Have you ever wondered about having your favorite game’s environment in your own living room? How will you feel if all the characters fly or stand around you and you feel like the real player instead of just a character?
Microsoft has actually made it possible by their amazing device called “Hololens”. Want to know more? Let’s read what Hololens is and what it can do.
Design
Hololens is a type of mixed reality head mounted goggle released in March 2016. The product family belongs to windows 10. It is designed with adjustable, cushioned headband and contains multiple sensors, cameras to sense the eye movement, voice control, and gestures. Brightness and Volume are controllable by the user through a pair of buttons provided on the left and right side.
What does it do?
The intention of the company was not to take the user inside a virtual environment but rather to overlay the virtual objects in ones living room. You can locate objects where ever you stand, without losing the real environment. The user can also talk to others standing around.
Gestures
Hololens transforms what you see. It tracks the movement and therefore you can use hand gestures for interaction. To move 3D objects a wearer can click in mid air by lowering or raising his fingers. Images are produced in a way that one can interact with them from different angles.
Projection
3D images will need a platform to be projected on and this is the purpose of using a camera in the Goggles. It identifies the real world objects in a room and gathers their information; after the information is received it picks up objects like table, chair etc. to display the images on top of it.
Apps and games for Microsoft Hololens
There are many apps and games by Microsoft to showcase their mixed reality device. Let’s have a look on some of the apps and games.
1. Skype:
There is an updated version of Skype, 7.27 called ‘Skype Preview’ using which the users of hololens can see what others see while a video call. You can see 3D images anywhere around you which your friend is sharing. Not only the images but whatever he marks on objects will be visible to the wearer. Some interesting features include:
- Move: This feature helps in moving the objects, like images or video anywhere you like to place them for ease of communication.
- Pin/Unpin: Roaming while a video call will also move video along, but you want it to stay at one place.
Many other features are there that makes Skype through hololens more interesting and useful
2. Roboraid:
It’s a mixed reality game where enemies destruct the walls in your environment; you being a real player can shoot/fire them using gaze and air tap gestures.
Other apps Microsoft designed to showcase their mixed reality headset includes Fragments, HoloTour, Young Conker, and Action-gram Beta.
Image source:
https://compass-ssl.surface.com/assets/05/88/05880203-90fb-49c4-9065-dbb8c77cf4d5.jpg?n=WhyHololens_Hero_1920_img.jpg
http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Microsoft-HoloLens-Skype-RGB.png
https://unity3d.com/profiles/unity3d/themes/unity/images/pages/windows/hololens/roboraid.jpg
Rabia Asif is a Project Manager at Genetech Solutions with a love for technology writing. Having a BS degree in Computer Science, she has decent exposure to, as well as makes ample effort to keep up with, latest technology trends.
