Hot HoloLens Posts


News: Doctors Team Up to Use HoloLens & VR App to Perform Live Surgery from UK, India & US
The HoloLens has become a frequent sight in medical facilities around the world, but a new demonstration shows just how seamlessly it can be integrated into traditional medical procedures to improve the experience for physicians and patients alike.

News: HoloLens Continues to Make the World Your Canvas with Inclusion of SketchAR
The app SketchAR is an easy, innovative way to trace what you want to draw onto the canvas of your choice. It was first released on iOS and Android Tango phones, but now, finally, it has been released on Microsoft's HoloLens.

News: 360world's Windows Mixed Reality Tools Will Help Air Traffic Controllers See in New Ways
360world, a Hungary-based tech company involved in motion control and augmented reality, released information today about their latest products, the CLAIRITY HoloTower and CLAIRITY SmartBinocular. These tools are designed to bring augmented reality into the hands of air traffic controllers, via Windows Mixed Reality, to greatly improve their workflow over tools already in use.

News: UC Berkeley Team Commands Drone Fleet with HoloLens
User interfaces for computers have evolved over the years, from the introduction of the keyboard and mouse on the personal computer, to touchscreens on mobile devices, to natural voice recognition. However, the same cannot be said for robots or drones—until now.

Have You Seen This?: Synesthesia Adds Trippy Sound Visualization to the HoloLens
If anyone has every told you that they see music they listen to, they have synesthesia. It's a fascinating neurological phenomenon where people experience crossed responses to stimuli, and no one knows exactly how common this is. A rough estimate claims that one in every 5,000 to 100,000 people is a synesthete, but it could be far more common or rare. Nobody really knows.

HoloLens Dev 102: How to Make Physical Objects Come to Life on HoloLens with Vuforia
It seems to me you can't swing a dead cat near an augmented reality developer without hearing the word Vuforia escape their lips. PTC's software solution has become the go-to for most developers in the mobile AR space, and since they recently added full support for the HoloLens in Unity, I figured it was about time we learn to make something with it.

News: Royal Australian Air Force Using HoloLens to Experiment with Augmented Reality
The limitless applications of 3D data visualization will enable a more efficient approach to many of life's problems. Each day, developers exploring this technology are finding new ways to solve these problems in mixed reality; 3D modeling, easier house management, spinal surgery, and forest fire management are just a few recent examples of ways 3D data visualization can benefit us all.

Have You Seen This?: New Spatial Map Measuring Tool & Beating Heart App for HoloLens
While all of my previous Have You Seen This? posts have all focused on individual HoloLens apps in the Windows Store, this time I'll be sharing a couple at once. These holographic applications are really simple in scope, so there is not a lot to say about them, yet they are interesting enough for me to want to share them with you.

HoloLens Dev 101: The Unity Editor Basics
With any continuously active software, it can start to become fairly complex after a few years of updates. New features and revisions both get layered into a thick mesh of menu systems and controls that even pro users can get bewildered by. If you are new to a certain application after it has been around for many years, it can be downright intimidating to know where to begin.

News: Two Doctors Simplify Spinal Surgery with the HoloLens
True innovation tends to come from the places we least expect as developers. The Microsoft HoloLens is still a very new product, and some of the other headsets are still just ideas, so the rules for mixed reality are not set in stone. That means all the real problems to be solved are yet to come.

News: Trimble Releases SketchUp Viewer, the First Commercial HoloLens Application in the Windows Store
Visualization is one of the obvious commercial applications for technology such as Microsoft's HoloLens. The ability to see the assets of a project in different scales—from micro to larger-than-life—with a quick air tap will play a large part in the coming augmented reality revolution. Whether the assets are art for a game, interior design, raw financial data, or architecture, data visualization will play an important role in the future. This is due, in part, to our ability to absorb informat...

News: The HoloLens Can Now Wirelessly Use a PC's CPU & GPU for Faster Development Cycles
Virtual reality headsets like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive tether to desktop computers with robust GPUs in order to harness their power. The free-roaming, cordless Microsoft HoloLens forgoes those chains but loses a bit of graphical processing power in the mix. However, a recent report suggests we may get the best of both worlds.

News: Design a Room Layout with Holographic Furniture Using HoloPlanner
When figuring out how to arrange your furniture in a new room, you traditionally have to measure everything and use your imagination. HoloPlanner has a better idea: just place holographic furniture in the room so the Microsoft HoloLens can imagine it for you.

News: Check Out These Awesome Mixed-Reality Movies Made with the HoloLens
Mixed reality filmmaking isn't a new concept. Disney managed to make it work in 1988 with Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but not without an enormous amount of work. We haven't seen many mixed reality films of that scope since, and perhaps that's because it's still hard to accomplish. Filmmakers don't look through a viewfinder or monitor and see the fully rendered result on screen—but that can change with mixed reality headsets like the HoloLens.

News: How Skype Video Chatting Works on the HoloLens
When you wear a holographic computer on your face, you gain some things and lose others. That's certainly the case when using Skype in Microsoft's HoloLens. Some video chats will work better because your caller can see what you see, rather than your face—but others just feel weird.

How To: Share Photos & Videos with the Microsoft HoloLens
Microsoft's HoloLens comes with helpful features for capturing video and photos, but sharing whatever you record isn't as straightforward as you might expect. So here are the many ways to get your media off the device to share with the world.

News: How to Try Out the Microsoft HoloLens (& Other Reality-Altering Headsets) Near You
Mixed reality (MR) feels like an amazing, almost mind-blowing futuristic technology—but only once you've experienced it for yourself. Words, images, and even videos simply cannot describe the experience in full. If you want to really peer into the future and experience MR for yourself, you can sign up and just go in many cities.

News: Microsoft's HoloLens Is Going to Transform How We Do Work
Mixed reality headsets have limited hardware capabilities and naturally imprecise interfaces. While that works just fine for games and entertainment, can they actually function as a tool for productivity?

News: Microsoft HoloLens 2 & Unity Used to Highlight the Threat to Endangered Whales at the Smithsonian
Although the enterprise use cases for the Microsoft HoloLens 2 continue to impress, the arts community just can't stay away from the best augmented reality headset on the market.

News: New US Army Military-Grade HoloLens 2 Imagery Gives Us Star Wars Stormtrooper Vibes
It's all fun and games until the technology is actually put into use and you realize augmented reality is now part of Death Star.

News: Microsoft Brings Chromium-Based Edge Browser, Swipe to Type & More to HoloLens via Windows Holographic Update
Since its launch two years ago, the HoloLens 2 has been the best AR headset available, and nothing has come close to touching it since.

News: Transform Your Friend into an AR Musical Synthesizer via This HoloLens 2 NFT App
One of the oldest electronic musical instruments is the theremin, a synthesizer that generates sound based on hand gestures, as featured in the classic "Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys.

News: Microsoft Wins $21 Billion Contract to Produce Military-Grade HoloLens for US Army
After years of testing and modifications, the US Army is moving forward with its customized version of HoloLens 2 from Microsoft.

News: Microsoft Debuts HoloLens 2 Industrial Edition for Pharmaceutical & Semiconductor Enterprise Users
Ever since the US Army awarded Microsoft's HoloLens a $480 million contract, the battle for enterprise augmented reality has heated up in earnest.

News: Microsoft's HoloLens 2 Makes Primetime Debut on Fox TV Show 'The Resident'
The HoloLens 2 hasn't even reached most of the market, but it's already a big-time TV star. Microsoft's augmented reality device made its primetime debut on FOX TV last night on an episode of the hospital drama The Resident.

News: Microsoft HoloLens 2 Assists De'Longhi Japan Call Center Agents Using Augmented Reality Product Models
Less than a month after the worldwide launch of HoloLens 2, call center consultant BellSystem24 has already prepared an augmented reality solution for one of its clients.

News: Watch Trimble Give the Microsoft HoloLens 2 the Elon Musk Tesla Cybertruck Smash Test, Sort Of
Everyone seems to be talking about Elon Musk's new futuristic Tesla Cybertruck, the vehicle that either looks like a cool moon rover or an outlandish video game replica, depending on your tastes.

News: Microsoft Launches HoloLens 2 Worldwide, Here's a Close-Up Look at the $3,500 Device (Updated)
The long wait is over — the best augmented reality device on the planet is finally available.

News: Microsoft Unveils How-To Videos for Dynamics 365 Guides App Ahead of HoloLens 2 Arrival
With the imminent arrival of the HoloLens 2 expected any day now, Microsoft is preparing new users to take advantage of its software from day one.

News: Microsoft Exec Confirms HoloLens 2 Set to Ship in September
Microsoft has unveiled practically every detail of the HoloLens 2 except for when eager developers and enterprise customers can expect to receive the device.

News: Microsoft FCC Filing Hints That the Wait for HoloLens 2 Is Almost Over
We know that Microsoft's HoloLens 2 is due to start shipping later this year, but despite the trickle of news about the device, we still don't know when.

News: Microsoft Discontinuing Major OS Updates for HoloLens 1
With HoloLens 2 (hopefully) just around the corner, Microsoft has announced that it will no longer be providing any major operating system updates to the original HoloLens.

News: Microsoft HoloLens 2 Video Transports Us to Tokyo & into Mind of Developer Dreaming of Augmented Reality Companions
When you're trying to pioneer a brand new category of technology, sometimes it's not enough to just have great tech. You also need to be able to tell a great story. You need to be able to capture the imagination.

News: NASA Team Headed to Titan in Search of Life Using Microsoft HoloLens As Key Part of the Mission
NASA is going going to Saturn's moon Titan, and the space organization is using augmented reality help them do it.

News: Hollywood Exhibit Uses HoloLens to Transport Fans into the Worlds of 'Back to the Future' & Halo
The potential of augmented reality is often shown in science fiction movies, but a new exhibit marries the genre with very real-world AR technology, to great effect.

News: Microsoft Adds Spatial App Functionality to Office 365's Teams App, Android & Web Interaction Demoed
Months ago, we showed you some of the powers of Spatial, the HoloLens app that allows groups of workers to collaborate in augmented reality using 3D avatars.

News: Microsoft Launches HoloLens 2 Development Edition, Offers Free Unity Pro & PiXYZ Plugin Trial Package
Much of the excitement around the HoloLens 2 has moved on to many wondering when we'll finally be able to get our hands on what is now the best augmented reality device on the market.

News: The Magic of Microsoft's HoloLens 2 Hand Interaction on Display in Mixed Reality Toolkit v2 Demo Video
Describing how and why the HoloLens 2 is so much better than the original is helpful, but seeing it is even better.

News: US Military Shows Off Modified HoloLens 2 Augmented Reality System
New images reveal that Microsoft is already well underway in fulfilling its $480 million contract to provide augmented reality headsets to the US Army.

Interview: Microsoft HoloLens 2 Team Speaks — Inside the Specs, Design, & Future of Enterprise Augmented Reality
As I've mentioned in recent days, it was refreshing to discover that Microsoft's HoloLens 2 stage production was every bit as accurate as presented (check out my hands-on test of the device for more on that).