Gadgetory

this is microsoft hololens it's the company's augmented reality headset we saw early versions of this last year but now it's more than a prototype this week it started shipping to developers and commercial customers who have paid three thousand dollars to experience the AR headset and all of its glory but what's it really like to wear it I'm Lauren good reporting for The Verge and this over here on my right is my colleague Tom Warren if you have followed the verge of stories about Microsoft you probably know who Tom is this is the main event the hololens itself so it's definitely not unobtrusive but considering its size it's actually pretty lightweight you put it on by fitting this interior band around your head and then you use this twisty dial in the back to just to fit it can either rest on your nose or just above it air tapping is how you select things when you're gazing at all of the virtual stuff in the world around you there's also a hand gesture called the bloom that tells the computer to go back to the Start menu so yeah this thing is an entire computer on your head it runs on Windows 10 which means that in addition to hololens specific apps you can do just normal stuff to like browse the web you can see how the air tapping becomes more than just a select function in a game like Robo raid which Tom played for a while the other day while wearing hololens so you tap to place it on the wall and it's going to scan your environment you walk around and it will scan them so you can see it pulsating off the walls over there this makes the best use I think of the spatial sound that you can hear in the headset so you can hear stuff when it's attacking you from behind so there you go basically you air tap and you shoot at these little robots here you can also air tap your way through holo studio which is in all seriousness a holographic app for making other holographic apps but if you're not into making apps you can do stuff like make a Skype call to the verge office back in New York say hi Neil I Clara you say this is um this is Tom Warren uh he's he's currently talking to us on the hololens oh wow dancing what he seems yeah this is crazy so what you're really experiencing with hololens is mixed reality some stuff is real some stuff is not unlike a big all-encompassing VR headset like oculus rift you can still see some of the things around you while you're browsing the web or playing games things like walls or chairs or this table it also feels slightly less dangerous than a VR headset because you actually have spatial recognition and a sense of depth so you know maybe you won't hurt yourself trying to lean on an imaginary desk but the way it's built also means that it's way less immersive than Microsoft has promised it to be it's like the difference between looking at a projection of stars on your wall versus sitting in the middle of a pitch-black planetarium the graphics you've been watching in this video are the video outputs we got from Microsoft but when you're actually wearing it the field of view is limited and that probably won't change once Microsoft ships this to consumers so we had some fun with this new version of hololens it's clear that Microsoft envisions this initially as something that will be used mostly for enterprise applications and in education and gaming too what it will mean for the consumer market is still really a big unknown and Microsoft is hoping that app developers might help shape that it's definitely improved from the hololens prototypes we've worn before and the experience of using it is way cooler than what it physically looks like but it is still a headset on your head and as cool as it is it's a relief to take it off and return to the real world after a while what should I read on the verge today we have 34 new articles so far this morning Neal I must be so happy