HoloLens: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Feb 12, 2015

Sogeti Labs

Last month, Microsoft surprised us with the introduction of HoloLens, a ‘holographic’, augmented-reality headset. HoloLens is an extremely impressive piece of technology, but I was even more struck by the vision behind it (see the video). HoloLens, unlike Google Glass or a smart watch, is feeding you information that’s also available on your smart phone. It blends your physical surrounding with a digital world, changing the way you see the world, as Microsoft puts it.

The Good

I see enormous potential in HoloLens. Learning, design, exploration, communication, gaming, and entertainment can all benefit from this technology. As my 10-year old daughter put it: cool!

The Bad

My 11-year old, Minecraft-addicted son is less impressed. I expected him to dig the immersive Minecraft experience HoloLens can bring. Instead, he argued that you’d be walking through the Minecraft environment like a giant, totally ruining the experience. I reasoned with him that it would be a nice learning tool that could show you how to do something in 3D, so you’d only have to mimic it. He told me that you learn stuff better if you found out yourself how it worked, and he’s absolutely right. In other words: don’t change something that’s already great.

The Ugly

My wife thinks HoloLens is scary. The next step in disconnecting ourselves from the people around us. If a smart phone can already disrupt our attention from people in front of us (see our VINT Report “The Dark Side of Social Media”), what will happen with an immersive experience like HoloLens?

About the author

Sogeti Labs

SogetiLabs gathers distinguished technology leaders from around the Sogeti world. It is an initiative explaining not how IT works, but what IT means for business.

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