Tag: augmented reality technology

The HoloLens has made it into the headlines quite regularly but may not be available for half a decade.

There are a growing number of entrants making their way into the augmented reality headset realm, but despite the increasingly large number of devices, this category remains quite small, is far from mainstream, and most will admit that the devices themselves have not quite reached the point in which the average user will be using them.

Microsoft appears to be no exception to this trend as their HoloLens now looks to be half a decade away.

The augmented reality head mounted display (HMD) called the Microsoft HoloLens is “really a five-year journey,” said Satya Nadella, the CEO of the company when speaking at the Dreamforce customer conference from Salesforce, last week. Despite the fact that HoloLens is soon to be rolled out on a very slow and gradual basis within certain specific industries. This will be the first slow step that will occur well before consumers ever see it on their own market shelves. This will give the company the opportunity to test the headset before attempting to appeal to the average consumer.

These augmented reality glasses were also supposed to head to space, but were blown up in an explosion this summer.

Still, the HoloLens is among the products that has generated the most excitement for the company over the last while, as the demos have been quite successful until now. The headset uses AR technology to superimpose digital images over top of the view of the real world. The wearer can interact with those digital images while still being able to see what is going on around him or her.

Despite the fact that this kind of AR technology requires a considerable amount of computing power, Microsoft is determined to make it possible for the HoloLens to function without having to be paired with a computer.

At the same time, packing all that computing power – in the form of sensors, processors, and other gadgets – into what is essentially a pair of glasses (that are attractive enough that a consumer will wear them) is the primary challenge being faced. Because of this, it will require more time before these augmented reality gadgets are finished.

Nintendo’s new game could be what AR technology has been waiting for to become commonplace.

The Pokémon company has teamed up with Nintendo and the company recently separated from Google, Niantic Labs, in order to develop a game called “Pokémon Go” which will feature the use of augmented reality and that could be what the tech has needed to make it mainstream.

The companies are working together to make it possible for smartphone users to enjoy the game over real life.

The idea is that players will be able to use the augmented reality game to look for, duel, and trade their Pokémon in “real” life. This means that it will be possible to play the game everywhere from city streets to country fields. So far, there haven’t been too many details that have been released about this mobile game, other than a broad concept. There also hasn’t been a specific date set for the release of the game, though it has been indicated that it will become available in 2016.

The idea is that this massive mobile gaming franchise will bring augmented reality into the big time.

This brand and nature of the mobile game will already have appeal to players even before all of the details have been released, as the popularity of Pokémon is tremendous, and AR tech based mobile apps have been growing in use as the idea of overlaying digital content on the real world becomes better recognized.

In order to be able to play the mobile game app, there will likely be a great deal of demand on the device. For instance, while the game will be taking place on the device screen and not in reality, it will require that certain GPS components be active, and a relatively good data service will need to be accessible in order to interact with the game. Moreover, it will require that the player looks at the screen the majority of the time, so it could provide somewhat of a similar experience, in terms of actual game-play, to the Ingress augmented reality app, a previous product released by Nantic when it was still with Google.