What do you want to know
- Microsoft recently shared several success stories around its HoloLens 2 headset.
- The company has combined Dynamic 365 Guides and Dynamic 365 Remote Assist into a single experience.
- Microsoft Teams now also fully integrates with HoloLens 2, providing an optimized experience for the virtual canvas provided by the augmented reality headset.
- Microsoft also discussed the future of the HoloLens platform, including hints of a HoloLens 3.
Microsoft shared a pair (opens in a new tab) blog posts (opens in a new tab) summarizing the progress and success of its HoloLens 2. The tech giant has brought together several of its popular services and capabilities to improve collaboration within augmented reality. Full Microsoft Teams integration with HoloLens 2 is heading a wave of collaboration-focused updates.
Microsoft also highlighted several partnerships, including its work with Toyota.
The company also discussed, or at least hinted at, the next version of HoloLens. The status of HoloLens 3, or whatever Microsoft chooses to name its next AR headset, has reportedly been up in the air. Microsoft said publicly today that the upcoming device should mark a “significant” jump in hardware and capabilities.
Microsoft Teams on HoloLens 2
Microsoft has had collaboration tools since the launch of HoloLens, but now brings them together. Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Remote Assist guides are now available through a unified experience. The combined tools allow people to switch between different types of collaboration, such as Microsoft Teams meetings, and guide people through a process with first-person shooting and augmented reality guidance.
“Someone can grab a HoloLens, start a Guides session, and literally have a trainer in their head,” said Scott Evans, vice president of Microsoft Mixed Reality. “If they need help, they can call an expert right from the app.”
HoloLens 2 users can now see what’s shared in a Teams meeting, such as a whiteboard or browser tab. Shared content can be resized and organized as a hologram within the HoloLens 2 field of view.
It’s now possible to check calendars and agendas while also using HoloLens 2. The view connects to options for calling other people, joining meetings, and communicating with people in other ways through Teams. Text chat is also supported on HoloLens 2.
Connect 2D and 3D
The Teams desktop mixed reality toolbar allows participants to mark the real world displayed by a HoloLens 2 headset. A person on a desk can draw on their own screen and have those marks attached in a virtual space in plain sight. a HoloLens 2 user.
New features in HoloLens 2 deliver a robust Teams experience optimized for augmented reality. Rather than dealing with a single virtual window for Teams, different features can be split into resizable holograms. As shown by Microsoft, one person has one window displaying a shared PDF document and another with a video call and a chat thread.
Industry Success
The story of hammering a door guard onto a vehicle was used to illustrate the usefulness of HoloLens 2. At a Toyota logistics center in New Jersey, a worker struggled to hammer the panel with the proper force. Using too much or too little power could be detrimental to the task. A colleague in California could direct the worker through HoloLens 2, advising them to listen for a specific sound, then relaying it.
Rather than just being used to help with a specific case, this encounter has been recorded via HoloLens 2 and added as a Microsoft Dynamics 365 guide to help future workers.
“The killer metric for Toyota is speed,” Kleiner said. “The faster we can train people and solve problems, the faster we can get a product to market. That’s why we want to overcome location, we want to overcome time, and we want people to move faster and share their knowledge. HoloLens allowed us to do all of that,” said David Kleiner, manager of Toyota Motor North America’s Applied Technology Research Lab.
He added: “These employees don’t have an office; giving them a laptop just won’t work,” Toyota’s Kleiner said. “We want HoloLens to be our screens for our frontline workers. When they wear a HoloLens, they have a screen that gives them all the digital tools they need.”
The future of HoloLens
The future of HoloLens has been unknown for some time. The HoloLens team was reportedly trapped in a state of confusion and uncertainty, and former HoloLens lead Alex Kipman left Microsoft. Now, Microsoft Mixed Reality VP Scott Evans has commented on the upcoming HoloLens release.
Our editor Zac Bowden took a closer look, but the main takeaway is that Microsoft wants the next version of the AR headset to be a “meaningful update”.