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Microsoft's HoloLens Is Now On Sale To Anyone In The US Or Canada (computerworld.com)
Microsoft is now selling its augmented reality headset dubbed HoloLens to anyone in the United States or Canada for $3,000 a pop. Computerworld reports: Until now, HoloLens was available only to developers and companies through Microsoft sales reps, but starting Tuesday, anyone in the U.S. or Canada can buy up to five headsets online through the Microsoft Store. There was no word about availability in other countries. The HoloLens now on sale is the same developer edition that has been offered to Microsoft partners, and buyers are asked to acknowledge before completing purchase that they understand it's not a finished product intended for consumers. Microsoft also asks buyers to agree not to resell the product and acknowledge that no refunds are available. The move should expand the community of developers working to build apps and other content for the headset before a consumer version is officially available.
I've had the privilege to develop on one, and I can say that the technology just isn't there yet. Not even close.
The dev tools are also half-assed and unstable.
Sit on your money for now, even if you have it to burn.
I agree $3000 is really steep, especially for the product. It's rather disappointing so far. The field of view just isn't there. However, the implication that VR is somehow greater than AR I strongly disagree with. I think AR is a much harder problem to solve and has really great potential applications. I think people are ready to start moving away from their all-digital worlds and in to something grounded in the physical world a little more. People don't like having their phone in their face all day, or staring at a computer screen all day. There just isn't a better way to get the information they want at the time they want it. VR (so far) is just further isolation from your physical world by moving your body in to the digital world, whereas AR is bringing your digital world out in to the physical world.
As someone with a Vive, I definitely agree. The Vive is great for fully escaping into a digital world, and the sense of immersion is amazing. Just last weekend, I lost several hours playing in a few different apps and was shocked to take off the set and find it was dark and I missed usual dinner time.
But I'd also love to have a system that I could use for work. I've been looking at Bloomberg's Oculus Rift multiscreen experiments, as well as solutions like Virtual Desktop, and while those are great for, again, disappearing into a virtual workspace, nothing offers something that could work in an office environment: specifically, something with multiple virtual screens that I could surround myself with to view multiple documents and PDFs simultaneously, but still be "aware" when someone pokes their head in my office. AR (or a VR headset with low-latency front facing cameras) offers that possibility.
That said, this offering is disappointing, both from a price point and from the offered apps on the website. $3000 is too much for anyone but a developer who expects to earn money back from being an early adopter, and the current apps all seem to be either "project a video on a wall" or "play with 3D modeling" and are useless for typical work. How about "place documents in midair"? It should be easy, given that they're 2D and (other than scrolling) static images. Be able to do that with a dozen documents at once, and you've got a multi-monitor replacement.