Physical and virtual worlds intersect with Windows Holographic, now opening to partners for a new era of mixed reality

| Steve Clarke

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On Wednesday at Computex in Taipei, Terry Myerson, executive vice president, Windows and Devices Group, joined colleagues Nick Parker and Alex Kipman on stage to celebrate incredible devices from across the Windows ecosystem and to share how the upcoming Windows 10 Anniversary Update will bring new innovation, creating opportunities for modern computing devices.

But the big news in the presentation, Myerson said in a blog post, was a look forward to the future of computing, where the physical and virtual worlds intersect in all new ways, and create further scale for the Windows platform.

“Today we focused on the next frontier – mixed reality. Providing devices with the ability to perceive the world, breaking down the barriers between virtual and physical reality is what we call mixed reality,” Myerson said. “Imagine wearing a VR device and seeing your physical hands as you manipulate an object, working on the scanned 3D image of a real object, or bringing in a holographic representation of another person into your virtual world so you can collaborate. In this world, devices can spatially map your environment wherever you are; manipulating digital content is as easy and natural as picking up a box or sitting at a table; and you can easily teleport into your next meeting or travel together as a team.”

The market for virtual reality devices is expected to be 80 million devices per year by 2020, he noted. However, many of today’s devices and experiences do not work with each other, provide different user interfaces, interaction models, input methods, peripherals and content. And most virtual reality experiences can’t mix real people, objects and environments into the virtual world, making creation and collaboration difficult. This is because they lack the human, environmental and object understanding that is already built into Windows 10, he said.

“Today, we announced that Windows Holographic is coming to devices of all shapes and sizes from fully immersive virtual reality to fully untethered holographic computing,” Myerson said. “Today we invited our OEM, ODM, and hardware partners to build PCs, displays, accessories and mixed reality devices with the Windows Holographic platform.”

For more on the news, head over to Myerson’s post on the Windows Experience Blog.

Steve Clarke
Microsoft News Center Staff

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