HoloLens Promises of Immersive AR/VR "Basically a Lie" - Also Makes You Look Like Kim-Jung Il

After months of anticipation based on videos like this one, everybody in tech was excited to see the Microsoft HoloLens in action, and assorted developers/reporters finally got their hands on a demo last week. The Verge for one was impressed on a certain level, but also cut through the hype:

Short version of the Verge's take: The HoloLens has a great display screen, but has nothing like the fully immersive, wraparound images that were promised in its promotional videos. Which means HoloLens' potential as an augmented reality platform is more limited than many of us thought, and is a VR platform not at all.

Also: It's surprising how few people are commenting just how dorky these things look. Like worse than even Google Glass. I mean, just look:

Image via Business Insider, which notably wrote, "This is going to be much bigger than Google Glass". Bigger embarrassment in public, maybe? I can't help look at them and think this:

But maybe that's just my opinion. I feel so lonely. (A little lonely.)

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Comments

[Ezra]

So the field of view is small on the demo versions they used at BUILD, but Microsoft already demonstrated in former prototype hardware a much larger field of view. So it's not a technology limitation, it was a present hardware limitation.

Microsoft won't be the only company selling Windows Holographic hardware, dozens of companies will as announced at BUILD. Also, there's time between now and launch for HoloLens itself to improve, and like the iPhone and most technology there'll be a 2.0 and beyond.

Mostly though, writing off Windows Holographic because its debut hardware might have an un-ideal field of view is a lot like writing off touchscreen technology because some of the first phones had bad screens.

And "dorky"? Why does that matter? It's a home, office and entertainment device. A hard hat is dorky, a welding mask is dorky, a mechanic uniform is dorky, the Oculus Rift is dorky, a Wii Fit Board is dorky, oven mitts and aprons in your kitchen are dorky. It's a tool not a fashion statement. The HoloLens will be used at work, on your couch, in your kitchen, and other appropriate places, not at the club.

[Iggy]

"A hard hat is dorky" Nonsense, Ezra. It's just a signifier.

Culturally, we have made hard hats (I own three, including a forester's version) signify someone who works with his or her hands making things. But if you wear a hard hat with business attire, it becomes dorky. As would a football helmet over yoga wear.

Hololens and similar will need a similar cultural shift as the hard hat to make it signify something vital and essential to our day-to-day lives.

Currently, these rigs signify the stereotype of a Cheeto-encrusted, Mountain-Dew swilling fat man (often a naked fat man) in his mom's basement.

Microsoft might pull off a successful AR product, but it won't make wearing this sort of rig cool. VR is not cool to the masses yet. AR might, however, prove useful, even cool, if the makers can make the rigs invisible.

[Iggy]

I forgot to add my caption to the second photo:

Our Dear Leader examines indigenous Maize controller for People's VR Rig. First offerings will include epic VR games of the proletarian struggle, including "My Collective's New Tractor," "Sea of Fire In Which plutocrats of Seoul are incinerated by People's Army of Liberation," and "Where is Kim? In the Re-education Camp, You Idiot!"

[Ezra]

@Iggy "Currently, these rigs signify the stereotype of a Cheeto-encrusted, Mountain-Dew swilling fat man (often a naked fat man) in his mom's basement."

To who? Seriously. Who's saying that? Can you find someone other than you?

[Pathfinder]

http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2015/01/the-future-of-humanity-in-one-photo

[Cube Republic]

Haha funny Pathfinder, I often wonder myself why so many among us wish to push humanity into an evolutionary cul-de-sac.

[Jacki]

If that does happen it will be because of a failure of the imagination of how people use it and what people make for it. We may get stuck with the "VHS" version of VR rather than it reaching its full potential to help and enhance humanity.

[Iggy]

Ezra asked:

"To who? Seriously. Who's saying that? Can you find someone other than you?"

Ezra, come visit me at work. Every Millennial student I teach says "lame" and "loser" about the Rift and Hololens, except a few "serious gamers." That means "niche market" as with virtual worlds.

[Ezra]

@Iggy

I think you're confused about what "niche" means. The students at your single school that you let shape your world view on software and hardware, that's observing a niche, that's you conflating that niche with the world at large.

If you'd like to feel less pessimistic about AR and VR, learn their differences, when and where they'd be used, I'd lean on resources other than what you can see your "millenial students" wearing and using, and dudes like "a Redditor" as Pathfinder linked to.

Time will tell how well the HoloLens does, but I believe the floor is Microsoft's other underperforming platforms like Windows Phone and Windows 8 on tablet, where OEM partners have largely struck out, but Microsoft's flagship products like Lumia and Surface have all sold tens of millions or surpassed 100 million. The ceiling of course is OEM partners doing well and there's hundreds of millions of Windows Holographic devices sold of dozens of different kinds.

[sirhc deSantis]

Ah 'Millenials' again - whenever that term crops up I always recall a quote from C Price (Prof. of Psychology at Dalton I believe) in a piece lamenting why students don't find them 'groovy' :

" I began to notice unrealistically high expectations of success among my students combined with an astonishingly low level of effort on their part. "

If they don't like the kit then obviously the world must take heed, eh?

[Wagner James Au]

"If you'd like to feel less pessimistic about AR and VR, learn their differences, when and where they'd be used, I'd lean on resources other than what you can see your 'millenial students' wearing and using, and dudes like 'a Redditor' as Pathfinder linked to."

Well there's that whole "world's largest Internet company invested hundreds of millions developing and marketing the first mass market AR platform and was so thoroughly ridiculed they had to suspend production" thing.

[Metacam Oh]

I dont know but when I saw the Windows holographic demo I was like "Wow its really here." that's what Ive always envisioned for augmented reality, it looked great on the demo and I don't care if it was pink and neon orange Id wear it if it works like the demo shows.

[Ezra]

@Hamlet

Glass cost $1,500 dollars.

Glass tried to be a fashion accessory.

Glass tried to have pedestrian applications.

HoloLens won't cost $1,500 dollars (if it does, then its only fair it shares Glass' stigma in this regard)

HoloLens doesn't try to be a fashion accessory.

HoloLens isn't meant to be worn skydiving or walking around time.

These are the easy distinctions. Why not make them? Why go "oh this is AR and that was AR so they share the same fate!" Then again this blog regularly conflates Second Life with World of Warcraft so I'm not sure what I expected.