Microsoft Windows 10: HoloLens, Surface Hub and Cortana

[HEXUS]

Read more about these fascinating new cutting edge computing technologies.

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[Saracen]

Cortana can also help you with predictied pertinent information, recommendations and so on but it's up to the user how much she encroaches upon your Windows experience thanks to "advanced features to control Cortana for more trustworthiness and transparency".

Re: the bit in bold, oh goody. So .... completely disabled is an option, it seems, if it's up to me.

As for Surface Hub, for office co-operative use, maybe. But I don't work in that type of office environment, so I can ignore that.

HoloLens? Wearing a stupid headset/sunglasses round the house? Gimme strength. What next, MS? Virtual chocolate teapot?

Someone at MS has, it seems, a "vision" of the future of computing. Whatever gave them that vision, can I get some? Looks like good stuff.

[LSG501]

I love the idea of the surface hub, I can imagine it now, a surface pro user 'swiping' an image onto the big screen (they do it in hawaii five-0 so it can't be hard lol)... could never afford it though.

The HoloLens... now that's peaked my interest, not for games, not for general usage but for viewing 3D models. I can see the idea of a client wearing the glasses with the 3D model in view at 1:1 lifesize scale allowing the user to swipe/walk around it etc, even operate functions like opening doors. It would work great with interior design too.

Cortana... yeah it better turn off, it would be an issue for working under nda if it's always monitoring stuff. Still can't see a reason for it on desktop personally.

And just love how they're bringing 'msn messenger' back again....with support for other protocols.... wouldn't it have been better to just integrate skype into the os, it wasn't cheap

[KeyboardDemon]

I use Cortana a lot on my Windows Phone, I thought it was a bit of a gimmick at first but after I started playing with it and got bored of playing with the Easter eggs I found that it has some really cool features. I use Cortana to send texts for me, dial numbers and check the weather forecast while I'm driving. This hands free approach has helped me a lot, I don't do it very often, but if I am on my way home from work and a text comes in, getting Cortana to read it to me and then dictating the response means I don't have to stop the car or even look at my phone.

I don't know how well that would translate to a desktop experience though.

[Kjnowak]

Hmmm... I actually quite like the Holonet idea. No practical justification for me on why I would use it at home or at work, however I will be interested in playing with one.

Also is it just me or does the voiceover artist sound like Stephen Amell?

[sykobee]

I presume this Holo thing has some form of built in Kinect so that you can also manipulate things with your hands in the virtual world (best hope that the virtual world isn't obscuring something in the real world!).

So far though it's just some pretty marketing animations.

And I'm not going to be walking around my house wearing goggles.

[LSG501]

I presume this Holo thing has some form of built in Kinect so that you can also manipulate things with your hands in the virtual world (best hope that the virtual world isn't obscuring something in the real world!).

So far though it's just some pretty marketing animations.

take it you didn't see the real time hardware demonstration video... one user was using the hololens and another special camera was showing us what she was doing etc. It was pretty impressive.

[TheAnimus]

Re: the bit in bold, oh goody. So .... completely disabled is an option, it seems, if it's up to me.

It's not the Cortana integration that I am curious about, it's how much stuff has to go 'cloud'.

Windows 8 made it, less than obvious for most, how they are getting a 'MS Account'. In fairness, this is better than what Google have been doing, and for many users is very useful, I just worry few understand what it means. I honestly am shocked to the point of mortification how many people still use gmail.

Anyway, the office stuff is brilliant, Spartan, could be super-amazingly useful at getting feedback in a web world.

The HoloLens thing... I'm guessing this is more of just a research project, one that might find some niches in industry (3d-printing / design) or in gaming?

It's actually quite useful to have someone like MS make a standard API and platform for this kind of stuff. Having a player that actually puts weight into it, promotes that standard provides things like documentation in many languages is very useful and not to be sniffed at.

I think that longer term we are seeing more of a push to get windows everywhere. I sort of understand why. I remember using a Tablet PC with the 2005 update, it was the best thing a maths/engineering/CS/anything-non-bullcrap student at uni could possibly have. But they didn't really promote it, it was sort of killed by a competing department. At the time, I was reminded Microsoft Hates Microsoft. Now it looks like they are trying to do less of that at a management level, that could be a great thing. MS has done some of the very best research and projects we've seen from large firms in the last two decades, I mean they spend billions on R&D, but they find a way to snap defeat from those jaws of victory.

[crossy]

SurfaceHub just looks like the "Surface" table from Hawaii 5-0 (and elsewhere) with the legs removed and stuck to a wall. A lot of the schools around here, and some of the businesses, use something called a "SmartBoard" which appears to have some enhanced capabilities - like it can be used to feed info into a host PC like a tablet, you can make paper copies of the board content, etc.

Cortana, I'm ambivalent about - if it's just a search engine and app launcher then I'm not impressed. If, however, it can do more then I'm curious.

HoloLens - like Cortana I'd need to see more details about exactly what it can do. Specifically, unlike Kinect, can this thing be used sitting down? Still I suppose it's a nicer design than the "Mark 1" version shown below:

[GuidoLS]

If the reporting HERE is even 1/10th true, and the pricing isn't small car level, then I can see myself geeking out over the new Holographic interface. From the article -

I enter a makeshift living room, where wires jut from a hole in the wall where there should be a lightswitch. Tools are strewn on the West Elm sideboard just below it. Kipman hands me a HoloLens prototype and tells me to install the switch. After I put on the headset, an electrician pops up on a screen that floats directly in front of me. With a quick hand gesture I’m able to anchor the screen just to the left of the wires. The electrician is able to see exactly what I’m seeing. He draws a holographic circle around the voltage tester on the sideboard and instructs me to use it to check whether the wires are live. Once we establish that they aren’t, he walks me through the process of installing the switch, coaching me by sketching holographic arrows and diagrams on the wall in front of me. Five minutes later, I flip a switch, and the living room light turns on.

Another scenario lands me on a virtual Mars-scape. Kipman developed it in close collaboration with NASA rocket scientist Jeff Norris, who spent much of the first half of 2014 flying back and forth between Seattle and his Southern California home to help develop the scenario. With a quick upward gesture, I toggle from computer screens that monitor the Curiosity rover’s progress across the planet’s surface to the virtual experience of being on the planet. The ground is a parched, dusty sandstone, and so realistic that as I take a step, my legs begin to quiver. They don’t trust what my eyes are showing them. Behind me, the rover towers seven feet tall, its metal arm reaching out from its body like a tentacle. The sun shines brightly over the rover, creating short black shadows on the ground beneath its legs.

Norris joins me virtually, appearing as a three-dimensional human-shaped golden orb in the Mars-scape. (In reality, he’s in the room next door.) A dotted line extends from his eyes toward what he is looking at. “Check that out,” he says, and I squat down to see a rock shard up close. With an upward right-hand gesture, I bring up a series of controls. I choose the middle of three options, which drops a flag there, theoretically a signal to the rover to collect sediment.

After exploring Mars, I don’t want to remove the headset...

[Divefire]

Am I the only one who reads Cortana as Clippy?

[Satyapal]

With its HoloLens Microsoft boldly claims that "The era of holographic computing is here". It is bringing computer interaction out from the screen and thus connecting your digital life with your real life. The high-definition holograms produced by Microsoft's HoloLens system can integrate with your physical places, spaces and things to "improve the way you do things every day, and enable you to do things you’ve never done before."

[plexabit]

I presume this Holo thing has some form of built in Kinect so that you can also manipulate things with your hands in the virtual world (best hope that the virtual world isn't obscuring something in the real world!).

So far though it's just some pretty marketing animations.

And I'm not going to be walking around my house wearing goggles.

This is where I see holograms being realistic. For example, Iron-Man style holograms could "easily" be achieved this way...

[DanceswithUnix]

Ars seems to really like HoloLens as well: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/...-virtual-real/

All the hype over Windows 10 they can keep, but this has my attention and I missed it at first because they swamped it in the noise of Cortana, free upgrades etc.