The HTC-Vive and Microsoft Hololens have been purchased using the grant funds, both came rapidly.  The HTC-Vive a little delayed by the Christmas rush – it is now a top end present for early adopting teenagers in the games market.  Get yours at Harvey Norman’s now!

The Hololens came in a very swish box, reminiscent of Apple products – so cool I was almost tempted to make an “unpacking the hololens” video – almost!

It was remarkably easy to set up.  As it is effectively a complete portable computer in a headset, it comes already to go and runs a version of Windows 10.  It is charged by usb and lasts a few hours on each charge, it can be run plugged in if required.  It is quite heavy and tiring after a while.  It contains two high resolutipn screens that overlay a projection on your field of view so it is in effect an augmented reality device although, if you turn the brightness up enough and run it in a darkened room it can seem as immersive as a device such as the Oculus Rift as the background room disappears behind 360 video.

There is not a lot of software available for the Hololens yet.  Most of it is “demoware” rather than useful products.  It took about a day to run through all the software available.  There are immersive 360 tours of Rome or Machu Pichu – very impressive but can be seen on Google Cardboard or its equivalent for $40 rather than the $4000 of the Hololens (a bit less resolution maybe…)

Microsoft Hololens

The Hololens maps its environment using cameras on the glasses. It knows where you are in a room, where the walls and furniture are.  It can even recognize when you return to a room you were in earlier.  This enables you to place multiple “virtual screens” where ever you want in a room.  So you can have Netflix running “on” one wall, a browser open above the television, a 3D object sitting on the rug.  All very impressive but how useful is it?

The problem is the difficulty of interacting or actually doing anything WITH these screens.  You cannot cut and paste, while you can call up a keyboard, typing is laborious by looking at one letter at a time (good for Stephen Hawking maybe).  You can watch a movie without disturbing someone sat next to you on Netflix but it is a very expensive tool to do so!

The one app I have found useful is the measuring tool.  With this you can look at a wall, place a marker then look elsewhere in the room, place a marker and it will accurately give you the distance between the points.  A very fast and accurate way of measuring room sizes, furniture and rugs to see if they will fit.  Voila a $4000 tape measure!

Microsoft has tied up with Case Western Reserve Universities School of Anatomy to make virtual bodies, it is not available to the public yet, next on my list is to contact them to see if we can get a copy.  I was lucky enough to meet Richard Drake, author of the classic “Gray’s Anatomy for Students”  (text book not the TV program named after it…)  who is a renowned Professor of Anatomy at Case Western.  He is a renowned teacher and innovator but he was skeptical.   They are planning to replace all real bodies with this system in the near future, he fears for the medico’s anatomical knowledge as the system, while gimmicky contains only high school level details.  Of course management loves the idea as it looks good on a web site (Microsoft uses it in all its publicity for the Hololens) and it is cheaper than real bodies (though at $4000 a headset – not by much?)

What you are trying to do is get nearer and nearer to the real thing, however how much better to see a real skeleton?  a real diaphragm or heart?