
Hololens Round Two: Augmented Reality at Build 2016 - yread
http://www.anandtech.com/show/10210/hololens-round-two-augmented-reality-at-build-2016
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bradenb
I had a chance to play with HoloLens for a few hours yesterday and it was a
really incredible experience. Yes, the FOV is noticeable and I hope they can
address it, but I felt like I was able to easily compensate for that with the
visual and audio cues the device can show you.

And speaking of audio cues... I found the sound to be a truly magnificent
aspect of the hardware. There are two orange speakers that sit above your ears
that are somehow able to produce some really great special sound effects. If
something wasn't immediately in my FOV but it made a sound, my mind was
actually tricked into thinking it was part of the ambient sound in the room.
It was almost disconcerting to remove the headset at that point and have the
sound disappear.

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slg
It is a little disappointing they were unable to fix the field of view issue
in the shipping units. That was the biggest limiting factor between the type
of amazing demos Microsoft has shown and my personal experience with the
device at last years Build. Maybe that will be something that is eventually
fixed before a consumer release, but until it is this device is more of a
glimpse into an exciting future rather than a game-changer.

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mafuyu
I read somewhere that with the technique they're using for the displays, it's
very difficult to get a wider fov, and it's continually been a sore point for
Hololens.

Despite this, I still think Microsoft is lightyears ahead of the market in the
AR space due to the work and research that's gone into Hololens all the way
down the stack. They've already made custom silicon to hit their sensor fusion
-> display latency requirements and they're making W10 for AR.

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WorldMaker
I read somewhere else that some of the FOV tuning/shrinking has been for
safety concerns as well. Given the "truly untethered" experience, I can
certainly understand if Microsoft is trying to err on the side of caution
versus accidentally blocking some of the important sideband navigation
information people get from peripheral vision, while they wait for more
science and research to be done on such things.

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magicalist
> _I read somewhere else that some of the FOV tuning /shrinking has been for
> safety concerns as well._

This is very wishful thinking on the part of wherever you read that. Microsoft
would love to expand the FOV, it's literlaly the number one bit of feedback
they get on the product, but the current optics design simply won't allow it.

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mtgx
It really bothers me that in all of their demos it's this room filled with AR
animations, making it seem like you could see all of that through the
HoloLens. When in reality, you will be seeing something like a 35-40" TV in
front of you. You won't be "surrounded" by all of that stuff.

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lordCarbonFiber
At least, in the short demo I got to play with, they've got some software
tricks that deal with the field of view issues. Cues at the peripheral do a
decent job of signaling where the user needs to direct the device to find
content.

It's certainly nothing like looking at a flat screen projected. Artifacts have
state in the room space, just aren't visible to you outside, of the admittedly
small, window. I was impressed,YMMV though.

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6stringmerc
Here's the basic crux of my outlook as a general principle, well stated:

> _The use cases for AR seem, to me, to be not necessarily the same as VR and
> both should easily be able to co-exist._

My instinct is that one will be far more adaptable and incorporated into
entertainment / business / activities than the other, and at this juncture,
I'm pretty convinced it'll be the AR track. It seems more dynamic and this
review, on the whole, feels a lot more positive than ones noting the current
state of VR (e.g. disorientation). That might change over time, but if this is
an indication of things to come, I'm anxious to see what AR can drum up for
use cases and software (yes, I did like that Minecraft demo a while back and
dream of what a DAW could be like).

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ehsanu1
In the future, I imagine a single device that can do both. In that world, VR
is just AR that occludes your entire vision. Then you use AR when you want to
stay in your current environment, and VR when you want to be transported to a
very different environment from the one you are physically in.

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renox
The HTC Vive has already a front facing cameras, so there you are: a VR
headset which can do AR. Of course with only one low-res camera, it's very
poor AR. And it's tethered.. When most people talk about AR, they're talking
about untethered AR..

The tethered --> wireless --> autonomous transitions won't be easy though
(probably needs to track the eyeball to reduce the power needed).

