News: HoloLens' First Update Adds Voice Commands, Multitasking, & Much More

HoloLens' First Update Adds Voice Commands, Multitasking, & Much More

Microsoft released a robust version of the HoloLens when shipping the developer kits, but there's still lots of room left to grow. Today, they've released the first update to Windows Holographic, the operating system of the HoloLens, with a whole bunch of cool new features like voice commands and app multitasking.

Microsoft demonstrates many of the new features in the video above, but here's the rundown of what you get in the latest update:

• You can run up to three apps simultaneously! Now you can truly multitask.
• If you like to work with a soundtrack, the update allows you to play music in the background (through Microsoft Groove) while doing other things with the HoloLens.
• You can now rotate holograms to place them exactly how you like in your space and resize apps vertically.
• Voice commands allow greater control over your holograms. For example, if you place a hologram and want to see it from the front, you can just say "Face Me" for a quick repositioning.
• Microsoft Edge now supports tabs on the HoloLens, and hovering over a tab will give you a preview thumbnail of the webpage.
• To take mixed reality photos quickly, you can now press the HoloLens' volume up and down buttons simultaneously. This saves a lot of time over the previous manual process and is even faster than asking Cortana to do it for you (and that presumes she actually listens, which is not always the case).
• Bluetooth keyboard support has been improved and you can add a mouse, now, as well.
• If you want to place a photo somewhere in your holographic space, you can pin it and hide the app bar so it displays nicely and looks more like art instead of a computer window.

Microsoft clearly isn't wasting any time getting new features onto this device, so we can likely expect a lot more before they're readying for a full consumer release. Hopefully we'll see some email options soon, too!

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