Hololens in the real world

I have been geeking out about the Hololens for a couple of weeks now. However, just like any revolutionary technology – the key is how it would fit in the real world. James Ashley, a Kinect MVP has a great post with 21 ideas around Hololens

Here are my favorites from his list.

Education

While cool visuals will make education more interesting, the biggest benefit of HoloLens for education is simple access. Children in rural areas in the US have to travel long distances to achieve a decent education. Around the world, the problem of rural education is even worse. What if educators could be brought to the children instead? This is one of the stated goals of Facebook’s purchase of Oculus Rift and HoloLens can do the same job just as well and probably better.

Shopping

Amazon made one click shopping make sense. Shopping and the psychology of shopping changes when we make it more convenient, effectively turning instant gratification into a marketing strategy. Using HoloLens AR, we can remodel a room with virtual furniture and then purchase all the pieces on an interactive menu floating in the air in front of us when we find the configuration we want. We can try and buy virtual clothes. With a wave of the hand we can stock our pantry, stock our refrigerator … wait, come to think of it, with decent AR, do we even need furniture or clothes anymore?

Medical Care

Technology can be used for interesting diagnostic and rehabilitation functions. The depth sensors that come with HoloLens will no doubt be used in these ways eventually. But like education, one of the great problems in medical care right now is access. If we can’t bring the patient to the doctor, let’s bring the GP to the patient and do regular check ups.