Be it Princess Leia’s opening plea to kick-start the Star Wars saga, or the sarcastic snipes of Red Dwarf’s affable Arnold Judas Rimmer, the use of holograms has long since been associated with the dazzling world of science fiction – until now.
At the backend of October, Microsoft (who else) announced the launch of their first Mixed Reality Capture Studios in London and San Francisco, giving developers the chance to enter the realm of virtual reality and create holograms from real life objects.
At the studios, developers will be able to record human movement and create their own holograms that can be used on 2D screens or on Microsoft’s growing number of Mixed Reality devices such as the Hololens or the Windows Mixed Reality headsets that were launched at the Microsoft Ignite 2017 conference earlier this year.
“We are at the threshold of the next revolution in computing. Microsoft is passionately committed to mixed reality. The possibilities are limitless, and the future will unfold with the energy, ingenuity, and passion of the community. Together, we are on a once in a lifetime journey.” – Microsoft Blog Announcement
Over the last seven years, Microsoft has been capturing thousands of performances from a wide variety of musicians, athletes, educators & dancers in a bid to drive mixed reality forward and redefine the way we learn, communicate and entertain ourselves – and now they’ve opened their doors to third party creators to see what incredible new innovations they can come up with, too.
Alongside education and entertainment, as we can see from the doctor/patient clip in the video above, the studios have the potential to drastically change the way we communicate on a number of different levels and are a clear indication of the direction Microsoft is heading towards in the future.
At the Microsoft Ignite conference, we saw how MR headsets were used alongside Microsoft Teams to improve collaboration in business, and it’s looking like the studios will continue that innovation and enable the company to expand on what is already a mind-blowingly huge step forward in the world of communication.
However, as well as improving their own services and extending their portfolio of next-generation MR products, the opening of their Mixed Reality Studios and their Mixed Reality Academy demonstrates how Microsoft welcomes outside innovation and encourages people to develop ideas of their own rather than keeping the monopoly for themselves.
With this in mind, we can undoubtedly expect great things to come in the future and we’re thoroughly excited to see what happens next!
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