The battle of wearable devices and augmented reality continues. Yesterday Microsoft unveiled it’s “holographic” glassed: Hololens. Beside the name that brings quickly the mind to many science fiction movies, Hololens seems to be more an augmented reality device than a real “holographic” one. Probably the Holographic part is in the 3D appearance of the information that is superimposed to the real scene, which is much different from the flat 2D approach of other devices (Google glasses first). I do not believe it’s very important to discuss if it’s holography or not. The important thing is that a new innovative device will be on the market. I think it’s early to say if it will be just a concept or the beginning of a new habit. So many new wearable devices promise to change our life, but only a little number of them will really achieve the goal. I don’t think that all of us will walk around with these nice googles interacting continuously with a virtual world to perform our daily tasks or communicate each other. But for sure there are a number of applications where it could be helpful.

http://youtu.be/aThCr0PsyuA

In the Microsoft concept movie there’s a nice example of interaction and communication during a maintenance task. It’s based on a home environment, but it could be even more interesting and powerful in manufacturing one. I believe that wearable devices in the operations will have a big space in the near future and that we cannot imagine today all the applications there will be. I think that this kind of device could really bring a lot of opportunities and change the way some activities will be performed. just need to be patient for a while…