Posted on 08/18/2016 6:14:21 AM PDT by dayglored
We're a long way from the Start Menu now
First, it scrapped the classic Start Menu and gave us Tiles.
Now Microsoft has confirmed it really is working on yet another radical user interface update – one that will allow you to use your desktop Windows 10 PC with virtual reality headsets.
The feature, due to arrive next year, is dubbed the Windows Holographic Shell. It is designed to work on any normal PC, not just high-end graphics rigs; the emphasis is on the fact that anyone with a half decent machine can use the new UI.
The Holographic Shell will run and present universal and so-called mixed reality apps in a multitasking 3D space in a connected VR headset. It doesn't matter if applications have classic 2D interfaces or new 3D controls: they'll be thrown together into a realtime-rendered make-believe world around the user like some kind of 1997 Silicon Graphics Inc tech demo.
When you wear your "six degrees of freedom" headset, you can manipulate the 3D desktop using a Wii-like remote control, basically pointing at dialog boxes and icons hovering in the air and clicking on them rather than moving a mouse pointer on a 2D screen.
Here's what Microsoft reckons Windows Holographic will look like on a modest Intel NUC box, running at 90 frames per second:
[VIDEO EMBEDDED AT SITE}
For reference, NUCs sport Intel's 5th or 6th generation Core processors and its Iris graphics chipset.
Confirmation of the Holographic Shell emerged at this year's Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco today. It comes after Microsoft started slinging its HoloLens gear at more and more people this month, and mentioned virtual reality coming to mainstream Windows 10 editions in June.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is working on formalizing a specification with Intel for interfacing PCs with head-mounted displays, allowing hardware makers to build headsets and computers that are compatible with Intel's chipsets and Microsoft's software. The spec is due to be published by the end of the year.
"Our shared goal is to enable our hardware partners to build a broad range of devices for the mainstream consumer and business markets," said Windows exec veep Terry Myerson on Tuesday.
"We are working with several partners on the spec today, and plan to publicly release v1 of the spec at the Windows Hardware Engineering Community (WinHEC) conference in Shenzhen in December."
Microsoft's move into virtual reality desktops is a bold one; the software giant was caught out by the sudden rise of touchscreen tablets and smartphones, and doesn't want to be late to this party. For one thing, Redmond is using its massive install base of Windows desktop devices to push mixed reality workspaces to people at work and at home.
"I believe Microsoft has taken the industry lead in augmented reality and mixed reality with its own head-mounted display HoloLens, mixed reality operating system and partner ecosystem," tech industry analyst Patrick Moorhead told The Register during IDF.
"This was a refreshing change for Microsoft who entered the smartphone space late. Microsoft and Intel working together on mixed reality is a very positive sign and historically, more has been accomplished with the two working together than against each other.
"Intel and Microsoft were not aligned in smartphones or tablets and the result was negative for both. The result of this alignment will mean that there will be literally hundreds of millions of mixed reality end points with users’ interaction over augmented and virtual reality, mobile and stationary."
Windows 8 touch screen in 3D
I can just hear that sexy Cortana voice now: "Drill, you want those sports scores? Drop and give me ten, and do thirty laps around the room. You want FR, you gotta strangle three virtual commies first. And don't even ask me what you're going to have to do to surf those pr0n websites..."
Tom Cruise does not use the Micro-soft version, he prefers instead, the one supplied by the Xenu.
It will be so easy to spot the porn addicts...one arm much larger than the other.
“It will be so easy to spot the porn addicts...one arm much larger than the other.”
You made me think of Popeye!
Oh brother. A “solution” in search of a problem.
Thanks for the ping.
Win 10... yawn... not in my house.
“Touch UI failed on W8, Voice UI failed on W10, so hey, if you’re Microsoft, why not go for the ultimate failed UI: the 3D holographic UI! “
Well they haven’t.
That’s like saying “Point and click UIs have failed” back in 1987, which I’m sure someone likely did.
These things evolve and become more part of OSs and other tech as time goes on.
Jesus, it’s like some people actually desire for progress to never occur with technology unless it comes from Apple or Android, where they will gladly use the exact same setup as long as you slapped a different corporate logo on it.
Jesus, it’s like some people actually desire for progress to never occur with technology unless it comes from Apple or Android, where they will gladly use the exact same setup as long as you slapped a different corporate logo on it.
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I can’t wait for Apple or Google to propose a comparable UI, so I can point and laugh at them too.
Microsoft’s been rubbing that boo-boo it received from missing the smartphone train, and it needs to man up.
Now that Apple is no longer innovating at the pace it did 10 years ago, Microsoft really has a chance to grab the wheel. They need some better leaders and more useful talent to get ahead - whether they hire them or buy them.
Dear Megan,
re: “Why would you need to wear glasses with these? They ARE glasses!”
No, it is a SCREEN, inside a hood hanging over your face, blocking your seeing anything else.
No matter how good a SCREEN is, the human eye in it’s frailties, would still see a SCREEN, in as much focus as the lens of the eye can make it out.
So, if you are near-sighted, the SCREEN may still not in as crisp focus, as someone with 20/20 vision. The same thing with far-sightedness.
And with your given sight, you missed the other note i made. What was that? How can you have a rectangular shadow 90 degrees off from the table in front of the non-shadow-creating human, and the dog has a shadow directly under it.
There is one thing in all this computer greatness ....
Storms travel across the nation, dispensing little or lots of rain, wind, and electrical discharges. Sometimes, those electrical discharges connect with a power line, a transformer, or some such, and KAPOW! out go the lights.
I still keep all my stuff on paper, so i can look and work with it by flashlight or candle, and yes, i live in Louisiana.
Dear rarestia,
I’m glad that this new-fangled computer stuff can be used by you. Mazel Tov!
As for me, I look at kids that cannot write or read handwriting, created with a pen and a human hand. I look at kids that cannot form a complete sentence without insane colloquillisms, nor speak a complete sentence in a single train of thought, without an urban dictionary. I see people do insane gyrations while employing a hand-held device looking for what would have been in the 1960’s a psychedelic experience, or a bad trip.
I can gladly say that, like Tommy Lee jones in ‘Men in Black II’, “What is a game boy?”
If you can’t see a screen that’s about an inch from your eyes then glasses aren’t going to be much use to you either.
Dear megan,
if i must affix a screen in front of my face by some kind of headwear in order to do anything electronic, i will do without, thank you.
Me, too. But I’m just saying that if you need glasses to see a screen that’s just one inch from your eyes then using such a screen should be among the least of your worries.
I miss MS-DOS
Are you adversely impacted by this technology, Terry? User interface studies are taking place across every field of study and impacting everyone in one way or another. You might not yet have a use for this new-fangled gadgetry, but some day you might. There might come a day where augmented reality glasses could help you to decipher the handwriting of today’s kids, or translate the sentences into a meaning that is clearer for you. You just never know.
Years ago, I would’ve told everyone that I could live without a phone. Now I know that I couldn’t. I’d survive, sure, but technology is meant to enhance life, not replace it. You’ll find something beneficial to you soon enough.
Heck, I once had smiley Bob! Yuk!
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