We received a HoloLens development kit in The MKX® Labs. According to Microsoft, this is what it is:
Microsoft HoloLens is the first fully untethered, holographic computer, enabling you to interact with high‑definition holograms in your world.
While this is somewhat hyperbolic (I don’t this these are holograms, it’s just really good augmented reality), I was very impressed. These are my impressions.
Over a year ago, the Leap Motion was announced and it looked to cool to resist (for me). A long time and two address changes later, it finally arrived – to the right address, mind you.
Leap Motion is a little black doohickey that plugs in to your computer and sits in front of the keyboard. It can track your hands in 3D space with surprising accuracy. I’m not sure how it does it, I suspect it uses technology similar to the MS Kinect; which projects a star field of infrared dots and then uses cameras to map out 3D space based on how the star field hits things.
Quick impressions:
The box is huge given the size of the contents. It reminds me of the boxes used for Apple products. What a coincidence.
It doesn’t ship with drivers. You must go to the website and download them. They have drivers for Mac and for Windows.
After you download and install the drivers , a program called Airspace launches. There’s an intro/demo with yoga music in the background that lets you wave your hands and see pretty stuff on screen. This happens while a few other programs download from the app store (how original!) in the background.
One of these programs is Cut the Rope. This game is quite good on touchscreen…. how good can it be in thin air?
Ok, obviously this is my first game, it’s late and I’m tired, and I am recording it while I’m playing. Perhaps I’ll get better with time.
We spent last Sunday in San Jose, checking out the Tech Museum. Which is great, if you are nine years old or less.
However, one interesting physiological phenomena was reaffirmed: my nose is noticeably colder than the rest of my body. Scientists around the world remain baffled. Previous data here.
