Announcing Windows Holographic and Microsoft HoloLens

Today at the Windows 10 Preview event, Microsoft officially announced their stake in the VR/AR game with Windows Holographic and Microsoft HoloLens – we are officially living in the future.

Source: Microsoft

Today’s Windows 10 event generated a lot of buzz for the HoloLens and Windows Holographic, with a live demo of an app called HoloStudio showing a drone being decorated to showcase how you can use the HoloLens to build things on the PC and see how they look in 3D. While we’re still waiting on most of the details, tech specs, and availability, word on the street is that they’ll likely be opening up a developer program sometime early this year.

What we do know already is that Minecraft is going to be a key app for demonstrating the headset’s capability, and that there will be a lot of potential for Microsoft’s “Universal” apps to run seamlessly with the HoloLens.

Source: Business Insider

Another important demonstration from the Windows 10 event also adds to the hype and excitement about Windows Holographic and HoloLens: Cortana, Microsoft’s personal assistant AI, is coming to Windows 10, which leads me to believe that the voice control on HoloLens will be pretty fantastic. I’ve used all 3 personal assistants and Cortana takes the cake over Siri and Google Now, and the limited nature of current VR/AR input devices means that a solid voice navigation system could very well be in the works.

Wired got a first look and hands-on with the HoloLens, and you can follow the new product’s official Twitter account @hololens. Stay tuned as more information comes in, and I’ll be doing my best to see about getting a demo myself!

Remote Desktop Preview for WP 8.1 is now available!

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/rds/archive/2014/04/23/microsoft-remote-desktop-preview-app-for-windows-phone-8-1-available-for-download.aspx

Today is an exciting day for the Remote Desktop team as we launch the preview of the official Microsoft Remote Desktop app for Windows Phone 8.1! I’m happy to be part of such a great group of people who are passionate about our products. Looking forward to what we do with it next!

Universal Apps for Windows Devices

Universal Apps for Windows Devices

I am really excited about this announcement from BUILD. One app that can be used on multiple platforms is awesome for developers and for consumers, since it helps with a consistent experience across the board. I think we’re finally getting closer to the converging of mobile and desktop, and moving away from different devices that essentially do the same thing.

Let’s Discuss: Swapping Operating Systems

My first computer ran DOS. I was 2 years old when I installed my first computer game (I couldn’t say the word “setup”, but I could apparently spell it right) and I’ve been running on Windows ever since. 3.1, 98, ME, XP, Vista, you name it – my personal primary computer is running the release preview of 8.1 now, and I love it to death. You could call me a Windows “power user”, though I’m sure my Linux-touting friends would scoff at me. Your definition of the word power user may vary.

I’ve used Ubuntu and Mint. I loved the Macintosh G3 computers in elementary school and begged my dad for a pink one (I’m still holding out hope I can track down a case and do something cool with it) but at home, I spent hours living in Bill Gate’s operating system and developed a passion for computing that led to my job with Microsoft today. And while I love booting up my desktop to play around in the Mint terminal (I greatly prefer it to Windows 8 for Python programming), the one operating system I haven’t had the chance to learn is OSX – until now.