Hololens’ leader warns, “Don’t trust everything you read online.”
According to Microsoft’s Alex Kipman, the Hololens 3 augmented reality device is still a thing.
Engineer Kipman, a Microsoft colleague, has been Hololens’ public face since its first unveiling in 2015. It was claimed last week by Business Insider that Microsoft’s Hololens 3 project had been killed, and on Thursday (February 3) someone shared the information with Kipman on Twitter along with a request not to terminate it.
In his response, the Hololens leader offered words of comfort, but he didn’t deny the death rumours about the Hololens 3. But instead of saying “don’t trust what you read on the internet. #HoloLens is performing fine,” Kipman informed readers: “don’t believe what you read about the Hololens 2.
Kipman commented, “If you search said internet, they also said that we had cancelled #HoloLens 2.” The last time I checked, we had a successful shipment.
In the last several months, Microsoft’s HoloLens, an AR headgear designed for the workplace, has been in an ups and downs.
Some 20 current and ex-Microsoft workers were interviewed by Insider, some of whom stated that Microsoft has stopped working on HoloLens 3. More than 70 Microsoft mixed-reality workers have recently departed the company for Meta or Apple, according to a Wall Street Journal storey.
Microsoft’s $21.88 billion 10-year deal with the US military to provide HoloLens headsets in the battlefield makes this all the more weird. This programme is not yet combat-ready, according to a confidential Pentagon paper.
In a follow-up article, a reliable anonymous source with knowledge of the Hololens 3 roadmap disputes Kipman’s assertions, which was first published by the Business Insider team “To say that this is a total hoax would be an understatement. Microsoft may repurpose the HoloLens 2 for a new product release “Calypso, the rumoured codename for a Hololens 3 AR headset meant to function independently as a wearable computer, will not be that product.
However, according to BI, Microsoft is still working on at least two more Hololens-related projects: a military-ready Hololens and a headgear powered by a (Samsung) phone in your pocket that works as a headset with displays that link with each other.
When it comes to the “wearable displays with a phone in your pocket” approach, we’re reminded of the long-rumored Apple Glasses, according to BI.
He could be correct, though, if one of those other initiatives becomes a Hololens 3 product. That Microsoft shipped the Hololens 2 in 2019, albeit as a $3,500 headgear targeted at businesses and industries, is unquestionably true.
In making a public show of support for the Hololens 3, Microsoft (or at least Kipman) indicates the corporation is committed to the AR headset and wants to keep people engaged. According to these sources, development on the Hololens 3 was put on hold last year owing to internal strife, which makes the idea of a launch more feasible.
Two groups were reportedly fighting over the future of Hololens, Business Insider said. One person wanted the Hololens to be utilised mainly for military and business purposes, while the other thought it should be geared toward entertainment and personal usage. According to BI, Microsoft employees were displeased with reports that the company had abandoned plans for a physical headgear in favour of working with Samsung to create the Hololens hardware.
Over 70 employees have left the Microsoft Hololens team in the last year, and around 40 of them are thought to have joined Meta, the firm previously known as Facebook, the Wall Street Journal reports.
As interest in an AR/VR “metaverse” grows (at least among VCs and other investors), we should expect to hear more about Microsoft, Apple, and other tech giants’ AR/VR plans later this year. Even though it might be delayed until 2023, Apple’s AR/VR headset is expected to come as early as this year or as late as the end of this year.
Sad to say
Nothing could be better.
The headgear “remains a vital element of our strategy for new categories like mixed reality and the metaverse,” Microsoft’s Frank Shaw said at the time of Insider’s revelation. According to him, the corporation is “dedicated to HoloLens and the future development of HoloLens.”
Despite the lack of information, the state suggests that things may not be as they seem at Microsoft’s Redmond HoloLens headquarters.
Although the rumours indicate that HoloLens is “working wonderfully,” a tweet from Microsoft technical fellow Alex Kipman has been posted following the stories.
It’s interesting to see that Insider has now reaffirmed their position. An insider claims that Kipman’s portrayal is “total rubbish,” according to this source. “All of the employees who were working on it have been reassigned to other initiatives or have left the firm,” according to the person familiar with the project’s status as “Calypso,” the codename for HoloLens 3.
Microsoft may be working on a new version, but it won’t be called Calypso, according to the source.
As this is all occurring internally inside Microsoft, it’s difficult to get a handle on the facts. To be fair to HoloLens, the overwhelming evidence implies that the company is struggling, particularly if the Pentagon is to blame for the delays.
Only time will tell, and we’ll have to wait and watch what Microsoft decides to do in the meanwhile. If Microsoft doesn’t move swiftly, Meta and Apple are already hard at work on the next generation of augmented reality.