedules to collaborate with FD to help get Elite running their hardware too.

I can see what you'd ideally like, but it is a long time away. It will take forever to get to the stage of having an (almost) complete VR experience but with your real body and a few chosen items (keyboard, controllers, body, etc) in there too. If AR is coming from the left and VR from the right then what you'd like is at a very difficult centre convergence point. I don't know every detail of all these things, of course, but thinking about the technologies logically makes me think this way.

 

[Cortana]

AR isn't really for gaming. If you want full immersion you have to dive in without seeing or hearing anything from the real world. Headphones + OR do that.

 

[Zephyriel]

Can't an AR headset turn into a VR one if you just flip on a black cover to hide your view? I could see a cool headset doing that in the near future.

 

[jabokai]

Can't an AR headset turn into a VR one if you just flip on a black cover to hide your view? I could see a cool headset doing that in the near future.

That's what CastAR have billed their device as. But it seems to me the FOV will be even more limited than VR headsets and, because the device doesn't fit to your face, the real world would be a constant intrusion into the feeling of being there.

 

[Archvillain]

I can see what you'd ideally like, but it is a long time away. It will take forever to get to the stage of having an (almost) complete VR experience but with your real body and a few chosen items (keyboard, controllers, body, etc) in there too.

No, it's already here, that's why AR would be so fantastic for Elite. Check out CastAR - if you were running Elite on it, all you would do is put some retro-reflector behind your control console (ie wherever you'd see cockpit canopy - above and around you), put the IR lights in the cockpit, and you're done - it then has everything it needs to put the sky above the physical cockpit. Depending on your seating arrangement, if your seat is too low you might need to peer over your console to see some of the in-game instruments, but that's just seat position.
(I've briefly used a CastAR prototype. It seems like they're (wisely) focusing their efforts on uses that VR is completely incapable of, so games like Elite are probably low on their priority list. But the point is, the capability exists, and it seems to have the potential to be the best way to experience the game).

And it sounds like the HoloLens might be even simpler - as described it already 3d-scans and tracks the area around you so it can integrate graphics into your surrounds. That's already far more sophisticated than what Elite needs - Elite support could be as simple as giving it a radius - "everything further than 3 feet away is gamespace."
Worst-case scenario: If you bring your hand up in front of your eyes occluding the gamespace, I assume the HoloLens will struggle with that (rough edges) or ignore it, but that isn't an issue because it won't happen because everything you do with your hands - flight-stick, note-taking, snack-munching, nose-scratching, everything has your hands below your eyes and in front of the realworld cockpit. There is no reason to be reaching into the AR rendered space above and around you.