When Microsoft announced the HoloLens earlier this year, it was clear that unlike companies such as Facebook, HTC, Samsung, or Sony, Microsoft seemed to believe that augmented reality was the future. Or at the very least they were more interested in that aspect of technology than virtual reality.
However the question we’re sure many are wondering is when will we be able to get our hands on the HoloLens? Unfortunately not anytime soon. Speaking at Saleforce’s customer conference Dreamforce, Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella hinted that the HoloLens might be five years away from being an actual purchasable product.
According to Nadella, he claimed that the HoloLens is a “five-year journey” as he admitted that more work needs to be done on it. However the semi-good news is that developers can look forward to getting their hands on it in 2016, which is a promise that Nadella has confirmed. Hopefully it won’t go the way of Google Glass in which it largely remained a developer’s kit until it was shelved and rebooted.
In the meantime while Microsoft is busy trying to figure out augmented reality, virtual reality offerings from the likes of Sony, Facebook, and HTC are all pegged for a potential mass rollout in 2016. We can only hope by the time Microsoft gets to the party it won’t be too late.
Filed in . Read more about Augmented Reality (AR), Hololens, Microsoft and Wearable Tech.