Of all digital realities – VR, AR and MR – Mixed Reality is undoubtedly the hardest to get your hands on.
A technological baby, MR is being pioneered by very few companies – the one we know best is Microsoft. To make things more difficult, Microsoft’s only MR solution, the Hololens, is only sold to developers with valid justification – not to mention the tedious process to get it on to our shores. While it may seem distant, its technology is going to change the way we live in so many ways – from the way we shop, game, study – to the way we see the world – and we got a glimpse of just how useful this piece of tech is.
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We were given a very thorough demo of the Hololens courtesy of Helloholo, a local start-up that provides developers and interested parties access to the Hololens. They’ll teach you how to use it, how to develop apps with it, and provide bespoke MR solutions to issues you may be facing. They also provide rental and assist with tricky Hololens acquisitions.
Yeo Jun Jie, the Marketing Director of Helloholo brought the Hololens to us. Right away you get the sense of how well-built the headset is. It’s lightweight, premium-looking and didn’t make you look ridiculous like a HTC Vive. Microsoft are indeed serious about bringing MR to the world.
SKYPE ON THE HOLOLENS
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We moved on to a bit of fun and games – an alien invasion game called RoboRaid. As with most apps, we had to scan our perimeters, and before we knew it, parts of the wall began crumbling away and little alien squids began crawling through to kill us.
Admittedly, it’s not as immersive as VR, (which would literally being taken to a whole new digitally rendered realm) but MR adds to our own world to let us interact with virtual elements in a way never seen before. It retains your awareness of where you actually are, and adds another dimension to it. If it were more natural and integrated, it could be some kind of sixth sense.
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There’s a huge future for MR, especially if developers are willing to make that step to incorporate this fascinating tech into their work. “Hololens represents limited resources made unlimited”, Yeo told us, and began to explain how real companies can really benefit from it.
The final app we tried was probably the simplest of the lot, but with real practical benefits companies can use right away. Room scanned, Yeo brought in virtual objects like tables and rendered cats that we could place around the room. The device recognised real world items like a couch, and digital objects sat realistically above it, without sinking through or being awkwardly positioned.
Scale this up for developers; imagine IKEA incorporating MR into their catalogs. You could wear a Hololens, and visualise how your dream setup would be with digitally rendered IKEA furniture, planning your future purchases whether for home or office.
Helloholo are spearheading MR on our shores, and is already working with shipyards and other major corporations to create virtual renditions of spaces they have, as they all recognise the efficiency and flexibility of this piece of tech. Yeo hopes to see more developers jump on board to “promote more innovation in Singapore and be more creative”, with the help of MR.
And given what we’ve seen today, we are excited for what MR can bring to the table, especially in years to come.
Source: Stuff