HoloLens Features
How To: Add Full Body Motion Tracking to the HoloLens with a Kinect
Thanks to Project-Infrared, there's now a pretty straightforward way to add motion tracking to the HoloLens: Connect it to a Kinect.
HoloLens Dev 101: How to Get Started with Unity's New Video Player
The release of Unity 5.6 brought with it several great enhancements. One of those enhancements is the new Video Player component. This addition allows for adding videos to your scenes quickly and with plenty of flexibility. Whether you are looking to simply add a video to a plane, or get creative and build a world layered with videos on 3D objects, Unity 5.6 has your back.
News: 'Land of Dinosaurs' HoloLens App Brings Jurassic Park to Life with Holograms
Jurassic Park makes a great (and sometimes mediocre) action movie, but hopefully isn't the sort of thing we're dumb enough to actually make. Fortunately, on the HoloLens, you can now walk with the dinosaurs with no risk to your life and limbs.
News: The HoloLens Is Already Teaching Tomorrow's Doctors
The human body is amazingly complex, and seeing inside one poses a variety of challenges whether you're dealing with an actual human or some kind of facsimile. Mixed reality offers the ability to get the best of both worlds by creating a holographic teaching tool for human anatomy.
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: Microsoft Fuels Efficiency at Chevron with Remote Assist App for HoloLens
Four months after unveiling the latest productivity apps for the HoloLens, Microsoft now has a series of compelling real-world use case videos showing how the augmented reality device and its apps are helping oil giant Chevron.
News: Airbus Partners with Microsoft to Begin Selling HoloLens 2 Software After Successful AR Pilot Program
Aircraft manufacturer Airbus is so impressed with the boost in productivity it has gained from Microsoft's HoloLens, the company will begin offering augmented reality software to its customers.
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: 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.
Have You Seen This?: Holo Space Invaders Hits the Windows Store for HoloLens
For those familiar with my old YouTube series, New in the Store, you will be excited to know that I am starting something very similar here on NextReality that's a bit more broad in scope. Have You Seen This? will take a look at HoloLens applications that are new in the Windows Store, as well as some that may not have gotten the attention they deserve.
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: New Video Shows How Precise HoloLens 2.0 Depth Sensing Will Be
While the next-generation HoloLens does not have a launch date yet, we now have a better idea of how big a leap the device will take in terms of depth sensor performance.
News: HoloLens Can Now Simulate Childbirth to Train Medical Students
Medical training technology company CAE Healthcare has given birth to the latest example of how augmented reality can help to build practical operating room skills for doctors and nurses. The company's newest product is called LucinaAR, which harnesses the power of the Microsoft HoloLens.
News: Windows Holographic Lands in Windows 10 Insider Build 14971
Windows Insiders running Build 14971 of Windows 10 in the Fast Ring can now look for the "Windows Holographic First Run" app to check to see if their PCs are up to the task of running Windows Holographic. It won't detect your VR headset yet, but at least you'll be able to see if your computer will be compatible.
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: Thyssenkrupp Claims Up to 4x Faster Workflow with HoloLens
Microsoft announced yet another exciting partnership for HoloLens today — thyssenkrupp, an industrial engineering company best known for their elevators — continuing to prove how useful augmented reality is in the workplace.
Hands-On: Hands-On with Spatial's Remote Meeting App on Microsoft HoloLens
In recent years, many software publishers have tried to sell the business community on remote meetings via VR, but if social media chatter is any indication, it hasn't taken off in a big way just yet. However, for some, the notion of holding remote meetings using augmented reality, a medium in which you're still directly tied to the real world and not closed off in a blindfold-style VR headset, might be the better solution.
Hands-On: Hands-On with the HoloLens 2, the New Best Augmented Reality Experience You Can Get
In the last couple of days there's been a lot of speculation about the powers of Microsoft's HoloLens 2, but few have had a chance to get their hands on one to see if the company's claims live up to what HoloLens inventor Alex Kipman showed off on stage.
HoloLens Dev 101: Building a Dynamic User Interface, Part 9 (Moving Objects)
So after setting everything up, creating the system, working with focus and gaze, creating our bounding box and UI elements, unlocking the menu movement, as well as jumping through hoops refactoring a few parts of the system itself, we have finally made it to the point in our series on dynamic user interfaces for HoloLens where we get some real interaction.
How To: Control Your Microsoft Hololens with These Cortana Voice Controls
When Microsoft release an update to the HoloLens Development Edition at the end of May, there were a bunch of cool new features added in. Among them: New voice controls that make working in the HoloLens operating system much easier.
News: HoloFlight Turns Flight Data into Cool Mixed Reality Visualizations
Data visualization has many applications in virtual and mixed reality, since a third dimension literally adds important depth to the represented information. A new app called HoloFlight is a good example of this, combining flight-tracking data and the Microsoft HoloLens to surround you with a look at every plane in the sky.
News: Inputs for the HoloLens Can Be from Any Device... Even a Smartphone
We've highlighted the projects of Wavelength Studios a few times over recent months for their work in the augmented and mixed reality space. Since receiving their HoloLens headsets, they've been hard at work on both development community projects as well as efforts for clients. This brings us to their latest work—a way to control holograms on the HoloLens with our pocket-based modern miracles, also know as smartphones.
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: 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.
HoloLens Feature: Spatial Mapping
Once you've designed some holograms with HoloLens, you'll need to get them to interact with the environment. That's where Spatial Mapping comes in. There are five basic purposes for using HoloLens's Spatial Mapping with your app:
News: The HoloLens Lets You Watch TV in a Whole New Way
Are there any benefits to watching a movie in a holographic mixed reality headset, or should you just stick with your TV? It's not as cut and dried as you might think. While TVs have some advantages, so does the virtual screen of a Microsoft HoloLens.
News: US Navy Taps Microsoft's HoloLens for Augmented Reality War Games System
Simulated training can help soldiers and sailors learn how to use their weapons safely, but simulations can sometimes lack the stressful environment of a real firefight.
How To: Perform the Air Tap Gesture Correctly on the HoloLens
Microsoft's HoloLens has two gestures: bloom and air tap. While the two might not seem like much to learn, some people struggle with the air tap because the headset can be a bit particular. The easiest way to learn the proper form is to look through someone else's eyes while they do it, so we've captured that for you.
HoloLens Dev 101: Building a Dynamic User Interface, Part 10 (Scaling Objects)
An incorrectly scaled object in your HoloLens app can make or break your project, so it's important to get scaling in Unity down, such as working with uniform and non-uniform factors, before moving onto to other aspects of your app.
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: First Online Multiplayer HoloLens Game Lets You Battle with Virtual Cars Against Others Anywhere
On Friday, game developer PreviewLabs released the first online multiplayer game for the Microsoft HoloLens.
HoloLens Dev 101: Building a Dynamic User Interface, Part 11 (Rotating Objects)
Continuing our series on building a dynamic user interface for the HoloLens, this guide will show how to rotate the objects that we already created and moved and scaled in previous lessons.
News: Portal Makes Its Way to the Real World in HoloLens Concept
If you've played the game Portal by Valve before, you've most likely popped one portal onto the ceiling and another directly below it on the floor, dropped your Companion Cube in, and then watched it fall forever. Well, now it has been done in real life, in an actual hallway, not in a rendered world.
News: This App Streams Custom Holograms from a Computer to the HoloLens
The Microsoft HoloLens has a good amount of content available, but it's fairly limited in terms of what you can customize. You can access a built-in library of holograms, but if you want to create your own you have to do that with code.
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).
Have You Seen This?: Oriental Museum App Explores China's Forbidden City on the HoloLens
In this episode of Have You Seen This?, we will look at Oriental Museum by 247 Technology Limited, a free application in the Windows Store for HoloLens. Museum exhibits seem to be a popular theme amongst the demonstrations going up, so let's see how this one looks.
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 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.