The Blending of Atoms and Bits: MS’s HoloLens

Last month, January 2015, Microsoft has announced HoloLens, as part of the holographic capabilities supported by Windows 10. You can take a look at the two video clips here, the first providing a suggestion on what our life might be like once we don the HoloLens, the second explaining the technology (with an MS presenter that is mimicking Steve Jobs, and that gave me the creeps…).
If it delivers what it is promising it is impressive (although no price, battery duration, nor shipping date was announced).
The HoloLens, as you can see in the photo, looks like sun glasses, just a big bigger. They embed a camera for picking up the surrounding, a set of two screens to create the holographic vision, a sound surround and the processing power needed to make it work (in particular for creating the 3D holographic rendering). The software picks up the camera images and can identify objects, and your hand and fingers motion so that gesture and voice recognition are the primary way to interact with HoloLens.
So for the time being let’s take them for what MS is declaring. As I said, from a technical point of view they are amazing. The services they promise to make available are right into the "Matrix" league, just look at the second video. And there can be many more, starting with the obvious replacement of normal glasses to provide even better customised vision or help to hearing impaired. The open interface and API plus the Windows 10 support should guarantee a deluge of third parties applications.
Yet, from a usability point of view I have my doubt. In a way the technical performance (on paper) is way better than the Google Glass but they are surely more "invasive". And Google Glass didn’t manage to win the marketplace, at least so far.
I can surely see myself wearing them and having fun in exploring a city or getting immerse into a 3D book but I can’t imagine wearing them for the most part of my day, actually becoming part of my life as my cell phone has became. True, back in the 80ies I would not have imagined going back home to pick up the cell phone I forgot…

About Roberto Saracco

Roberto Saracco fell in love with technology and its implications long time ago. His background is in math and computer science. Until April 2017 he led the EIT Digital Italian Node and then was head of the Industrial Doctoral School of EIT Digital up to September 2018. Previously, up to December 2011 he was the Director of the Telecom Italia Future Centre in Venice, looking at the interplay of technology evolution, economics and society. At the turn of the century he led a World Bank-Infodev project to stimulate entrepreneurship in Latin America. He is a senior member of IEEE where he leads the New Initiative Committee and co-chairs the Digital Reality Initiative. He is a member of the IEEE in 2050 Ad Hoc Committee. He teaches a Master course on Technology Forecasting and Market impact at the University of Trento. He has published over 100 papers in journals and magazines and 14 books.