PC Mag Reports about Hololens Test in Microsoft Manhattan Store
On the tail of an 11-city showcase tour, Microsoft is making the Hololens experience available for those developers who want to test it under controlled settings in the Microsoft Manhattan store. Magazine and blog editors were the first to release their reviews.
In an article published on the PC Magazine web site, Dan Costa, Editor-in-Chief of PCMag.com, describes the current model’s features. The Hololens model being demonstrated to those who visit the store’s special area dedicated for developers is wireless, greatly improving the ease of testing. Before “strapping on” the device, the user’s interpupillary distance is measured and used to set the optics of the Hololens. This adjustment is necessary to produce the desired holographic experiences. The fit of the device is similar to ski goggles and adjusted using two straps.
The experiences Microsoft is showing the media are set in a home environment and emphasize entertainment use cases, such as games, education and story telling. These experiences showcase the integration with Microsoft’s consumer hardware such as Xbox. One of the demonstrations uses PowerPoint and a 3D animation application to support the creation of an object that can then be printed on a 3D printer. Costa was most enthusiastic about the Project X-Ray demonstration, a immersive shooter game featuring robot aliens.
In other reports published on the same day by other news outlets, there is some debate over the selection of use cases for demonstrations. In Engadget’s editorial about the latest Hololens demonstrations, the author suggests that Microsoft is also (or perhaps more) interested in attracting enterprise use case developers.
Microsoft has also set up an online Hololens developer support environment for gathering insights on use cases of interest. The Microsoft HoloLens Share Your Idea Program is open until January 11, 2016. This closely resembles the AREA’s own enterprise use cases submission form released the same week as the Microsoft HoloLens Share Your Idea Program.