Microsoft HoloLens

Not Just Another VR Headset

Don’t call HoloLens VR. It’s AR . . . and holograms!

2 015 is rapidly becoming the year of

the virtual reality headset. Oculus
VR, HTC and Valve, Sony, Samsung,
effectively project 3D imagery onto
and over your existing surroundings.
We’re talking about frickin’ holograms.
Although HoloLens appears to have
more in common with Google Glass
than it does to the ubiquitous VR
Razer, and others have all announced HoloLens can make 3D aliens dance headsets slated to come out in the near
VR equipment that effectively consists around your living room furniture, future, HoloLens is not something
of a pair of displays built into a headset let you watch movies on your wall, you’ll see people walking around in
with some form of motion tracking browse the web and check your email public wearing.
technology to give the wearer a sense on your coffee table like it was a giant This is a UI peripheral, designed to
that the split images represent an display, and manipulate, walk around, stand in for the mouse and keyboard
interactive 3D virtual world. Despite the and interact with virtual 3D objects in a handful of (but not all) computing
momentum these products have behind as though they were real. HoloLens scenarios, par ticularly those that
them, especially as gaming peripherals, it isn’t Microsoft’s version of a VR have a collaboration and interactivity
would be a mistake to lump Microsoft’s headset, it is Microsoft changing the element. According to Microsoft,
HoloLens in with them. subject entirely. anything you do with your PC can
At its Windows 10 press event back be done better through augmented
in January, HoloLens stole the show Microsoft’s AR Vision reality. The more we learn about what
as an augmented-reality headset that At the event, Microsoft’s vision for HoloLens can do, the more we’re
doesn’t shield your eyes with high- augmented reality spanned computer- realizing just how integral Windows
resolution LED-backlit displays, but aided design, gaming, multimedia, 10 will be for the peripheral. In fact,
uses a transparent pair of lenses and entertainment, education, scientific HoloLens is a full-featured Windows
a vaguely-described “light engine” to research, and productivity applications. 10 device.
 Other professional applications
of the technology mentioned during
Microsoft’s briefing included an
architect showing off virtual blueprints
to a remote client, a surgeon learning
how to perform a difficult procedure
without ever picking up a scalpel, and
an engineer seeing instructions in the
context of her work.
Gaming is a big focus of HoloLens.
Project HoloLens chief inventor, Alex
Kipman, describes the technology’s
ability to blend virtual creatures and
scenery with your real surroundings for
a gaming experience that is virtually
indistinguishable from the real events
occurring around us. Microsoft’s newly
acquired IP, Minecraft, was used to
demonstrate the potential. In the
demo, the Hololens wearer was able
to view miniature Minecraft buildings,
HoloNotes for Skype adds an interactivity element to the video chat application. scenery, and mobs, fully animated and
alive on a coffee table, sofa, the floor,
and on the walls. Hand gestures were
One of the demos Microsoft video conferencing, and everything else used to build and interact with the
showed at the event was HoloNotes in we already use Skype for. game and the wearer can physically
Skype, which lets a HoloLens wearer In another demo, HoloLens was explore the game world instead of
participate in a Skype chat where the used to project a virtual gas tank, seat, moving an avatar through the world
remote party equipped with a tablet and fairings on a real motorcycle. using the traditional keyboard and
can draw virtual arrows and notes The HoloLens wearer was using hand mouse or controller.
on objects within HoloLens’ field of gestures to manipulate the shape of NASA had a hand in helping Microsoft
view. The wearer can interact with the the gas tank in real time. This demo create a Mars rover demo that lets HoloLens
holographic items and the viewer can emphasizes the technology’s ability to wearers explore a virtual representation of
hear and see everything the wearer sees “pin” holograms to real objects, letting the Red Planet’s surface, dropping markers
and says. HoloNotes and Skype are the wearer walk around them and view and collaborating with others to explore the
ideal for tutorials, distance learning, them from any angle. terrain. In July, NASA plans to start using
HoloLens for Mars missions, perhaps even
issuing commands to Curiosity based on
NASA had a hand in helping video images sent back and projected by
HoloLens, in real time.

Microsoft create a Mars What’s Inside HoloLens?

Kipman calls HoloLens the most
rover demo that lets HoloLens advanced holographic computer the
world has ever seen. He describes it

wearers explore a virtual as fully untethered, meaning it has no

wires for power or data transmission
to a PC. There’s also no need for
representation of the Red a connection to a phone or other
standalone device, either wired or

Planet’s surface wireless. The lenses themselves are

composed of three layers of glass tinted
red, green, and blue, respectively.
The HoloLens’ light engine bounces
light particles between the layers to
generate the holograms. The high-
definition transparent lenses look a
lot like a standard pair of rectangular-
lensed glasses, but they’re mounted to
a thick headband that wraps around
the wearer’s head. There’s also a tinted
transparent shield that spans from the
top of the headband to the tip of the
wearer’s nose.
Although the units that press got to
try out at the event were prototypes,
Microsoft claims that the headset itself
will weight approximately 14 ounces or
so and adjust to fit any adult head size.
On the latest iteration of HoloLens,
there are three buttons: one for power,
another for volume, and a third for
adjusting contrast. Those demoing
the contraption also suggested that
the unit features active cooling and Collaborate at your job much? With HoloLens, working on a joint project in real time is possible.
that heat is vented out and away from
the head.
Kipman says that HoloLens features Trail Atom processor, which is a 14nm for better interoperability between
a high-end CPU and GPU. Sources Airmont microarchitecture-based chip Windows 10 across all platforms. The
familiar with the hardware inside designed primarily for tablets. This is processor is a quad-core unit with
HoloLens report that the CPU is based a 64-bit x86 processor, which makes 2MB of L2 cache and base clocks
on Intel’s yet-to-be-released Cherry sense as Microsoft has been pushing ranging from 1.44GHz to 1.6GHz.
Each variant of the Atom X5 and X7
Z8000 series processors, the Cherry
Trail chips we know about, supports a
burst frequency to up to 2.4GHz.
The GPU aspect of these processors
is based on the execution units in
Intel’s current Broadwell chips, with
dynamic clock speeds that start at
200MHz and go up to 600MHz.
The three Atom chips that make
up Cherry Trail support one or two
channels of Low Power DDR3-1600
for total memory bandwidth of up
to 25.6GBps. Microsoft’s Surface 3
tablet currently runs on a platform
that is remarkably similar to that
of HoloLens.
HoloLens features a third –and
utterly unique– chip, which Microsoft
is referring to as an HPU or holographic
processing unit. This is the processor that
is going to be doing a majority of the
HoloLens wants to enhance every interaction you have with your computer.
sensor input processing. There’s really
not much information about what this
chip is or how it does what it does, but
it’s probably very similar in nature to the Like everything else at
PrimeSense chip in the current iteration
of Microsoft’s Kinect sensor. The chip
in the Kinect is able to process 2GB of
Microsoft, software is going
data per second to read its environment.
Given Microsoft’s “Terabytes of data” to be the reason people buy
statement regarding the HoloLens’ pro-
cessing power, the HPU in this device
appears to represent a significant upgrade
HoloLens, and for that,
compared to the Kinect’s environment-
mapping capabilities. Microsoft needs help.
According to Microsoft, HoloLens
features “advanced sensors [that]
allow you to see your world and move holograms remain bright, dimensionally sound” that lets the wearer hear sounds
confidently in it.” Depth sensing will be accurate, and realistic. as though they are coming from the
performed by a 120 by 120-degree FOV O t h e r s e n s o r s t h a t Ho l o L e n s holograms themselves. There’s also
depth sensor and front-facing time-of- may rely on include a three-axis going to be a built-in battery, and we
flight camera, similar to the one inside the gyroscope, three-axis accelerometer, wouldn’t be surprised to learn that it
Kinect. This component typically consists three-axis magnetometer (compass), supports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
of a light emitter (such as the infrared and likely an ambient light sensor,
light grid generator on the Kinect), an which are all features of Google More Than Just A Neat Toy
image sensor, a wide-angle lens, and Glass. HoloLens’ guts will also likely Like everything else at Microsoft,
driver electronics that are capable of include a microphone for picking up software is going to be the reason
syncing the light pulses with the image voice commands and environment people buy HoloLens, and for that,
sensor. The HPU’s job is to take it all in sounds, as well as some form of eye Microsoft needs help. Holograms
and calculate for location and movement, tracking technology. The audio output are Windows Universal apps, which
factoring in latency and countless other specifications of HoloLens are also is the term Microsoft is using for
environmental conditions to ensure rather impressive, with “built-in spatial applications that work on any
Windows 10 device, whether it’s a
PC, mobile device, or a device like
HoloLens. Developers are desperately
needed to take the holographic APIs
that exist in every Windows 10 device
and make something fun and useful
with them.
T h e Mi n e c r a f t d e m o , g e s t u re -
controlled 3D modelling software, and
HoloNotes for Skype were all neat and
fun augmented-reality applications
that spark the imagination. But Kinect
also had demoes that were similarly
inspiring, and it failed to achieve mass
adoption. Although HoloLens has been
in the works for years, much needs to
happen between now and its release
later this year for it to achieve more
than an early adopter and hobbyist
f o l l ow i n g . We re m a i n h o p e f u l l y
optimistic that holograms are finally
here to stay. Without third-party
Gaming is a big part of HoloLens’ appeal. support, however, not even Obi-Wan
Kenobi can help Microsoft. ■