Microsoft’s HoloLens creator Alex Kipman dreams of “a screen-less” reality where the digital and physical worlds co-exist in three-dimensional space.
Last year Kipman described how our descendants would look at the first century of computing as a peculiar time in history where humans were forced to live in 2D space. He said this brief 100-year span would be a single period in the vastness of time where we humans were entertained, communicated and managed our lives from behind a screen.
Kipman is a futurist. He envisions a connected world where the power of augmented and virtual reality eradicates distance as a barrier to being in one another’s presence. He conceives of a world where holographic representations of individuals can be “teleported” anywhere, anytime, to communicate, to explore, to feel holographic environments via granular haptic feedback, and not only see and hear them.
Kipman sees a reality where ones physical self can be in one place and their digital self another. Executive Vice President, Microsoft Artificial Intelligence and Research Group Harry Shum, also a futurist, predicts a future where everyone will have an AI alter ego that represents them in the digital space. Microsoft is developing the technology to make this mixed reality and AI-driven world a reality. In fact, Kipman recently identified the following industry-defining trends for 2018:
– MR and AI
– AR and VR
– Immersive communications.
Mixed Reality and AI
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Microsoft’s AR efforts have focused on collaborations with the enterprise, private and education sectors toward developing custom applications for HoloLens. Various industries like healthcare, entertainment, NASA and more have partnered with Microsoft to bring AR to its customers. Furthermore, HoloLens’ AR tech, like VR is meant to be emulated and democratized by OEM partners.
Microsoft’s VR efforts are more consumer-focused as it continues expanding its VR platform as partners bring VR headsets to market. VR is still a struggling category but Microsoft and Kipman hope the masses can be won to what it is expected to be an AR and VR computing future.
An immersive experience
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Source: Windows Central