But within minutes of introducing the stylish, gray heads-up display, Microsoft hid it away, instead giving us hands-on time with HoloLens' skeletal prototype. We couldn't wear, photograph or touch the more polished version seen on stage.
That's okay, though — because we'll always have this fully manipulatable 3D model to admire.
Built by 3D-modeling site Sketchfab from existing Microsoft and press photos of the Windows 10-based HoloLens, the rendering is surprisingly accurate. I know because I was able to spend five minutes ogling a near-final design prototype sitting under Plexiglas at Microsoft's Redmond, Washington headquarters.
From CNET Microsoft's HoloLens prototype has all the innards of a computer built directly into the headset. That means no cords or even a smartphone required.Microsoft
Microsoft has a vision for the future, and it involves terms and technology straight out of science fiction.
But are we actually glimpsing the future? Yes and no.
Microsoft's HoloLens, which the company unveiled at its Redmond, Wash., headquarters on Wednesday, is a sleek, futuristic headset with transparent lenses. You can see the world around you, but suddenly that world is transformed -- with 3D objects floating in midair, virtual screens on the wall and your living room covered in virtual characters running amok.
In "Minority Report," for instance, Tom Cruise's character used sweeping, midair hand gestures and transparent screens to do police work. Five years later, Apple unveiled the iPhone, and with it, a touchscreen operated by hand and finger gestures. Microsoft in turn served up its Kinect gesture-control device, which tracks people's movements through space and feeds the data into an interface.Technology companies have long promised to bring us the future now, reaching ahead 5 or 10 years to try to amaze consumers with the next big breakthrough. Hollywood, on the other hand, has shown that tech in action (or at least simulations of it).
Going further, "The Matrix" showed hackers plugging computers into people's brains to transport them to imaginary cities. And in "Star Trek," computers used energy fields and visual tricks to create worlds people could touch and feel.
We're not even close to those scenarios yet, but we're taking tiny steps in that direction. Companies like Facebook, Google and Microsoft are now attempting to move that fiction toward reality, and the public is beginning to see those visions of tomorrow take form.
So how does the HoloLens measure up against other reality-altering gadgets?
What's a HoloLens, and how does it work?
Microsoft's HoloLens is not actually producing 3D images that everyone can see; this isn't "Star Trek."
Instead of everyone walking into a room made to reproduce 3D images, Microsoft's goggles show images only the wearer can see. Everyone else will just think you're wearing goofy-looking glasses.
Another key thing about HoloLens is what Microsoft is trying to accomplish.
Microsoft envisions the HoloLens as both a personal and a workplace device.Microsoft
The company is not trying to transport you to a different world, but rather bring the wonders of a computer directly to the one you're living in. Microsoft is overlaying images and objects onto our living rooms.
As a HoloLens wearer, you'll still see the real world in front of you. You can walk around and talk to others without worrying about bumping into walls.
The goggles will track your movements, watch your gaze and transform what you see by blasting light at your eyes (it doesn't hurt). Because the device tracks where you are, you can use hand gestures -- right now it's only a midair click by raising and lowering your finger -- to interact with the 3D images.
There's a whole bunch of other hardware that's designed to help the HoloLens' effects feel believable. The device has a plethora of sensors to sense your movements in a room and it uses this information along with layers of colored glass to create images you can interact with or investigate from different angles. Want to see the back of a virtual bike in the middle of your kitchen? Just walk to the other side of it.
The goggles also have a camera that looks at the room, so the HoloLens knows where tables, chairs and other objects are. It then uses that information to project 3D images on top of and even inside them -- place virtual dynamite on your desk and you might blow a hole to see what's inside.
With Skype video chatting, HoloLens users can let others see through their eyes to help with tasks and even doodle right on top of your line of vision.Microsoft
While playing a demonstration based on the popular game Minecraft, I tapped my finger on a coffee table in the real world. But what I saw was my finger chipping away at its surface. When I was done, I saw a lava-filled cavern inside.
That's just a gimmick, but Microsoft said it indicates potential. HoloLens, Microsoft said, can transform businesses and open up new possibilities for how we interact.
I used the HoloLens to video chat with a Microsoft employee who was using Skype on a tablet. Her task? To help me rewire a light switch. She accessed a camera on the HoloLens to see through my eyes, then she drew diagrams and arrows where I was looking to show me what tools to pick up and how to use them.
Imagine how these tricks could be used to train pilots or guide doctors through complex operations.
Different from the Rift
So how about the Oculus Rift? Created by Oculus VR, a startup Facebook purchased for more than $2 billion in March 2014, the headset is considered the poster child of the blossoming virtual reality market.
From a distance, Oculus' headset looks a bit like Microsoft's HoloLens in that it's a device worn on your head. But that's where the similarities end. Whereas Microsoft wants to help us interact with the real world in new ways, Oculus wants to immerse us in an entirely new world.
To put it simply, the Rift headset is a screen on your face. But when it's turned on, the images it produces trick your brain into thinking you've been teleported to a different world, like a starship out in space, or the the edge of a skyscraper. Oculus could, one day, take a more practical route, transporting you courtside to a live basketball game or to a sun-soaked beach to relax.
Oculus' Rift headset pushes a screen right up against your eyes, allowing the device to transport users to entirely different environments.Nick Statt/CNET
The goal for Oculus is to trick the user into believing they're actually there -- wherever it's bringing you. That feeling is called "presence," an ambition Microsoft's HoloLens isn't reaching for.
Enthusiasts say that moment, where your brain is tricked into believing you're actually somewhere else, is magical.
"I've seen a handful of technology demos in my life that made me feel like I was glimpsing into the future," wrote venture capitalist Chris Dixon, who helped lead investment firm Andreessen Horowitz's funding in Oculus VR. "The best ones were: the Apple II, the Macintosh, Netscape, Google, the iPhone, and -- most recently -- the Oculus Rift."
Oculus isn't alone in its quest. Sony is attempting something similar with its Project Morpheus headset. Both have outspoken plans to use the technology to transform all manner of industries, starting with video games. But developers say it's hard to get it right. The images need to be carefully connected to your physical movements without any delays. When they aren't, consumers feel a form of motion sickness.
Same difference
Ultimately, these companies are on different roads to the same destination, which is trying to reimagine how we interact with computers. We're all used to the mouse and the keyboard, and we're learning to live with the glass screens of smartphones too. So far, each of these devices has been good enough to convey the information from a book or the scenes of a movie.
But Oculus, Microsoft, Google and others believe in a different, potentially more natural way to interact with our technology. These companies and the hardware they're creating imagine a world where hand gestures, 3D images and images superimposed on reality are the next-generation tools for productivity, communication and everything else we use gadgets and the Internet for.
It sounds like science fiction, but if these devices work the way tech luminaries hope they can, such dreams may be reality sooner than we think.
From CNET With the HoloLens, Microsoft promises it can deliver a true next-gen computing experience while other tech giants struggle to do the same.Microsoft
REDMOND, Wash. -- In the bowels of Building 92, hidden underneath the company's public visitor center in a secret series of labs, Microsoft let a few people try out what may be the most ambitious Windows device ever made: a holographic headset that aims to rival the most advanced virtual reality devices out there.
Microsoft's HoloLens is expected to run Windows 10 and apps -- holographic ones that will float in front of your line of vision and apps that can be run on phones, tablets, PCs and the Xbox One game console. With the holographic programs, Microsoft is trying to transform how we think about computing, productivity and communication. Just as VR rivals Oculus (owned by Facebook) and Google are trying to reimagine virtual experiences with their head-worn devices, Microsoft wants us to imagine a world without screens, where information merely floats in front of you.
"We're not talking about putting you into virtual worlds," HoloLens leader Alex Kipman said Wednesday during an event at Microsoft's headquarters here. "We're dreaming beyond virtual worlds, beyond screens, beyond pixels."
For the last five years, Kipman has been focused on taking the innovations inside the Kinect -- cheap and powerful motion-sensing cameras, voice control -- and packing them into a pair of transparent goggles.Kipman started working at Microsoft seven years ago, when he pitched the idea for the Kinect motion camera, a video game device that tracked a player's body movements. The Kinect went on to become one of the fastest-selling devices in history.
Microsoft appears far along in realizing this augmented reality vision. With HoloLens today, the company has designed a convincing prototype that floats 3D images in front of you and that can change the look of real-world objects all around. But it's unclear how Microsoft expects to deliver on CEO Satya Nadella's commitment that such a device will be for both consumers and businesses.
Also unsaid: How much it will cost. Microsoft said it expects to release a finished HoloLens within the same time frame as Windows 10, which should arrive sometime this year. The Oculus Rift's various developer kits, on the other hand, have cost upward of $300 in the past, with its consumer model expected to come in between $200 and $400. Samsung's Gear VR headset runs around $350.
Microsoft's glasses are different from Oculus Rift goggles, which promise to transport you to a different world and open up numerous possibilities for film, TV, sports and other entertainment. HoloLens uses a technology called augmented reality, which overlays images onto real life and lets you interact with them. In theory, this is easy, but the biggest struggles competitors have had so far have been to design a headset that can stand alone, untethered from a computer or power source, and travel into various environments. Overcoming those challenges is necessary before mainstream consumers will buy into such a bold vision for next-generation computing.
From Mars to Minecraft
As we're led down the stairs into the basement, we're told that we can't try the more polished, all-in-one prototype Microsoft just showed onstage. Instead, we'll be using an earlier, uglier prototype. The company doesn't allow smartphones or cameras into the room.
The device's holographic processing unit, the special processor Microsoft designed to basically help the HoloLens interpret movement and sound, is cased in a separate, chunky box intended to be worn around your neck. The glasses aren't the sleek, space gray model Microsoft unveiled this morning, but a mass of metal. A long chord tethers me to a pair of PCs that are helping feed the goggles their images.
Microsoft's more polished HoloLens prototype contains an entirely enclosed computer with its own specialized processor, the holographic processor unit, or HPU.Microsoft
Wearing the device is not quite as comfortable as wearing the latest Oculus Rift prototype or Samsung's Gear VR headset. And the image I begin to see onscreen when I strap the lenses over my eyes isn't that much sharper than those offered up by the competing devices.
Rather, the biggest departure -- and where Microsoft is truly differentiating its HoloLens -- is how the image I see allows me to interact with my environment instead of escape from it.
The first demo, created in partnership with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, takes me to the surface of a near-photorealistic Mars. Using real photography from the Curiosity rover, Microsoft was able to re-create a Martian landscape and overlay a 3D-map around a small, conference-room-size environment. I can walk around, bend down and look at rocks. I can even see NASA's Curiosity rover, which is larger than a standard motor vehicle.
With HoloLens, I'm not just able to see what it's like to walk around on Mars, but I'm also able to interact with the contents on the surface. Using a finger gesture called Air Tap, the HoloLens lets me mark certain spots on the surface for investigation and even lets me talk with another floating figure and collaborate on examining the surface. NASA hopes to get the HoloLens up and running as a day-to-day tool at JPL by the summer, allowing researchers for the first time to visualize and map out exactly where Curiosity will drill, traverse and photograph the surface of the planet.
Microsoft worked with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to design a real-time Mars environment for researchers to better control the Curiosity rover's movements and study the planet's surface.Microsoft
Like the Oculus Rift, Microsoft is also pushing the HoloLens as an entirely new way to experience video games. After purchasing Minecraft creator Mojang in September for $2.5 billion, Microsoft now owns the popular pixel building game and decided to create its own holographic demo based on the game's artistic style. The demo turns an entire room into a lively game world, punching holes into tables and through the walls to reveal interactive environments that can be changed with the tap of a finger.
Perhaps the most stunning demo, however, was the most practical: Skype's videoconferencing software. Microsoft had us repair a light switch by video chatting with someone using a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 tablet. Their face bobbed in front of my line of vision while I received instructions. To help us maneuver around the various tools, the Microsoft employee was able to draw on our line of sight in real time, using arrows and rudimentary diagrams to describe the best way to position electronics and how to piece everything together.
The demo was unique in that it showcased a feasible and realistic use of augmented reality that wasn't bombastic or meant to marvel. I was able to do something I can say I haven't done in quite a long time with help from a total stranger who was seeing through my eyes and drawing on my reality to direct me through a task.
After checking the voltage on the wires, wrapping coils around the respective screws and capping the loose wires, I picked up a remote control and tapped a button. The light came to life. I had only to look up so the person on the other end of my eyes could see the end result of our successful collaboration.
