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Nerd Fight – Microsoft Hololens vs. Google Glass

4 years 8 months ago

This Article was published on Innovation Excellence

Wow!

I have to start that word because I’m not sure how else to describe what has just emerged from Microsoft Research in the new Microsoft HoloLens as part of the Windows 10 announcement.

And as I say in the title, if you watch the video below you’ll clearly see that Microsoft has just broke Google Glass – both lenses. It’s probably no coincidence that Google closed down Glass as a public project just days before Microsoft’s announcement.

I said from the beginning that Google Glass would never catch on as a consumer product, because they look dumb, cost a lot of money, and don’t really fit into most people’s lives (or add much of anything to them). Recently Google shut down its consumer-facing Google Glass program while they try to fix its shortcomings.

Microsoft’s HoloLens on the other hand, if you’ve ever read Innovation is All About Value (if not, follow the link) then you’ll quickly see after watching the video above that Microsoft’s new potential innovation ticks all three boxes in my innovation success prediction framework:

1- Value Creation - Takes 3D objects from your screen and brings them to your physical environment AND lets you interact with them (my mind races thinking about the possibilities).

2- Value Translation - Watch the video. If you don’t see how this might fit first into many professions out there and enable some amazing rapid prototyping without building anything (watch out 3D printing companies!), and possibly also into your personal life, I’ll be shocked.

3- Value Access - Microsoft is already engaging partners to add more value to what is essentially a platform, not a product.

Microsoft is being intentionally coy about saying when it will be releasing the Microsoft HoloLens, but some people are predicting it will be available in the Windows 10 launch timeframe, which Microsoft is also being vague about saying only “later in the year” – which for my money usually means Q4 (or maybe Q3) depending on how the preview version does in the wild.

So what do you think of Microsoft’s new HoloLens?

I for one will be reaching out to my friends at Microsoft (you know who you are) to get a personal preview for a further write-up in Innovation Excellence (the world’s most popular innovation website), so stay tuned!

This article originally appeared on Innovation Change Strategy

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