Why I decided to develop for mixed reality experiences on Microsoft HoloLens

This week might have been hailed as a great week for Virtual Reality (“VR”) with Google announcing Daydream and Facebook demonstrating VR live on stage, but have you thought about the big picture?

This might have already been a heated debate on Reddit and AR / VR forums. Here is my take on why I invested $3000 on a HoloLens and dedicated the majority of my free time to Hololens app development and content creation.

Ethics: The top consideration for us to develop any technology should not be money. Instead, we should evaluate whether this technology will be good for humanity. If you have seen the movies in which people are just lying on a chair or a bed, with their heads strapped to a box, what was your first impression? Is that what humanity has come to?

Communicating with eyes and faces are key ingredients of being human. Blocking them out from view is a huge loss for social interactions. No matter how many times they say they put people first, VR is putting people in silos. If you are already weary of the phenomenon of everyone looking at their own smartphones when sitting in the same room, then you can imagine how much less sociable VR will make us. Fancy a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with the family? Please don’t make VR socially acceptable!

On the other hand, Mixed Reality through a shaded transparent glass allows us to maintain face to face interaction while sharing an enhanced reality experience together. The key difference is that the Mixed Reality experience on HoloLens is based on local physical environments and never removes the people around you. You can still see each others’ eyes and 80% of facial expressions (yes, it’s not perfect, but it’s much better than VR). Gaming on HoloLens can be likened to Wii. It’s supposed to be casual and fun, something you play with family and friends in the same room, and not meant to drain 4 hours a day sitting on a couch.

Entertainment is part of human life, but the highest form of happiness comes from self-actualization, according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Beyond its obvious entertainment value in casual gaming, HoloLens allows us to achieve higher productivity in many different areas, such as sculpting, filming, teaching, product design, technical support, etc. Instead of draining young people’s time into gaming and online narcissism, this Mixed Reality technology, once made affordable, will provide a platform for young people to build on their creativity.

Technology: In the augmented / mixed / virtual reality space, nothing has come close to the realm of possibilities that HoloLens has opened up.

The steady and accurate spatial mapping, world anchoring, and occlusion make a huge difference in convincing users of the existence of the holograms and in reducing motion-sickness (a common problem in VR). Holograms in each space remain where they are even after visiting multiple spaces. All these were made possible by 24-core chip designed specifically for HoloLens. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/22/microsoft_hololens_hpu/ The untethered stand-alone device allows you to walk around and navigate freely, without ever tripping over a wire (still required for many VR devices today). The transparent glass allows you to see your surroundings without having to worry about bumping into a wall (VR devices might give you a warning, but can you ever be sure?) The holograms are presented in true 3D, instead of 360 degree spherical images. The distance to a holographic object is so true, that I still require my glasses to see. When using a HoloLens, your eyes are focusing at distances farther than a smartphone screen at an arm’s length, so an unintended consequence could be that this may lead to less chance of kids developing myopia (unconfirmed).

Many other aspects of the technology (although available on other VR /AR devices) also proved to be top quality:

Voice commands were something that I didn’t expect to work so well, but it did. In fact, I replaced most of my app commands with voice commands. This is also the first system (compared to smartphones and desktops) where voice commands dominated over other forms of user-input. Spatial sounds on HoloLens can make you believe the animated characters are actually talking to you. The distance and direction of the sounds are very close to what one would subconsciously expect from a physical sound source. Media capture works out of the box. You can capture your surrounding with holograms added in, on photos and videos, and share them right away. There is a bit of slow-down in performance, but it is still acceptable and doesn’t cause motion-sickness.

If you are less familiar with HoloLens, you can check out above mentioned tech features of HoloLens in action on my Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/MatrixInception

There are certainly things that can be improved, to name a few:

Limited field of view is the most common complaint about Hololens (other than the price tag). After some use, I became almost oblivious to the problem, but I would definitely want a bigger field of view. Weight of the HoloLens at 579g is not a deal-breaker, but it does cause the device to slip down along my nose from time to time. Physical dimensions of HoloLens can also be slimmed down somewhat, but it may come at the price of shorter battery life. Cost of the device for a development edition at $3000 USD is currently too high for mass adoption. However, it should come down over time, as production volumes pick up.

Markets:

The number of potential use-cases of mixed reality on HoloLens far exceeds those of VR, for example, on-site training, interior design, filming, etc. You can even use it to replace a plain old desktop, setting up virtual offices anywhere, answering emails, and edit documents using Microsoft Word and Excel (the only accessory needed is a Bluetooth enabled keyboard). As a result, it can serve many more customers and markets, once the price comes down. HoloLens can very well be the winner of the next-generation platform after smartphones. Even if the price doesn’t lower to consumer levels, it can still be very useful to businesses and professionals. Here is an example of HoloLens being used for elevator maintenance by Thyssenkrupp.

Conclusion:

Ethics guided me to select mixed reality over virtual reality. HoloLens technology proved it readily possible, and market opportunities may be tremendous. Thus, HoloLens got my vote as a developer, and has maintained a great approval rating from me so far.

Do you agree with my view? Feel free to share your thoughts.

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