HoloLens Features
News: This Children's Hospital Uses HoloLens & Augmented Reality to Calm Young Patients During Medical Procedures
While numerous examples exist of hospitals deploying the HoloLens to assist doctors, surgeons, medical professionals, and students while treating patients, California's Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford is actually using the augmented reality headset to improve the patient's experience.
HoloLens Feature: Gesture Input
Gesture Input works hand-in-hand with Gaze Input. If you think of Gaze Input like a mouse cursor, Gesture Input is how you "click" in HoloLens—which Microsoft calls "tapping." It's kind of like a touchpad, only in 3D.
News: NASA Integrates Microsoft HoloLens into Regular Maintenance Operations on International Space Station
As NASA nears the launch of another mission to the Moon in 2024, and a subsequent mission to Mars in the 2030s, augmented reality is increasingly being woven into the normal space operations to test various capabilities.
News: Here's Your First Look at the US Army's Combat-Ready HoloLens 2 in Action
Though Microsoft has had trouble keeping up with the demand for HoloLens 2, the company has been able to supply modified headsets to the US Army.
HoloLens Dev 102: How to Create an ImageTarget with Vuforia & Set Up the Camera System
Now that we've set up Vuforia in Unity, we can work on the more exciting aspects of making physical objects come to life on the HoloLens. In this guide, we will choose an image (something that you physically have in your home), build our ImageTarget database, and then set up our Unity camera to be able to recognize the chosen image so that it can overlay the 3D holographic effect on top of it.
News: Microsoft Shows Off Rare Images of Early HoloLens Prototypes
All those early prototype images Magic Leap is so fond of showing off are great, but they rank a far second when compared to a new set of images just revealed by Microsoft in relation to the HoloLens.
News: Microsoft Japan Helps Godzilla Invade Real World Tokyo via HoloLens
The company behind Japan's beloved Gozilla, Japan's Toho Studios, has for years tried to give fans the sense of what a giant, nuclear-powered lizard invading Tokyo might feel like. Until now, those attempts have been limited to the movie theater, but now, with the help of the Microsoft HoloLens, Godzilla is finally getting its chance to invade the actual city, with terrified fans looking on from a safe distance.
News: 3D Modeling Comes to Mixed Reality on the HoloLens with Verto Studio 3D
3D modeling is usually a very long and complicated process. Manipulating the thousands to millions of vertices, faces, and triangles to the correct shape you want is just the first part of the process, and can take a good while depending on the level of detail needed. From there, you need to texture the model by applying the UV coordinates and placing the textures in the correct places. And all of this isn't even including the process of creating normal maps.
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.
Proof of Concept: Music Everywhere Uses HoloLens to Help Piano Students Learn Improvisation
Students from Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center have been working on an augmented reality system to help teach music in a project called Music Everywhere.
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.
Video: Haptics Make Holograms Touchable on the HoloLens
Imagine wearing your HoloLens, then reaching out to touch a hologram and actually feeling it. Mind blown, right?! Now imagine that same hologram responding to your touch. I don't mean in the way holograms currently respond to an air tap, but a much more refined and precise touch. Maybe you touch a character on the shoulder and it turns around to see you, or maybe you hit a button in the air and it reacts accordingly.
News: This HoloLens App Hopes to Offer Paramedics an Augmented Reality Assist During Emergencies
A new telemedicine application for the Microsoft HoloLens is promising paramedics and EMTs a new tool for diagnosis and treatment of patients in the field.
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: 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: Make Apps for HoloLens in JavaScript with HoloJS
A new repository appeared in Microsoft's GitHub account a few months ago for a project called HoloJS. For those JavaScript developers out there that have been wanting to make HoloLens apps, this one's for you.
News: This Smart App Makes HoloLens Room Scanning a Game All on Its Own
Complex games in mixed reality require a pretty detailed scan of the room, and getting this process right can be both time-consuming and annoying. Computer science students at the University of Washington decided to fix that by turning it into a game.
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.
News: Stimulant's HoloLens App Helps Navigate Inside Buildings
We've got Google Maps to help us out when we need to navigate outdoors, but Google can only map out so many indoor locations without getting creepy. And that's where Stimulant comes in. This "innovation studio" built a HoloLens app that lets you map out an area, define locations, and use the headset to get instant directions to any defined location.
News: VLC Lands on the Microsoft HoloLens with Special New Features
The latest beta of the popular open-source media player VLC just hit the Windows Store, which means it not only runs on Windows 10 and Xbox One, but the HoloLens as well.
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 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: Inside Microsoft Mesh, What Is It & How Does It Work? We Have the Answers
When Microsoft unveiled Mesh a couple of weeks ago, the move revealed a major part of Microsoft's next steps toward dominating the augmented reality space, particularly with regard to enterprise customers.
News: The Scaling Ratios Every HoloLens Dev Should Know for Clean Text in Mixed Reality
Designing for mixed reality, especially for the HoloLens, can present unique challenges. Dong Yoon Park, a Principal UX Designer at Microsoft with a passion for typography, recently gave a talk to the Windows Holographic Users Group Redmond (WinHUGR) about the pitfalls he ran into trying to convert what started out as a 2D iOS app 5 years ago to the newer 3D Holographic frontier with Unity.
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: 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: 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: This HoloLens App Brings Animals into Your Home Without Violating Your Lease
Augmented reality headsets with depth sensors, like the HoloLens, offer a much more immersive experience than the average smartphone at present, and one app demonstrates that in a uniquely entertaining fashion.
News: Trimble & Umbra Partner to Bring Complex Imagery on the HoloLens
When developing for the HoloLens, keeping a constant 60 fps (frames per second) while making things look beautiful is a challenge. Balancing the processing power to display complex models and keeping the frame rate where it needs is just a straight up painful process, but a solution seems to be on the horizon.
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.
Video: Space & Sound Used to Help Visually Impaired Navigate with the HoloLens
We live in a marvelous age, a time where technology is driving us forward as a species at a rapid pace, and tech-driven miracles are becoming more and more commonplace. While the human race may not be focused on building the largest wonders of the world, as it once was in history, the current order of wonders are much smaller in scale—even internal.
News: Soldiers Could Soon Use HoloLens to Plan Missions Using Interactive 3D Maps & Models
Just like in the Spy Kids 3D movie, US soldiers may soon upgrade their mission planning from 2D to 3D. Welcome to the wonderful world of augmented reality, US Army.
News: Caltech Researchers Use HoloLens to Give Directions & Object Identification to the Visually Impaired
When computers have vision but people don't, why not have the former help the latter? That's the gist behind the Cognitive Augmented Reality Assistant (CARA), a new HoloLens app developed by the California Institute of Technology.
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 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: Microsoft Enlists Rapper/Actor Common to Push Its HoloLens Future During NBA All-Star Weekend
The Microsoft HoloLens has a fairly passionate, yet relatively small group of users pushing the developer-centric device forward, mostly spreading the word about the device through word of mouth and meetups. But this weekend, during the annual NBA All-Star festivities, we got a look at how Microsoft may be planning to market the device if it ever goes truly mainstream.
News: Microsoft Has Figured Out How to Double Field of View on HoloLens
One of the most highly-cited drawbacks to the HoloLens is its limited field of view (FOV), but now it appears that Microsoft has solved that problem.
HoloToolkit: How to Add Voice Commands to Your HoloLens App
The HoloToolkit offers a great many, simple ways to add what seems like extremely complex features of the HoloLens, but it can be a bit tricky if you're new to Windows Holographic. So this will be the first in an ongoing series designed to help new developers understand what exactly we can do with the HoloLens, and we'll start with voice commands.
Opinion: Why Microsoft Not Releasing a New HoloLens Until 2019 Should Not Be a Surprise
If the rumors are right, Microsoft has decided to cancel the second version of the HoloLens, and they will instead move onto version three of their mixed reality headset. In the latest report, Thurrott's Brad Sams states that the expected release date of this new Windows Holographic device wouldn't be until 2019, a long two years away for those of us putting full effort into HoloLens app development.
HoloLens Dev 102: How to Install & Set Up Vuforia in Unity
In this first part of our tutorial series on making physical objects come to life on HoloLens, we are going to set up Vuforia in Unity.