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Microsoft’s HoloLens started shipping one year ago today, and the tech giant is touting the progress it’s made over the last 12 months.
The company said Thursday that software developers have created 150 apps exclusively for the HoloLens, its headset that overlays digital images over what a wearer already sees. The genre is known as “mixed reality.”
Alex Kipman, a technical fellow at Microsoft, highlighted a few of the apps in a blog post. Two of them are HoloHear, a speech-to-sign-language interpreter for deaf people, and HoloGuide, which helps people navigate a “low-visibility” area, like a smoke-filled room.
Tech giants throughout Silicon Valley have become obsessed with mixed and virtual reality. Google has its Daydream platform, as well as its cheap Google Cardboard headsets. Facebook has Oculus, the VR company it bought in 2014.
Microsoft also hired Elizabeth Hamren, former chief marketing officer at Facebook’s Oculus, to head up marketing for a new team specifically geared toward pushing the HoloLens and mixed reality, according to a report by ZDNet, a CNET sister site.
