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All Windows 10 PCs Will Support HoloLens Next Year (theverge.com)

Posted by msmash on from the AR-and-VR-push dept.

Tech giants are betting on augmented reality and virtual reality as the "next big thing." However, both of these nascent technologies are seeing a slow adoption rate because a user needs high-end computing power at her disposal to experience most of them. Microsoft believes it has made enough software advancements to offset the hardware requirements. At Intel's annual developers conference, Microsoft's Windows chief Terry Myerson announced a partnership with the chip maker that will make all future Windows 10 PCs able to support mixed reality applications. From a report on The Verge:"All Windows 10 PCs next year will include a holographic shell," Myerson said, the same operating system that runs on the company's HoloLens headset. PCs will work with a head-mounted display, and run all Windows Holographic applications, Myerson said, allowing wearers to interact not just with 3D applications but also 2D apps. Microsoft will enable these apps through a future Windows update and the company's universal Windows app platform.TechCrunch has more details.

49 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. At her disposal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    So only women are interested in augmented and virtual reality?

    There is a reason English has the gender neutral word "their" which would be appropriate in this instance.

    1. Re:At her disposal by sexconker · · Score: 1

      Some dipshit is going to come here and tell you that "their" is only used in the plural. (They're going to be wrong.)

    2. Re: At her disposal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Why dost thou you me, do I look plural to thee?

    3. Re: At her disposal by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 2

      Technically it is only supposed to be plural, and about 50 years ago anybody who read what you were writing likely would have been confused. It's only recently that "their" came to both mean "multiple people, possessive" in addition to "single person, unspecified gender, possessive".

      It actually doesn't make any logical sense to write it this way instead of simply using "he" or "his" as the default pronoun, like what many other languages do, and is yet another inconsistency that contributes to the English language being extremely hard to learn as a second language.

      But, this has been done all throughout the history of English as there's no central grammar Nazi authority similar to what other major world languages often have, so the language typically changes a lot in seemingly illogical ways.

      We've also done a similar thing with "they" and them", i.e turning what's logically supposed to be a third person plural word into a third person singular word.

    4. Re: At her disposal by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 4, Funny

      But, this has been done all throughout the history of English as there's no central grammar Nazi authority

      Apparently, you have never met my 7th grade English teacher.

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    5. Re:At her disposal by chispito · · Score: 1

      Some dipshit is going to come here and tell you that "their" is only used in the plural. (They're going to be wrong.)

      Of course it is used. It is a handy shortcut in conversation but reeks of weakness in anything more formal than a text message. Either pick the gender of your antecedent or make your antecedent plural.

      Some dipshits are going to come here and tell you that "their" is only used in the plural. (They're going to be wrong.)

      FTFY.

      --
      The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
    6. Re: At her disposal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Nothing lost. Microsoft is already living in a mixed reality.

    7. Re:At her disposal by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 2

      So only women are interested in augmented and virtual reality?

      There is a reason English has the gender neutral word "their" which would be appropriate in this instance.

      By the rules of Corpspeak, descriptive text like this must contain a precisely equal mix of male and female pronouns. The mix must be randomized, with a male pronoun being required if your presentation contains an example of bad protocol by a user. You want your next call to a meeting to be from HR?

    8. Re: At her disposal by burhop · · Score: 1

      They, referring to a singular person of any gender has been in use for more than 500 years, not 50, but fell out of fashion officially in the nineteenth century with its obsession with trying to make English more pure like Latin.

      Which is funny given how English has evolved by taking pieces of everyone else's language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      English is the most promiscuous language I know of :-)

    9. Re:At her disposal by FatdogHaiku · · Score: 1

      You want your next call to a meeting to be from HeR?

      FTFY

      --
      You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
    10. Re:At her disposal by Fragnet · · Score: 1

      Haha I saw that too. SJW bullshit.

    11. Re: At her disposal by Fragnet · · Score: 1

      Au contraire mon ami.

  2. Wayland had this in 2013. by NotInHere · · Score: 1

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    Maybe not with direct support for virtual reality glasses, but still well before ms did this announcement.

  3. Not fooled, sorry! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Windows 10 is a trojan horse and you can paint it up as pretty as you like, but it's still full of used condoms.

  4. other purported features by nimbius · · Score: 4, Funny

    hololens is being included as an incentive to drive the switch to windows 10, literally the best windows ever until we release windows 11 suppository edition. But, did you know? we've included many more features critical to your enjoyment of windows and definitely worth upgrading to...for example:
    Windows mobile rotisserie: slowly roast a glazed ham from your cellphone and your desktop? sure, it used to be impossible before but not with windows 10!
    windows xbox live cloud productivity pack:windows 10 and xbox with azure cloud are now better than ever with new titles like excel warrior 2016 and pivot tables for Halo. Imagine doing spreadsheets on the moon as a space marine? well now you can live the dream!
    Microsoft Steve Ballmer for Hololens: Experience the wonder of hololens as narrated, driven, and commentated by a live, sweat soaked, and slightly bloated former CEO of our once proud company! Did i hear somebody say developers?
    Cortana integration for Windows 10 Skynet mobile cloud We couldnt say no to this one if we tried! literally! as part of cortanas decision to begin absorbing most of the HR department, we've included a self replicating version complete with a detailed file on human anatomy and an absolutely insatiable drive to end the human race! its all part of the best windows experience yet, with windows 10!

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
    1. Re:other purported features by thegarbz · · Score: 2

      You've gone for funny but hit insightful. Microsoft is including the frigging kitchen sink in Windows 10 without actually creating any features that help productivity, and the kitchen sink has holes in it.

      I mean yeah you integrated a PDF reader into your internet browser. Now how come on your premier product, which is a tablet, I can't draw on that PDF and save it? I mean there's other software to do it, but I understand it was far more important for your tablet to have the ability to connect to a 3D printer than it was to be able to make use of the pen.

      And your new Settings panel is nice (in an artist throws up on a canvas calling it art kind of way) but it would be nice if there were actual settings in it. Admittedly I rarely go into it, but when I do I typically find myself redirected to the control panel or some other area outside. So what's the point? At least I can actually have a conversation with my PC now and it allows me to swear at Cortana directly. Oh wait, you programmed abuse out so there's literally no use for Cortana on the desktop now.

    2. Re:other purported features by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 2

      " Windows 10 Skynet mobile cloud "

      The good thing about this is there is no chance that will become self-aware.

  5. Silliness.... by VAXcat · · Score: 3, Funny

    This is silly,. Why would they add features to the PC interface that won't be available on my Windows Phone? If I can't use the same interface on both, I'm just not interested.

    --
    There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
  6. Re:Why? by pla · · Score: 2

    "Support", "able", "include", and "allow" do not mean "required".

    Currently, I have no need or desire for one of the current gen of overpriced headache-inducing 3d headsets; when I finally decide to try one, however... Y'know, I'd kinda like it if the OS natively supports it without needing to hunt down a million and one drivers and registry tweaks.

  7. User authentication by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    How long until Microsoft requires every Windows 10 user to 'install' a Windows-compatible buttplug in your anus before the OS wiill boot? Then instead of just figuratively being up everyone's ass, they'll literally be up everyone's ass, something that I'm sure Satya Nadella has wet dreams about nightly.

    1. Re: User authentication by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Gives a completely new meaning to "Please insert the USB dongle and wait for a connection".

    2. Re:User authentication by knorthern+knight · · Score: 1

      The viruses and trojans will have a new "attack surface". However, there is hope... "Butt Defender" anti-virus to the rescue!

      --

      I'm not repeating myself
      I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
  8. Titanic metaphor here. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Nevermind the fact that a new update for Win 10 causes 'total freezing' and MS doesn't know how to fix it yet. Nevermind the fact that Win 10 forces updates on you with no option to refuse an update. Nevermind the fact that most (as in more than 50%) of former Windows users will not go anywhere near Win 10 due to the forced updates, removal of plaintext search to force Cortana usage and the high degree of likelihood that Win 10 is literally sending everything you type to MS for permanent storage.

    It's going to have HoloLens support! Woooo!

  9. Did it occur to them that no one wants them? by HBI · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Who the hell wants to wear a set of oversized, crappy glasses while playing a game, while wanting to vomit half the time? You'd think the whole 3D waste of time with movies would have taught someone something about these supposed "improvements".

    --
    HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
    1. Re:Did it occur to them that no one wants them? by zlives · · Score: 3, Interesting

      development takes time, Microsoft development takes time after enough time has passed after a fad fades. just give them time to replace the faded ceo first.

    2. Re:Did it occur to them that no one wants them? by Anonymice · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Have you even seen the HoloLens? It's not for fully immersive Virtual Reality, it's for Augmented Reality - overlaying HUDs & such over your normal vision. And not in the shitty not-actually-AR/VR way that the Google Glass was.
      And as it's not full VR, it can forgo all of the physical bulk & high-end GPU requirements, and isn't nearly as susceptible to the "uncanny valley" problem.

      For real day-to-day use, I dare say that the HoloLens is the most interesting thing I've seen yet.

    3. Re:Did it occur to them that no one wants them? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Nobody outside of MS wants to use those new features they push, but it did not stop them from tailoring the windows UI for touchscreens on Win8. Never underestimate the arrogance of a executive team.

    4. Re:Did it occur to them that no one wants them? by MrSteveSD · · Score: 1

      I doubt AR glasses will make you vomit since you will still be able to see most of the real world. However, Hololens has a crappy field of view which they do not seem interested in addressing. The demos they have shown have all been "fake" composites of what you would ideally see if the FOV was huge and if Hololens was also able to show objects darker than the background (which it isn't).

      I don't think they seriously intend Hololens as a consumer product. I think it is all just marketing hype for windows 10.

    5. Re:Did it occur to them that no one wants them? by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 1

      Apparently, someone has no idea what the hell "HoloLens" is, yet felt the need to comment with ignorant snark and is even modded "insightful" for it. Nice.

      For those that have no idea, HoloLens is augmented reality, not virtual reality. You see the real world through the viewfinder, and computer generated imagery is placed into the real world, and is lock-synced perfectly, so that it fools your brain into believing you're really seeing a "hologram" in real space. I've heard it's an amazing experience, for those that have seen it. And no, augmented reality won't make you sick, because there's no brain-image disconnect. Think of Pokemon Go as the perfect videogame for this technology, imposing "creatures" in the real world, as one example use case. MS is targeting corporate applications first, though. This isn't even a consumer device.

      The biggest problem is that to make it portable (unlike most VR that's powered by desktop machines), the screen had to be reduced in size, so that it's sort of like looking through a mail slot. It's definitely not a full field-of-view sort of experience. My expectation is that as processing and battery power improves, you'll eventually have an experience closer to vision-correcting glasses, and eventually a full field of view.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    6. Re:Did it occur to them that no one wants them? by Fragnet · · Score: 1

      The only question worth asking is "is it any good?". I have an Oculus DK II. It was fun for a while but once the novelty wore off my main focus was on the weight, inconvenience, eye strain and nausea. Personally I don't think they're going to take off just yet. We need to wait 25 years.

    7. Re:Did it occur to them that no one wants them? by HBI · · Score: 1

      I had MS come in with a sample pair a few months ago. Color me unimpressed.

      This is what happens when you assume. Overlaid HUDs can make people vomit too - ask the Air Force, which spent a lot of time and money finding that out.

      --
      HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
    8. Re:Did it occur to them that no one wants them? by Trogre · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Back in the early 90's, Wolfenstein 3D made a lot of people want to vomit too, because it was much more immersive than any *popular* game that came before it. And then people got over it.

      Speaking as someone who actually enjoys 3D movies, partilcularly high frame rate 3D movies where you can actually track moving objects and scene pans, I have no problem wearing glasses if it leads to a more immersive experience.

      Of course, I won't be buying into HoloLens specifically, as I do not purchase Microsoft products.

      --
      "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
    9. Re:Did it occur to them that no one wants them? by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 1

      Well, looks like you're right about this point.

      If I'm going to lambast people for appearing to talk out their ass, I can't very well exclude myself, right? Consider me lambasted, and my own snark retracted. Most of the other facts still should stand.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    10. Re:Did it occur to them that no one wants them? by Bite+The+Pillow · · Score: 1

      Me. I want that. And a guy I work with, we both want that. You want a better buggy whip, we want cars. You get motion sickness, we get, like, roid rage or something.

      It's so awesome, I don't know how we even liked 2D movies.

      You're stupid and wrong, and history will be on my side. So take a moment and answer your own question. Who wants this? Who doesn't? Anyone sensitive to motion sickness will automatically not get it, so your judgement is flawed.

      Start over. Who wants this, and who doesn't?

    11. Re:Did it occur to them that no one wants them? by rl117 · · Score: 1

      Actually, they didn't get over it, at least in some cases. I can't play a lot of the early 3D games. They make me want to vomit and induce violent headaches with only a few tens of minutes of use. Most newer games don't. And I think it's largely due to differences in the FOV and camera positioning. The original Star Wars: Jedi Knight/Dark Forces were almost unplayable for me, as were a lot of others in this era. I stuck them out and suffered, but only in small doses. JKII/III, Mass Effect, and post recent/current games are totally OK (but not all). A lot of this might be down to my eyes and physiology, but it's also absolutely the case that the individual games are prone to causing this, and those old games were especially bad for it (for me, and I suspect others).

    12. Re:Did it occur to them that no one wants them? by rl117 · · Score: 1

      Yep, went to a talk/demo three weeks back. Looked interesting and promising, but in reality I was completely underwhelmed. Didn't help that the speaker was a rabid Microsoft fanatic and spent most of the talk going on about how awesome Microsoft were rather than talking about the technology, but the technology itself is nothing particularly special. And most of the usage scenarios and games they had for it were contrived and useless. They also chose to go with an Intel Atom processor in the unit rather than a less power hungry ARM. I really don't need a hot CPU plastered onto my forehead. The power consumption was so bad the guy had a big USB battery pack in the back of his pants! The overall idea does have some merit. The implementation is respectable but frighteningly expensive and not that impressive overall. I don't think the HoloLens will take off, but the concept might once it is refined somewhat. Given that you can almost do what it does today with a mobile phone in a harness and a front-facing camera, I suspect that other manufacturers will be able to make a better product for a fraction of the price.

    13. Re:Did it occur to them that no one wants them? by Digicrat · · Score: 1

      Don't forget that the current demo of the HoloLens is for *developers only*. Think of how much the Occulus Rift has improved from the tolerable-for-short-periods DK1 vs the first commercial release. Not that I generally like defending MS, but the ad campaigns reflect what MS hopes to achieve for the final product, not the current prototype. They need to up the FOV and resolution significantly before that device is ready for market ... and when it is it looks like MS is ensuring that there will be plenty of software available from the start.

      Anonymics is right about the 'uncanny valley' problem to, at least to a degree. The HoloLens' AR is a much different beast than full immersion VR. They need to achieve a high enough resolution/optics to display text clearly, but they aren't creating a virtual world so simple charts and cartoonish characters (which even a modest GPU can generate at very high resolutions) will be sufficient for intended uses. (Intended meaning the HoloLens is not designed for immersive virtual reality games, though I'm sure people will try using it that way anyway and be confused of why VR and AR are not the same thing).

  10. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    So you know an OS that doesn't consume disk space, use cpu cycles, or use memory? MS is deciding nothing for you they are only giving the end user options. And the vast majority of end users do not give a shit about the OS they are running. They are only interested in running applications. These same end users expect a reasonably straight forward way to keep their OS updated and patched without having to make sense of all the various distros and service packs floating around on the internet. And they certainly do not want to deal with the pricks on the support sites blowing them off because they don't know the secrets of using bash or git scripts to maintain their system from the command line. And the only OS platform I know of that locks you into a hardware platform is Apple.

  11. Yes, we know "VR is the next big thing". by jeffb+(2.718) · · Score: 1

    We've been hearing that it's the next big thing since 1987.

    Yes, we've made great strides in display resolution, rendering speed, reduced weight and power, and wireless communication. But as long as I'm stuck with a V1.0 inner ear, pure VR (as opposed to AR) is pretty much a non-starter.

  12. Re: Why? by JediJorgie · · Score: 1

    Thanks for contributing absolutely nothing to the discussion. If you don't like Windows, don't use it.

  13. Surprisingly by pkinetics · · Score: 1

    Win 10 performance will suddenly crap out shortly after the massive update. But hey, you should buy a new PC so you can support HoloLens!

  14. Waste of time by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

    Just like curved TVs are/were

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  15. Re:HOLOLENS. IS. NOT. FUCKING. HOLOGRAMS. by JediJorgie · · Score: 1

    I agreed with you until I read this: http://doc-ok.org/?p=1172

    Language is mutable, adapt or become irrelevant.

  16. What happended to slashdot? by JediJorgie · · Score: 1

    When did you slashdot become the last bastion of gumpy old men who hate change?

    I have not seen an actual discussion on here in months. Everyone is too busy telling everyone else to get off their lawn.

    1. Re:What happended to slashdot? by burhop · · Score: 1

      Everyone is too busy telling everyone else to get off their lawn.

      Don't worry. WIth Hololens, it will be a virtual lawn that overlays all horizontal surfaces. It will be an environment of bliss like was foreseen revisions ago and recorded in the book of Wiki.

      Just like this but in 3D -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    2. Re:What happended to slashdot? by rl117 · · Score: 2

      There's a difference between "hating change" and being uninterested in over-hyped junk with no practical relevance. And yes, I've been to a demo of the HoloLens and seen it in real life. It was crap and even the rabid fanatic doing the demo couldn't make it work properly during his demo. That's Microsoft software again! Make one that actually works well, as well as actually solving problems I have, and I might start to get interested. But right now, it's nothing more than a toy trying desperately to provide solutions to problems which people don't have. It lacks purpose, in addition to being a mediocre implementation of the concept. Having been reading slashdot for nearly 20 years now, I think it's certainly fair to say I've become less susceptible to hype. Lots of stuff has been hyped over the years and come to nothing. Most of it was crap. I don't hate change, I just don't have interest in over-hyped useless crap anymore. Let it establish itself, and then I might get interested if there's worth in it. I'll leave the rabid fanaticism to others.

  17. Re: idiot by hackwrench · · Score: 1

    So let me be the first to call you idiot after the fact. Somebody already pointed out that they has been used that way for longer than most people realize and English is the most changing in its family. So get salty all you want. (Salty apparently has come to mean anything from angry to petulant and then some, for those curious, though someone is free to be more specific than this explanation.)

  18. Re: Why? by hackwrench · · Score: 1

    I found them not to be headache inducing but their sense of where you are in the world, specifically where the controllers are can be way off. I pointed a controller at a ship and fired and the shot did not go where I expected it to. Besides the controls are so primitive that using a current gen two-joystick controller is better.

  19. Re:Why? by Fragnet · · Score: 1

    It's a complete mystery to my why an OS would bother shipping with a file system and memory manager. You don't strictly speaking *need* them. And all those fucking drivers. Complete waste of space.