HoloLens is an exciting new tech that upgrades on the virtual reality goggles of our time, and conceptually, a step better than Google Glass. Microsoft has created a world changing tech, a new platform that has mass market appeal because it gives you new perspectives, and can take your imagination further...like on the surface of Mars.
I'm excited on what we can do with this once visual artists, photographers, filmmakers, researchers, and educators invest in this new medium.
An evolution
The concept of holograms has been around for ages and evolved over time as our understanding of lasers and x-rays improved.
It takes some work to create a hologram. You need to setup photographic plates, mirrors, and manipulate your angles. However, Microsoft's Alex Kipman, inventor of Kinect, took on the challenge of a mass market hologram setup by looking at current available tech: virtual reality goggles. Why spend time and money on setting up an entire physical environment to produce a hologram, when you can let the human brain do the work for you by manipulating what your eyes see.
How it's done
The HoloLens, as this Wired article highlights, creates images using light particles that "bounce around millions of times in the so-called light engine of the device" which essentially tricks your brain into seeing light as matter.
Trailer
