Last year, Microsoft announced one of the most adventurous and sci-fi bit of tech ever with the HoloLens. Although not as popular as VR, it is a step ahead of it in terms of immersion and potential just because it so reliant on reality. Well, we finally have more details about the device itself, as well as the support it will be getting.
The HoloLens works fine as a standalone device, meaning you don’t have to connect a PC or smartphone to it to use it. You have a 2 MP HD camera, as well as a depth sensing camera for mapping the environment.
The headset includes a 32 bit Intel processor, a custom Microsoft Holographic Processing Unit (HPU), 2 GB RAM, 64 GB flash storage, 60 Hz refresh rate and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for connectivity. They combined help it run Windows 10 on its own.
As for the dimensions, the HoloLens will have a weight of 579 grams. You get a total of 4 mics, a battery life of 2 to 3 hours of active usage and charging via microUSB. Microsoft has also packed a bunch of sensors, including an inertial measurement unit, 4X environment understanding cameras and mixed reality capture. We are being kept under the dark for the display mostly right now.
Coming with the device is an app called HoloStudio, a 3D modelling app which was one of the earliest ones demoed, and Skype. A HoloTour app will provide street view to popular landmarks in the world.
And finally the price. Obviously, it will be difficult to speculate much at this point, but for an idea, the developer version is up for availability for a price of $3,000. Which reminds of how expensive you thought the Google Glass Explorer Edition was, at $1,500. (Talk about comparing apples to oranges.)
But there’s no doubt that groundbreaking technology always goes through this particular phase sometime, either during development and/or when it reaches consumers but if you are an impressive developer you’ll likely have incredible fun with the HoloLens at this stage, too.
You can check out Microsoft’s blog post on the matter for more details.
