Today Microsoft announced that it is partnered with major PC hardware manufacturers to produce 5 new Mixed Reality headsets. Mixed Reality? Mixed Reality is the term used to describe the merging of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) .
Acer, Lenovo, Dell, Samsung and HP showed off their new products to be released on October 17 but you can pre-order them right now. Prices will range from USD $399 to $499 and all include very similar looking hardware including hand held “motion controller” wands to interact with the virtual environment you see in the visor:
All of these visors display 1440 x 1440 except the Samsung which will use and OLED screen with a resolution of 2880 x 1600. These visors will be the latest run at the VR market and will undercut the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift.
Microsoft said they will have a massive 20,000 apps available for these MR headsets in the Microsoft Store on October 17th.
As we described in our simple explanation of AR, VR and MR in June 2016:
Mixed Reality is the new reality, or is it. This ter
m was coined in 1994 by Paul Migram to mean a reality that shows both the real world plus completely synthetic computer generated people or things. Microsoft’s HoloLens is a computer headset that displays generated images on a transparent curved visor that lets you also see the real world around you. A surgeon can look at the visor at 3D MRI images as they cut into a part of a body so the blood and gore is less of an impediment. Personally, I think of Mixed Reality as just an enhancement of Augmented Reality.
Watch this 1 minute intro to Mixed Reality if you are still confused by the term:
https://youtu.be/0AWhsBNU1jU
If the date of October 17th is ringing bells in the back of your head but you just can’t place it, let us help. That is the day “Redstone 2” aka Windows 10 Fall Creators Update will be released and that is not a coincidence. It is believed that Windows 10 Redstone will be required to get these mixed reality headsets to function.
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