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Microsoft

Microsoft's $3,500 HoloLens 2 Starts Shipping (techcrunch.com) 31

Posted by msmash from the up-next dept.
Earlier this year at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Microsoft announced the second generation of its HoloLens augmented reality visor. Today, the $3,500 HoloLens 2 is going on sale in the United States, Japan, China, Germany, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Australia and New Zealand, the same countries where it was previously available for pre-order. From a report: Ahead of the launch, I got to spend some time with the latest model, after a brief demo in Barcelona earlier this year. Users will immediately notice the larger field of view, which still doesn't cover your full field of view, but offers a far better experience compared to the first version (where you often felt like you were looking at the virtual objects through a stamp-sized window). The team also greatly enhanced the overall feel of wearing the device. It's not light, at 1.3 pounds, but with the front visor that flips up and the new mounting system that is far more comfortable. In regular use, existing users will also immediately notice the new gestures for opening up the Start menu (this is Windows 10, after all). Instead of a 'bloom' gesture, which often resulted in false positives, you now simply tap on the palm of your hand, where a Microsoft logo now appears when you look at it.
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Microsoft's $3,500 HoloLens 2 Starts Shipping More

Microsoft's $3,500 HoloLens 2 Starts Shipping

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  • Holography? It seems pretty cool. Does it even have a use?

    • "which still doesn't cover your full field of view"

      This is a turd "product". Stay far far away. There will be better options.

      • Wait, there will be better products sub $350k? You don't say! Wow, you really helped me dodge a bullet, like when I bought that 720p DLP way back when for $90k and someone said there would be better products and I laughed in their face.

        Apparently technology like this gets better and better and cheaper and cheaper, but who could have ever known that I tells ya!

    • Assuming they solve the problems with privacy vs. permanent recording (online or not), and can make them look just like regular glasses or even contact lenses, they would change the world.

      Mostly ruin it, but definitely change it.
      There are so many games that you could realize with something like that.

      And you could put hyperlinks on physical things. Including people you only pass on the street every decade or so.

      So the delusional utopia would be a kind of neural associations outside of your brain, that could

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • I would love to have this built into my motorcycle helmet. Not at this price, but someday I hope...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Ranbot ( 2648297 )

        Too expensive for the general entertainment.

        As expected. Microsoft-branded products haven't targeted general entertainment in over a decade. Maybe the tech will work it way to the Xbox platform someday but for now it's clearly targeted to commercial/business/military uses like...

        -Industrial plant monitoring and maintenance
        -Medical
        -VFR Flight (piloting)
        -Drone piloting.

        Also...
        - training tools
        - Construction (e.g. real-time overlays of buried utilities, survey plans, design plans, etc.)
        - police
        - soldiers
        - firefighters
        - EMTs
        - Sports (e.g. coaches, football helmets, race car drivers)
        - motorcycle helmets (already mentioned by another poster)

  • No thanks. Not even a virtual one.

  • The point of these new devices was, that they would finally be practial and affordable for the normal home user.

    Not that anything with "Microsoft" on it would ever come into the houshold of anybody with a clue on their criminal history and corporate culture.

    • I actually think it's smarter to make it cost what it needs to cost to be done right and let it trickle down if and when it trickles down. Google Glass went too wide too fast and everybody lampooned it because it seemed silly to wear it to the pub, which it was. Let it simmer, let professionals find a few solid uses for it first.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Matheus ( 586080 )

      This isn't "VR" this is "AR" and a MUCH harder problem to solve in a portable headset. These devices weren't possible in 1999 without being tethered to a fairly massive processing unit.. not that many years ago these things still had a bigger computer that you had to wear like a fanny pack because of size.. now it's all in the headset. Although there is definitely overlap in the companies in each space these are a completely different animal in terms of what they are trying to accomplish and the technologic

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      $5000 in 1999 is worth about $18000 in today's dollars so the price is way down

  • It doesnt show a single use thats not a novelty. Drs imaging a 3D body, can be done on a laptop with more responsiveness, more detail, and far cheaper and more accessible. Viewing motorcycle wiring harness, lol I wont even. Setting up a stage in 3D with precanned objects, easier and simpler to do it in a phone app. If these are your best uses then try again. about the only useful cases are gaming and porn. Show those in the promo video and you might get some excited. Even then its a bit meh.

    • The hands-free aspect is important. If you are paying someone $70k/year, even a 10% productivity increase can quickly pay for them (plus the back-end licensing). It won’t make it to McDonalds, but almost any task done by more of a jack-of-all-trades type of person rather than a specialist could see big opportunities.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by vyvepe ( 809573 )

        The hands-free aspect is important. If you are paying someone $70k/year, even a 10% productivity increase can quickly pay for them (plus the back-end licensing).

        I doubt that it can give you 10% productivity increase for professionals. E.g the motorcycle design/repair use case:

        • If it is a designer then it is just better to work on it behind his workstation. Trying to do it with gestures requires more effort than moving a mouse. The designer hands will tire quickly with hololens. As well as his neck - 1.3 pounds is significant.
        • If it is a motorcycle repairman then this is a fantasy. The experienced (espensive) repairman will not need it because he knows what is where.

        • The examples I have seen are for a field technician to have easy access to repair manuals for a wide variety of projects with some level of image recognition that can highlight areas of work. Getting a repair done in 30 (with better repeatability) was a typical case-study. It isn’t that they are unscrewing the cover faster, but that they have all their tools queues up, don’t need to study the manual for 3-5 minutes, or break up the rhythm to refer back to a diagram. They did a repair task in ab

    • I'm not a surgeon, but I can imagine AR glasses could be useful if my hands were full doing surgeon stuff. Maybe I could pull up a patient's CT or MRI scan images. Maybe I could take a picture of the patient's guts to show how much of a tumor I was able to take out without having to grab and aim a camera. If the device is truly hands-free and responsive, it could be useful.

      On a much more mundane level, I was putting together smoker a couple of months ago. The manufacturer did not have printed instructio

  • They're still not there.. Yet. The cost of VR/AR is not yet feasible at it's price point for what you get in experience. This still falls well within the realm of "Enthusiast" products. Unless you're an enthusiast who wants to try new, and bleeding edge tech, I would not recommend this for everyday consumers.

  • strange (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I thought we were going to have 100 million VR headsets in use already by now!

    https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]

    "PM me in 5 years, and if there aren't at least 100 million people owing VR HMD's, I'll eat my shorts."

    I wish I knew how to "PM" someone on Slashdot when no "PM" info is given.

    • Not to be pedantic but he did say 'VR HMD's' and not AR HMD's. That being said, I don't think there are 100 million VR HMD's in existence yet either (if you include Oculus, Gear, etc). So, shorts for breakfast it is! ;)
  • I expect Apple to become a leader in this space if they ever release their rumored AR glasses.

    The Hololens will be to Apple's AR glasses as the Zune was to the iPod. I expect Apple's kit (for once) to be quite a bit cheaper than the Hololens 2 currently is, in the ballpark of $500-600 bucks. It is expected to need to be paired with an iPhone to be fully functional, so in that regard the Hololens 2 does have a leg up. But I expect anyone who is interested in buying Apple's version is going to have an iPh
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

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