Microsoft offers a new perspective in the realm of virtual reality with its augmented reality. On Wednesday, the company started to deliver its HoloLens Development Edition kits to selected developers. The shipment is the first of the more to come.
Microsoft's first shipment of HoloLens to selected developers marked the transition of its augmented reality device to developers outside its development labs. As the first developers and companies outside Redmond will play with the $3,000 device, they can explore possibilities of HoloLens.
Mashable reported one of the companies which Microsoft selected to explore HoloLens is 8Ninths. A few months ago, Microsoft asked the Seattle-based company to build a proof-of-concept for HoloLens. 8Ninths decided to build a financial system which is projected as a future workstation used by the financial traders.
8Ninths received assistance from Tel Aviv-based Innovations Lab and financial service giant Citigroup to develop the workstation. The company designed and built the workstation based on the technology pilot from Microsoft and NASA. The technology was designed to solve 3D problems by embedding information in 2D and real environments, hence, a real application of augmented reality.
8Ninths developed a prototype of workstation for Citi financial trader with a virtual workstation built using Surface Pro 4 HoloLens. Its virtual workstation is developed to offer traders much richer view rather than just grids of numbers, but also a data visualization and presentation. On Wednesday, the Holographic Workstation was announced at Microsoft's Build 2016 developers conference.
Founder and CEO Adam Sheppard said the technology implementation will soon come, adding "It's not years away. I would say it's on the horizon."
Different from virtual reality, augmented reality is a view of physical and real-world environment, whether direct or indirect, which augmented by a computer-generated sensory input such as the HoloLens device. The virtual reality on the other hand, is a replacement of the real physical world into a simulated one.
Another company which is also the early developer of HoloLens is Pop Agency. Ars Technica reported that Pop Agency is developing a system to analyze U.S. Major League Soccer's team performance. The system enables teams to analyze a player's individual performance, and how they performed set pieces and other game aspects.
VR and AR will definitely change the future of PC and hardware. In an interview with PC World, Intel Workstation Group Intel Workstation Group GM Frank Soqui said,"It's going to absolutely influence chip design."
He added, "The more people see content, the more they want to see realistic content. It's going to put pressure on the CPU to perform more physics and rendering."
HoloLens began to ship to its early users, a new perspective for computing industry will start. AR and VR technology will drive the PC hardware industry to design much more sophisticated chip to keep pace with the technology advancement.
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