Ten years later, when we recall 2015/2016, we may not remember the dual camera iPhone 7 Plus and the exploding Note7, but we will certainly remember HTC Vive and Microsoft HoloLens. In particular, the latter is destined to be a milestone of the era. Even if it comes back in a few decades, it will become a landmark in the long history, like Nokia function console, handheld game console and Apple iPhone.

The development version of HoloLens was launched at the beginning of 2016. It is a dream device of many airplane users, and can achieve the same effect as the Iron Man helmet. But the high purchase threshold makes it difficult for everyone to understand it. It has many interesting and special designs. It is a device worthy of in-depth understanding and experience for both practitioners and curious users.

PS: The full text is more than 12000 words, containing a large number of popular science and GIF, mobile party pay attention to traffic safety.

hardware configuration

1. 3D and weight: 26.5 * 19.5 * 8cm (headband has certain adjustment allowance), 579g

2. Screen: Two 16:9 translucent screens with a total of 2.3 million pixels and automatic pupillary distance adjustment. One side screen actually measures 1.26 inches * 0.65 inches, equivalent to about 1.45 inches

3. Sensor: 4 environment cameras, 1 depth of field lens, 4 microphones, 1 light sensor, infrared positioning light

4. Biometrics: Voice control, life recognition, focus tracking, gesture recognition

5. CPU： Intel Atom x5-Z8100, 14nm process, 4-core 64 bit, 1.04GHz main frequency

6. Storage: 2GB memory (application storage 900MB), 64GB Flash storage, 54GB available on boot

7. Endurance: 16500mWh battery, 2-3 hours of continuous use, 2 weeks of standby

8. camera: The 2.4 megapixel camera can take up to 2.36 megapixel (2048 * 1152) photos and 1.1 megapixel (1408 * 792) @ 30 frames of video.

9. System: 32-bit Windows 10, specific version 10.0.1802.10333

HPU : This is the core and most special part behind the HoloLens experience. Even the name is defined by Microsoft itself. The full name of HPU is Custom build Microsoft Holographic Processing Unit. It is a customized multi DPS integrated chip, TSMC 28nm HPC process, composed of 24 Tensilica DSP, can process 1 trillion instructions per second, and integrates 8MB SRAM cache and 1G LPDDR3 memory. 12x12mm BGA package area, 10W power consumption.

Through the extensibility of Tensilica DSP, Microsoft has added 10 special operation instructions specifically used to speed up HoloLens processing speed to improve the HPU's ability to process VR and AR data. At the same time, for Win10, HPU will preprocess the returned data to reduce the CPU burden.

How to buy: The price and purchase difficulty of HoloLens are also very special. HoloLens was released at the Build 2015 developer conference in January 2015, and the developer version was not available until the beginning of 2016, priced at $3000. In addition, it is also a piece of equipment that money does not necessarily buy. In addition to the early investors, ordinary users must have a Windows account with the attribute of "insiders", answer the questions on the pre order web page and pass the review of Microsoft staff before they can place an order to purchase.

Science Popularization and Background

When smartphones are still in rapid development, Google, Microsoft and other giants have begun to lay out in this new "outlet": first, Google Glass surprised the audience at the end of 2013, Facebook took Oculus at a high price of $2 billion in 2014, then Microsoft HoloLens in January 2015 and HTC Vive released in March of the same year, followed by Samsung Gear VR Domestic storm and a large number of VR equipment.

In addition to the equipment, the 2012 anime "Sword Paradise" and the global "Pok é mon Go" game in July 2016 are excellent VR and AR popularization textbooks respectively. What is MR proposed by VR, AR and Microsoft?

1. VR : The full name of Virtual Reality is computer/mobile phone rendering and simulation of various senses such as vision/listening/smelling/touching. Its main task is to provide a visual sense of "immersion/immersion" with images that can respond to actions in real time, represented by Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.

2. AR The full name of Augmented Reality is to overlay virtual information/images on real images. The most famous device is Google Glass. In Pok é mon Go, mobile phones are actually AR devices;

3. MR : The full name is Mixed Reality, which is a concept proposed by Microsoft when it released Hololens, but it should also be included in AR in essence. MR includes 3D modeling of the surrounding space. Virtual objects can be fixed at a certain position and height like real objects. The size and lighting effect will change with distance and angle. HoloLens is simply the most perfect Pok é mon Go game device, although it does not actually support

VR and AR are both hot technologies in recent years. Although they also face serious problems of portability, wearability and endurance, their technical requirements are completely different. The biggest technical bottleneck of VR is the response delay. The time from rendering to display of each frame must be controlled within 20ms to avoid obvious dizziness, which requires extremely high spatial location sampling rate, computing performance and display panel performance (high refresh rate, low afterglow).

The technical bottleneck of AR is relatively small, because it mainly deals with overlapping objects and spatial modeling, and does not need to render the entire field of vision. This is also the main reason why Oculus Rift and HTC Vive both need powerful hosts and space indicating devices, but Hololens can use the Atom processor to plug in the HPU and work independently for 2-3 hours. The huge gap in implementation difficulty is likely to make AR start large-scale application far earlier than VR, so the author is more optimistic about AR technology.

Principles and special points

HoloLens most excites the industry with the following points:

1. Multi user interaction mentioned above

2. Holographic display has high picture accuracy and minimal vertigo

3. Can work independently, and the endurance reaches the level of 3 hours

4. No need for external cables and auxiliary parts

5. It is equipped with win10, which has low learning cost, and directly uses the UWP (Universal Windows Platform) universal application of win10

display technique : Simple AR just superimposes the screen on the field of view, and the technical core is more in the display and volume. Google Glass uses Himax's Color Sequential LCOS display (model HX7309), with a display area of 4.8 * 2.7mm and a resolution of 640x360. The key is to use the lens to turn the light of OLED light source into parallel light, which is equivalent to that the screen is located at an infinite distance, and the human eye can see the screen normally and relaxed. Otherwise, the naked eye can't see the screen only 1 or 2 cm away, and even if it can see, the visual experience will be very bad (can complement the visual experience of the corns).

SLAM real-time positioning and map building technology In addition to the above display problems, Microsoft Holoens mainly breaks through space modeling. The key is that the SLAM technology based on depth recognition can detect the depth information of the surrounding space in real time and apply it to the projection of virtual images. Although Oculus Rift and HTC Vive both use space modeling and position recognition, they have to be assisted by cameras/infrared lights placed around them, and the activity space is limited.

HoloLens' breakthrough lies in that it can conduct XYZ three-axis modeling of the surrounding space and recognize the user's gesture operation by relying on its own multiple cameras and sensors (of course, this is related to the relatively low response speed and accuracy requirements of AR technology). The modeling operation of the three-dimensional coordinate axis also makes it possible for multiple HoloLens to share virtual objects and interact with each other, that is, user B can see the virtual scene generated by user A. In fact, this is the interactive perspective captured by the live camera at Microsoft's press conference.

Appearance and accessories

Glasses protection bag with hard shell

Replaceable nose rest

Silicone strap

Bluetooth remote control with only one button (it should have a built-in gyroscope, which can recognize the rotation and displacement of the hand)

HoloLens accessories include protective bag, mirror wiping cloth, remote control, 2 detachable nose pads of different lengths, attached silicone strap, mirco USB cable and charger (the machine can directly use ordinary mobile phone charger).

HoloLens 360 degree appearance

HoloLens adopts the inner and outer ring headwear design. Except that the friction between the top and the inner and outer rings is metal, the whole is treated with skin like coating, which is very comfortable to handle. There is also an antenna partition strip similar to a mobile phone on the metal strip on the top. Because the machine is usually placed upside down, this position will often rub against the desktop. In addition, the circuit board is behind it. In addition to improving durability, metal materials can also be used as heat dissipation. The design is very careful.

The power button at the rear of the outer ring is equipped with a 5-point power indicator. The left and right sides of the outer ring are the brightness and volume adjustment buttons. The "Volume/Brightness+" button is convex, while the "Volume/Brightness -" is concave. This meticulous design is also worth learning from domestic peers.

The outer ring has two "joints" that can be stretched according to the size of the user's head.

The inner and outer rings are connected by rotating shafts on both sides, and the maximum rotation angle is about 35 degrees. The shaft also has a slide rail for adjusting the front and rear of the outer ring, and a jack for silica gel binding on the top of the head. The bottom is a bright red speaker, and the opening is inclined inward to reduce "sound leakage".

The inner ring is a part that directly contacts the head. The inner ring is made of sponge flannelette. The feel of pressing is very similar to the memory sponge in the pillow, which is very comfortable. It is very detailed that the metal protection is covered at the place where the inner and outer rings may rub, but in actual use, this metal corner will scratch the skin like coating of the inner ring

The length of the inner ring is adjusted through the knob at the back. After loosening, it is found that Microsoft actually put the electrical information of the product inside the expansion belt, so we have to admire its industrial design.

Behind the huge arc on the front of the machine is an exaggerated number of cameras. Four microphone openings with weak sense of presence can be seen on both sides. HoloLens transparent display is an obvious 4-layer design, surrounded by a complete plastic frame for protection. The color of the display itself can be seen in the light, and the display area is really small.

Summary of appearance and workmanship:

In terms of appearance design, the key words of HoloLens appearance are science fiction and handsome. In addition, it is unique in equipment type. It is an unforgettable electronic product. The inner and outer ring design, simple lines, adjustable straps up and down, front and back, space pillow like headband lining, and red and black color matching will not be outdated even after five or six years.

HoloLens' materials can only be described as "good top likes". Although the assembly accuracy is only above the average level, it has already made people feel that the hardware is worth the ticket price when it is taken. Because there are many soft materials and soft touch, it makes people feel that it is far more humanized and comfortable than Google Glass. However, large-area skin like coatings and soft materials are easy to leave traces of use, and there are also some concerns about the service life. In addition, as a wearable device, the perfect material often means that the weight is out of control

structure

The essence of HoloLens is "space perception system+head mounted translucent display+host", with three components scattered:

1. The space perception and motion capture system is behind the super curved protective glass, which integrates four environment cameras, one depth of field lens, four microphones, and one light sensor. The four squares next to the camera are infrared transmitters.

   
   

   
   

2. Below the perception system is a transparent projection screen. The screen structure is very special. The projection module in the middle is the main reason for so many bulges in the center of HoloLens. On both sides are glass "projection screens" that are respectively responsible for making red, green and blue primary colors appear. In addition to the outermost glass that is responsible for refraction, the whole screen has four layers, about half of the 1.46-inch screen is 3-4mm thick.

3. The "host" part, which integrates CPU+HPU and peripheral chips, is placed on the top, and there is metal wrapping outside it for heat dissipation and protection.

At the back of the fuselage are two symmetrical battery modules, which are used to balance the weight of the front and rear parts.

Actual wear

Wearing effect of glasses and glasses without glasses (thanks Love to play computer games @Cui Ye's passion is on camera)

1. Structure: In order to disperse the huge weight of 579g, Microsoft uses a very rare but effective inner and outer ring design. The inner ring can be tilted at an angle of nearly 35 degrees to "jam" on the head. Considering the head shape and weight distribution of different users, the officer is equipped with two lengths of nose rest and silicone headband that can be added by itself. Because the internal head band is fixed firmly enough, the removal of the nose rest by myopic users will not have any impact.

2. Wearing requirements: The machine can be fixed with only internal headband, and has a high tolerance for myopia. It can also be directly worn with glasses. The author has no pressure on 500 degree myopia+black frame glasses. The only regret of nearsighted users is that they cannot push the glasses to the nearest distance because they are blocked by the glasses, and the FOV size will be affected.

3. Comfort: The inner and outer rings of the machine have a stretchable and bendable structure. The inner ring has a space pillow like suede pad, which has a first-class wrapping and tactile feel. However, for users with flat heads, the pressure on both sides of the temples is high, and they will have to take it off for a rest because of pain after wearing it for 40 minutes.

4. Weight and drag feeling: The weight of 579g is far more than that of Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, but the wearing feeling is far easier than expected, and it is not enough to say that it is a cervical vertebra destroyer. After all, motorcycle helmets and armor helmets are heavier than HoloLens. When turning the head at a fast speed, there will be obvious inertial drag. In addition, the operation direction also needs to rotate by the neck. Some female users may have some pressure on the neck muscles, but normal adult men have little concern.

   
   

Usage and interaction

HoloLens has five physical buttons "power, brightness and volume increase and decrease" on the body, and the physical Bluetooth remote control with only one button is all the physical parts. All other interactions are completed through two gestures and voice (motion recognition should be the accumulation of technology from Kinect, a gesture operation accessory of Microsoft Xbox).

The machine only has two gestures. When the five fingers are gathered and opened, the start menu (actually, the program list) is displayed. When the index finger is raised and pressed down, it is confirmed (officially called Air tap). In order to ensure recognition rate and reduce false triggering, these two gestures are relatively rare, but easy to use. The assessment points of gesture operation include the following:

1. Operation area: The operation area is about 30cm-1 m in front of HoloLens' field of vision. When the hand flexes and stretches normally, the angle of view can be recognized 30 degrees upward and 50 degrees downward. The sensitivity of the area under the glasses is slightly higher than that of the area above (if you lift your hand too high, the lens will "not see" your fingers). In actual use, the hands should always be hanging in the air, and if there is no chair arm support, it will hurt quickly.

2. Focus and selection: This is a bit anti human, and it is also the part with the biggest gap and the most "old age". The focus of HoloLens is the front of the field of vision, and the operation mode is the same as that of the mouse - where the head points, the pointer points, and then uses gestures to confirm. Another "side effect" of the mouse operation logic is that the machine cannot support two handed operation... It is totally different from the expected two handed tracking, and can not grasp the window like science fiction.

3. Sensitivity&anti false touch&light requirements: In the recognition area, as long as the action is completed, the machine can quickly recognize even in the dark. After more than 10 hours of experience in a week, there is no false triggering of action, and the anti false touch effect is very good. After using for a long time, the arm is a little sour, and occasionally it can not be recognized because the hand posture is incorrect or the position is too low.

Input/hover keyboard: Through the floating keyboard like a window, the head controls the focus, so that the front end of the field of vision points to different keys, and then click one by one through the Air tap confirmation gesture. The experience is very fresh, but the efficiency is lower than that of the remote control of smart TV. It is slow and tired, and it is even more incomparable with the keyboard.

Voice and Cortana: The system and many third-party programs support voice commands such as "select, next", but the usability is not high. The first is that the recognition rate in many third-party programs is not high, and the second is that the machine has high requirements for pronunciation, and the author often cannot recognize Chinglish. Cortana is actually the desktop version of Win10, and even the interface is completely consistent.

Bluetooth remote control: HoloLens's remote control has only one "OK" button (there is also a Bluetooth connection button that can only be poked in with a stylus). It has a built-in three-axis sensor, which can replace a single hand to complete clicking and three-dimensional dragging operations. However, the sensitivity of spatial displacement is general, and the dragging experience is not as accurate as using hands. In addition, I don't know whether it is the problem with the machine we got or the original settings. You have to enter the Bluetooth settings page after each boot to activate the remote control again (for power consumption?)

External Bluetooth device: The Bluetooth mouse and keyboard can be directly connected. The keyboard direction keys can be used in some interfaces, greatly improving the typing experience, and the hover keyboard will not pop up when the keyboard enters. But the mouse is a tragedy. Even moving and clicking on it is invalid.

Video and screenshot output: The above is the interaction between people and machines, and the video and screenshots are the interaction between machines and the world. Press the volume up and down button at the same time to take a screenshot. By default, sharing and uploading on Facebook, Twitter and onedrive are provided, which is difficult to export in the domestic environment. HoloLens has its own 2.4 megapixel camera, which can take up to 2.36 megapixel (2048 * 1152) photos and 1.1 megapixel (1408 * 792) @ 30 frames of video. In addition to the visual angle of the human eye, the virtual image output seen by the user will also be superimposed, and the effect is very impressive.

Contrast Diagram of Good Light and Dark Light Imaging

However, the camera resolution and imaging effect of the machine, even if placed in a 2 million pixel camera, are only at the lower middle level. The analytical power is barely enough to see the details of the model within 2 meters. The only thing worth praising is that it can also have good picture brightness under weak light. In addition, perhaps to reduce the hardware pressure, the aliasing of superimposed virtual objects in videos and screenshots is far more serious than that seen by the naked eye, which makes the screenshots and videos lose some of their forced grids.

system

At any time, the floating start menu can be called when the five fingers are scattered, and the app is displayed in 9 squares by default

The system setting interface is very authentic win10, but the content has been greatly reduced (the default window size has not been narrowed down, resulting in very ordinary screenshots)

The same familiar wifi management interface (the window can be zoomed in/out)

Bluetooth connection page

System information screenshot

Space management (58.2G is available for the system, and the video taken by oneself is the most occupying space)

Each ordinary window has a stack of buttons for moving/zooming windows, scrolling/moving content

There will be sharp boundaries when opening any window or moving it

Drag the corner to zoom and move. The window can occupy a whole floor at most (but the length width ratio is not changeable)

All windows have their own thickness and are suspended and fixed in the air

HoloLens runs a customized version of 32-bit win10, version number 10.0.11802.10333, and the boot speed is extremely fast, about 15-20 seconds. It is an independent branch of win10. Its full name is Windows Holography. Windows Universal general applications on win10 can run directly, but similar to the abandoned surface RT in the past, traditional exe programs can be ignored.

What's more impressive is that, like Win10 itself, it is open to third-party devices, and other hardware manufacturers can make HoloLens like compatible products. At the press conference on the evening of October 26, Beijing time, Microsoft also announced that five traditional PC manufacturers, including HP, Dell and Lenovo, would also launch related VR/AR devices, starting at $299 (about 2000 yuan). They probably carry the Windows Holography system on HoloLens.

• Interaction logic: All system functions are included in the start menu, with a program list on the right. After the menu is called out, the floating Windows Phone will automatically run in the middle of the field of vision. The system does not have as many special effects as it did in the press conference, but the menu logic, modeling and setting menus are familiar, and the threshold for getting started is 0.

  HoloLens still takes "window" as the interaction subject, and all non customized holographic 3D applications are displayed in the form of window, and A large number of traditional operation concepts such as "mouse pointer" are used. The regular window has a large row of traditional buttons for resizing, moving, closing, page content zooming and scrolling (these buttons for games and interactive programs are under the icon and can be folded). These are all very Microsoft engineers, making the machine very easy to use, but there is also a feeling of incomplete evolution, and the operating efficiency is really low.

• In HoloLens' view, the "desktop" can be seen and seen, and windows can be placed anywhere. The first operation after the software is opened is the position required to be placed. It can easily achieve unlimited screen output, which is the ultimate multi screen experience. If the mouse can work normally, it is inexplicably high for productivity (however, ordinary mouse can't be operated now).

  The size of spatial data under different wifi varies from 20-300MB according to the space and the number of windows placed
  

• Spatial modeling: Unlike wearables, HoloLens will name a space after modeling it with the currently connected wifi, and retain the complete 3D information of the space and the opened program. The direct effect is that the machine can recognize your office and the previously opened window will be exactly in place! The office, study, bedroom and hall can all be regarded as independent "desktop space", and the data will not interfere with each other. When I first found this feature, I couldn't help sighing that Microsoft's black technology is good.

• Fluency&Stability&Compatibility: The start menu can be called out directly with gestures in any program, which is fast in response and smooth in scrolling pages and browsers. However, the startup speed of large programs and games is obviously slow, which shows the helplessness of the Atom processor.

  Microsoft's incredible 2G memory allocated to the machine is estimated to be the biggest bottleneck of the whole machine. A few more browser pages will be reloaded. HoloLens after the system update in June can only keep three programs running in the foreground, and the previous programs will be attached and shaded like the fake background of iOS. The stability is enough. After more than 10 hours of use, there has been no system crash. Among the 45 programs, 2 third-party programs flash back, which is much better than expected.

Free app list

Applications and resources:

1. The system comes with Windows store application store, edge browser, cortana, photo album, tutorial and glasses correction software;

2. We are familiar with Skype, OneDrive and File Manager;

3. There is still a lack of software resources, just like the embarrassment at the beginning of VR, there are only 45 free apps and native programs in the whole app store, and about 10 paid apps. Many of them, such as HoloStudio and HoloTour, are made by Microsoft itself, and the quality of real third-party programs is mixed.

The purpose of many games is to show the possibility of HoloLens, and its completion is not high. Here are just a few worth playing:

1. RoboRaid It is the most exciting game for the time being. After the machine scans the space, the spider like robot will drill out of the real wall. We use the confirm gesture to fire. The official Click remote control for the game will be faster and more comfortable. The game is not long, but the difficulty is set properly and the playability is high;

2. HoloTour It is a tourist attraction display app, a holographic live picture with real location information. You can walk around and view the information of tourist attractions in this 1:1 environment, but only a few tourist attractions such as Rome;

3. Fragments It is a suspense game, which directly renders holographic characters/mice and other objects in the real space. It is good to follow the clues. The whole game is scary and scary, and AR/MR plays with a sense of substitution;

4. Galaxy  Explorer It is a famous interstellar roaming application, which directly displays the three-dimensional model of the Milky Way/solar system/earth in front of you. In addition to the shocking picture, the interaction only involves zooming and listening to the introduction, which is slightly boring;

5. human skeleton The structural model of the human body is displayed at the height of the field of vision, but it can only follow the instructions all the way down, with almost no interaction. It is more like a video than a game. But the 1:1 three-dimensional holographic model of the human body in front of you can see the specific position and shape of the organs very intuitively, which is a first-class teaching tool;

6. HoloStudio： It is a combined application of model superposition, It is friendly to beginners. A lot of templates are available. You can assemble many things by stretching and magnifying the materials. It is estimated that ordinary users will not open it after tasting it. It is more used for creating applications and materials for developers.
   

Developer mode: As mentioned earlier, it is troublesome to export the videos and pictures in the machine in the domestic network environment, but Microsoft's Windows Device Portal is a very convenient wireless connection method. Turn on the function switch, connect to the same Wi Fi with the computer, and enter the device IP address in the computer browser to manage the machine and media content in the form of web pages. CPU, system, memory, network, software process, frame rate and three-axis space correction are all included.

Display effect

HoloLens's screen is the lens itself. The overall light transmittance is about 60% - 70%. Even without power, you can see the "rainbow scattering" on the lens glass. Turning the head quickly in the dark, it can be seen that the original white dots slightly separate the single primary colors of red, green and blue. The screen color is estimated to be composed of the superposition of these three glasses responsible for the three primary colors:

1. Angle of view (field angle/FOV, field size angle): The perspective of HoloLens is small. Even if it is closest to the eyes, the perspective is only 30 degrees up and down, and 40 degrees around. This 30 degree angle of view is roughly equivalent to a 24-27 inch screen 1 meter away and a 40 inch screen 2 meters away. In contrast, the FOV of human eyes is close to 200 degrees. VR devices generally have more than 100 degrees of vision. The HTC Vive is 110 degrees, and the highest StarVR reaches 210 degrees. The core vision problem doomed HoloLens' video viewing experience to be inferior to that of ordinary VR devices, which is a pity. We can only wait for the improvement of real technology to increase the screen area.

   Although the lens is large, the screen is only half the size of the lens, and there are small missing corners on both sides. There will be obvious "rainbow" dispersion and light leakage effect at the edge of the picture, resulting in a much smaller field of vision than expected. If you are not familiar with the display area at first, you will feel at odds with the world through binoculars. Fortunately, human beings have a strong "brain tonic" ability and can get used to it in about 10 minutes.

   The first time you wear it, you will definitely have a big gap with what you think, but this view is like a door to the endless AR world. The whole AR space can be used to put "monitors", and you can see things in that area from that direction. Even a small perspective cannot offset the shock brought by this huge world.

   
   

2. PPI/Fineness: Its PPI is so high that the pixels of its virtual content can hardly be seen with the naked eye, and its fineness easily kills all VR products in service. The bottleneck of HoloLens is weak performance. The virtual interface rendered by the machine itself is relatively simple and "rough". No matter how high the display accuracy is, the output of the graphics card is too low

   
   

3. Brightness: HoloLens is a superimposed display device whose brightness will affect the transparency of virtual objects. The higher the brightness, the more opaque and realistic the virtual objects will be. The lowest brightness of the machine will appear slightly brighter in the darkroom. At the highest brightness, the virtual object can cover the object under the normal office light (about 120 nits), and placing a virtual window in front of a display will not violate the sense of harmony (of course, the PPI inside is still far away). The brightness span can cope with almost all indoor scenes, but if it is used outdoors, it can only wait at night.

4. Vertigo: The refracted light enters the eyes in the form of parallel light, which makes the eyes mistakenly think that it is light from infinity. It seems that there will be no pain of staring at the screen at close range like cheap VR devices. HoloLens has a refresh rate of 60 frames per second, except that the virtual objects superimposed on the real scene are rendered, and the naked eye can hardly see the flash of the picture, without any sense of vertigo. Compared with dizziness, the comfort of head wear is a bigger problem. Because glasses partially block the vision, it will be slightly unstable when walking.

AR/MR effect

The core of the sense of substitution affecting AR/MR is SLAM real-time positioning and map building technology The latter directly affects the suspension accuracy of virtual objects when the user's perspective changes/moves, and whether there will be problems such as object tracking, instability, and jitter in the middle. The overall sense of substitution is roughly evaluated through the following points:

Multi window display

1. Stacking accuracy and suspension stability: In the field of vision, it is basically "stuck" in the air. No matter how to shake your head or jump when you are about 1-3 meters away, the virtual object is as stable as Mount Tai. Only when the virtual object is placed through the wall or the user runs too close will the object shake. This is the most dark technology point, You should know that HoloLens is modeling with its own camera and is battery powered. This SLAM modeling has to be satisfied;

   
   

   Distant virtual objects will have obvious displacement jitter
   

   Of course, Microsoft's plan is not perfect. Because the detection camera is on the user's head, the farther the virtual object shakes when the user moves, which cannot be felt within 3 meters. However, when aiming at the virtual object 7 or 8 meters away in the game, you can find that the slight shaking of your head is magnified to the extent that it affects the aiming;

2. Delay: With a screen refresh rate of 60 frames per second, whether it is a "start menu" or a "fixed" window that will follow the perspective, there will be no problem of image delay of virtual objects when the head moves, especially the latter, no matter how fast it moves, there will be no window frame drop or delay like the window system itself, which is simply touching;

3. Sound effect: The two loudspeakers are close to the ear and have directional openings. The sound leakage is so small that people think they are bone conduction earphones. When the ear is listening to a very powerful volume, others can only hear a slight sound, which adds a layer of privacy and mystery to the AR/MR world;

   Camera perspective in Microsoft press conference (I didn't find such a handsome hand weapon in actual play)
   

4. Multi computer interaction: Different users can share a coordinate system/modeling data and see the same virtual object, which is useful in education and multiplayer games. You can YY see the scene where everyone uses HoloLens to play the AR version of Pocketmon Go... The camera was already connected with the presenter's HoloLens at the Microsoft press conference.

Endurance and fever

HoloLens is equipped with a 16500mWh giant battery. Almost all other parts of the machine are equipped with batteries. There is a 5-point power indicator behind it. When the power is lower than 20% or 10%, there will be a voice prompt indicating that there is no power. The battery life is about 3.5 hours for medium brightness use. The battery life of small games with medium brightness for 40 minutes is about 15% when the power is off. In extreme cases, reduce the brightness, adjust the machine in the setting menu or browse the text web page, and the battery life can reach more than 6 hours, and the official announcement standby time can reach up to 2 weeks.

You should know that the VR box of the mobile phone uses a large number of sensors, and its endurance is also about 4 hours. The endurance of HoloLens is far stronger than expected, and it is no longer the key factor affecting the use: before being gripped by it, there must be electricity (squint).

Under the 26 degree air conditioning, the machine will feel warm on both sides after 10 minutes of use, and the metal part on the top will be slightly hot. However, for equipment without fan cooling, this is normal performance, which is not good. When charging, the metal part seems to have a little "static leakage", which will make your hands feel numb.

Practical use and problems

Not only the number of windows is amazing, but also when walking in different rooms, all the previously opened windows stop at their original positions

After more than 10 hours of experience with HoloLens in a week“ Black technology scares, Microsoft is good, used to it, and needs improvement ”The mood changes. Although Microsoft came up with the concept of MR (mixed reality), it is still AR (augmented reality) in essence. The positioning effect of virtual objects has reached the level of availability, which is very shocking, but the objects rendered by weak GPU performance really have much room for improvement.

The biggest advantage of HoloLens is that the entire 3D space can be used to create windows, and the world seen through it can be enhanced by virtual windows/objects. The keywords are multi windows and anytime, anywhere. In the video released by Microsoft in 2012, the world is full of touch screens, and HoloLens seems to be a more realistic and feasible solution.

This product once again reminds us that in addition to completely changing the world, we still have a way to change ourselves: to feel immersed, either really make a giant screen, or put the screen directly beside the eyes, this is completely immersed VR; To enhance objects, either add screens to all objects or, like HoloLens, add "digital labels" to objects in our vision, which is AR/MR.

Practical use of HoloLens:

1. We can save TV and computer, and put a play window in the original position of TV;

2. Add 7 or 8 browser/filer windows at a time on the desk;

3. Put the weather app beside the toilet vanity mirror;

4. Window with notes beside desk and refrigerator;

5. Put a menu and video playing window in the kitchen

In industry/gaming:

1. Even if the decoration has not yet started, we can actually browse the effect in the field/in different places. Designers and people who buy and sell real estate will be moved to cry;

2. Designers of products such as automobiles and hardware do not even need 3D printing, and 3D objects come out;

3. In teaching, the three-dimensional holographic information display of galaxy, human body and mechanical structure is more practical and fast than thousands of words;

4. Even the AR effect in all Pocketmon Go and Sword Paradise Theater can be directly realized now

The new technology is amazing at the beginning, but everyone will get used to it soon. Today, when I looked back at Google Glass, it just put the monitor and camera on glasses. If you can handle the endurance, it will be a very suitable device to replace the watch and complete simple information display. The hololens is more like the ultimate multi screen display tool, The position and size of all windows can be adjusted at any time. For the first time, we can open windows anywhere. This is the first time that we have made windows truly three-dimensional.

But there are still many problems to be solved:

1. HoloLens is still too heavy, and it is difficult to wear it for more than one hour continuously, so it is difficult to take it out of the house;

2. The field of vision is far from enough, unable to receive too much content at a glance, which affects the efficiency;

3. The stack of buttons on the current window really seems too "backward" and inefficient;

4. The current somatosensory operation is too inefficient and tiring. The effect of physical exercise is very good, but it is absolutely not suitable for 8 hours a day or 7 days a week.

summary

As an early product, HoloLens is no less significant than the first mobile phone and the early iPhone. HoloLens is cool, but if you ask me If it is worth buying, I will firmly answer - no. This version is a developer version. The original target user is a developer. It is not recommended for ordinary users to cut their fingers for a taste of the new. Microsoft's AR/MR ecosystem has not been established yet. It is full of developer oriented tools, all of which are applications used to show the possibility to the industry. Microsoft has just made 3D drawing software until the Microsoft press conference on October 26.

HoloLens has a high degree of completion, and the experience is even more shocking than HTC Vive. But if it is not used for development, it is still more meaningful for everyone to experience the future in the exhibition hall. For daily users, it is really only suitable for "screen expansion" after tasting, and machine performance and window PPI are far from enough.

A technology or material will soon go through its own rapid development stage, including lithium batteries, computers and mobile phones. Human technology has never changed the development cycle and bottleneck of one thing. We just found "new toys" before the "old toys" came to an end, from stone to bronze, from iron to steel, aluminum and titanium today.

In the field of science and technology in recent years, Google Glass, as the standard bearer, ended up with nothing. It took Oculus and Vive several years to knock on the door of the VR world, while Microsoft HoloLens showed the possibility of AR/MR with a high degree of completion since its birth. After being suppressed by Google and Apple for several years, Microsoft finally took a hard hit. Everyone who knows HoloLens can't help exclaiming that "Microsoft is great!" The machine's completion and application fields are much higher than Google Glass.

I haven't seen such a great progress in products for many years. The joy of technology can make you laugh from the bottom of your heart just by experiencing it. The experience of HoloLens and HTC Vive is very novel and shocking, which is a shock that no amount of words and videos can show. They are two slightly different directions of the future, but it is certain that they are both the future. After Google, Microsoft also gave its answer to the future. What about Apple?

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