The Microsoft Mesh service provides developers with a way to add collaboration features, such as video calling and hologram sharing, to augmented reality applications.
Microsoft
Microsoft on Tuesday announced Mesh, an application building service for people to collaborate in augmented reality.
Augmented Reality (AR) shows computer-generated images superimposed over the real world, and almost all major technology players are working on the technology as they strive to create the next computing platform to replace the smartphone. However, AR headphones today are often cumbersome and expensive – Microsoft’s HoloLens starts at $ 3,500 – and have so far been used primarily in industrial applications. It seems that Apple and Facebook are building their own AR headphones or glasses for launch in the next few years, which could help validate the market for consumers and create a kind of pursuit of AR gold.
With Mesh, Microsoft wants to make sure that people who don’t have AR systems can participate in virtual meetings with those who do. The goal is to allow people to join Mesh-compatible appointments on any device, such as a PC, tablet, or smartphone. It will also work with virtual reality (VR) headphones – a slightly different class of devices that immerse people in a computer-generated world but block the physical environment and are generally cheaper and more common than AR headphones. For example, HP sells a Windows-powered VR device, the Reverb G2, for $ 600.
To illustrate what Mesh can do, Microsoft has built an example application running on HoloLens.
After installing a HoloLens and opening the app, a person can design an avatar to represent themselves and join a meeting with other people, whose avatars appear as holograms. People’s heads, bodies, and hands can all move because of the information the headphones capture, and it’s possible to talk to everyone, similar to a video call. In addition, users can import, display and manipulate ready-made and customized three-dimensional holograms. Three-dimensional drawing tools are also available.
To demonstrate the technology on a larger scale, the company comes with a Mesh-enabled version of AltspaceVR, a VR dating app. Customers can request to download the application. Microsoft acquired AltspaceVR in 2017 for undisclosed terms.
Over time, Microsoft intends to incorporate Mesh into its own applications, such as the Teams collaboration application, which became more widely used during the Covid pandemic as a way for colleagues to meet without being in the office.
Mesh will be an Azure service and an associated software development kit. Selected customers can start testing the Mesh cloud service now in preview before it becomes more widely available. Microsoft has not disclosed how much it will cost to use the service. Azure is a public cloud service for hosting applications.
Microsoft gets less than 5% of its revenue from devices, while one analyst estimates that Azure accounts for 17% of revenue. Azure revenue rose 50% year-over-year in the fourth quarter, while device revenue rose less than 4%.
CLOCK: Here’s how the augmented reality Microsoft headset will make army soldiers more deadly