Microsoft made several announcements this past Wednesday, showing that the company is heading in a new direction both with its technology and its software approach. New CEO Satya Nadella is leading the company forward with some pretty bold ideas. Several of these were shown at the press event. Here’s a quick look at what’s in store for the computer giant.
Windows 10
In further wanting to highlight the oddity naming their new Windows product Windows 10, Microsoft is giving the new operating systems away for free for all Windows 8 and 7 users for the first year. This move is surely done under pressure placed on them by Google and Apple giving away their newest OS. Still, this is good news, as developers will have easier access to the software to start producing more content.
Xbox App
Having the ability to use the Xbox controller for PC games is already a thing. And a pretty cool one. Soon, Microsoft will once again attempt cross platform play. And although the idea wasn’t exactly a hit last time, the computing power has changed. Supposedly, every Microsoft exclusive title will be available on PCs through the Windows Xbox app. Further cross pollinating the dashboards, Windows apps will likely appear frequently on the Xbox architecture.
Microsoft HoloLens
The big gun of the event was definitely the HoloLens. Birthed out of Alex Kipman’s original pitch for the Xbox Kinect hardware, the headgear will obviously be compared to Google’s recent internet phenomenon, Google Glass. The technology is more than simply superimposing graphics over the user’s own vision. The hologram technology tricks the eyes into seeing a hologram that physically exists within their line of sight. Using the same idea of how our eyes capture light and turn that into information on the world around us, it will bring along a ton of possibilities. The device houses some serious firepower, analyzing all of the data in interprets in the impressive computing array store in the device. It can sense the user’s hand motions when arms are nearly fully outstretched. With the device now announced, developers will have already had their hands on the product for a while now to start their work. No release date has been given, but our eyes are peeled to see what’s in store.
Generally Trivial 