After revealing at the Unite Europe conference that its Mixed Reality headsets should be commercially available to consumers by Christmas of this year, Microsoft has showcased its plans for the platform at a WinHEC (Windows Hardware Development Conference) workshop in Taipei.

According to VRFocus, a demonstration took place which involved Acer’s Mixed Reality headset being used alongside Microsoft’s HoloLens. In the demonstration two women played the same puzzle-solving video game cooperatively in order to show how the two pieces of hardware would be capable of working together.

To encourage cross-platform experiences like this Microsoft is offering a shared development kit for the HoloLens and Mixed Reality headsets which should make it easier to bridge the gap between virtual and augmented reality.

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Making a headset a home

Part of the mixed reality experience these headsets will offer will be bringing your real-life Windows desktop into a virtual home. The virtual space will have different, customizable areas where you’ll be able to position your various apps through hanging them on walls or positioning them on shelves for easy access.

For example, in the living room area you could have your videos app accessible through a TV screen or in an office area you could have your emails app sitting on a shelf. To access the apps you simply have to walk through the house and select which ones you’ll access.

VRFocus says that this feature is planned to be included in the Fall Windows Creator Update in preparation for the release of these headsets.

All of these plans rolling out now point to the end of 2017 through to the start of 2018 being an extremely exciting time for virtual, mixed and augmented reality technologies.