Microsoft's astonishing, flawed masterpiece of mixed-reality technology, the HoloLens, has finally come to Australia.
The computerised, Windows 10 goggles, which project virtual holograms onto actual reality, are now available for pre-order on Microsoft's Australian web store for $4369 for the "Development Edition" and $7269 for the "Commercial Suite".
Those prices speak volumes: jaw-dropping as HoloLens is, it's not yet a consumer-ready product.
Its first applications will be commercial ones, for engineers and designers and healthcare professionals, who can see real value in adding a layer of graphically rich information on top of the real world and are willing to pay for it.
The elevator company ThyssenKrupp, for instance, reckons it can reduce servicing times by as much as 75 per cent by giving its engineers a HoloLens headset.
The technicians can use the headset to "pre-visualise" the problem before they arrive, and to call up service manuals as they work, as an overlay on their field of vision while their hands are occupied working on an elevator.
NASA, Saab, Airbus, Audi and others all say they plan to use the technology, either for customer and/or staff training, or for engineering and design applications.
"In the training environment, it allows both trainers and trainees to share a visually rich interactive experience where the real world can be overlaid with fully interactive holograms," said Inger Lawes, the head of Saab Australia's Mixed Reality Applications Program, in a statement.
Whether the technology can ever make its way into households (other than during a service call) is another question.
When HoloLens was first announced in the lead up to the launch of Windows 10 last year, Microsoft envisioned people using it to project virtual movies onto blank walls in their house, or to get a heads-up view of incoming calls.
But the technology isn't quite that mature.
Powerful system
The headsets weigh almost 600 grams, compared to around 450 grams for a Samsung virtual-reality headset and phone (or far less for a Google Cardboard VR set-up) and aren't all that easy to put on.
They're not just eyeglasses, like Google's ill-fated Glass project, but a powerful computer system that needs to be mounted around the forehead like a headband.
The bigger problem is the field of mixed-reality vision that they allow. Virtual imagery is only overlaid in a relatively small rectangle directly in front of the wearer.
If they turn their head, the virtual image gets cut off, like something panning off a screen, quickly dispelling the illusion that the virtual object actually exists in the real world.
But what an illusion it is.
We've worn a HoloLens for a couple of hours, in a Microsoft workshop, and its ability to fix virtual objects in real, three-dimensional space, so that you can walk around them, look at them from above and from below, and still think they're actual objects (albeit objects that look like Star Wars holograms) that are part of the real world, is astonishing.
The HoloLens Development Edition comes with the headset, a clicker, a carrying case, a microfibre cleaning cloth, a charger and a micro-USB cable.
The Commercial Suite includes all that, plus enterprise features for added security and device management, and a warranty.
Pre-ordered units will ship in late November, Microsoft said.
