content: An average consumer experience/ review of Microsoft Hololens The following is based on an development build of the Hololens, it is not a final product and some of these issues/ features may be refined in the future. This review is purely based on the device that we tested. Intro This weekend me and two friends won the opportunity to experience first hand the Minecraft demo on the Microsoft Hololens, while I wasn't allowed to take any pictures inside the demo room, for obvious reasons, I thought I would share my unique insight & opinion. Proof of attendance The Experience The first part was the calibration stage, I was taken into the “Orientation Room” where I was shown a short info reel on the basics of how to size up the device to fit correctly on my head and also some of the basic gestures which you can utilise. The calibration required us to put a device which if I recall correctly is called a  Pupilometer on our head, used by many opticians, to measure your [Pupillary Distance] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pupillary_distance). This is a negative as it seems as it stands you’ll need to own a Pupilometer in order to calibrate the device; we asked if this would be resolved in the final product and they said they’re working on something. As an early development build, I suspect this will be later corrected to be able to work for any Pupillary Distance, or contain a measuring device to find your own measurements to self-calibrate the Hololens. Once this was completed I was then taken to another room where there was the same table that was used in the E3 demo a few weeks ago, there was a few guys in there who were all very informative and proceeded to help me adjust the device on my head so you could see the test image (a minecraft logo). Everywhere I looked, this image was in the center of the Hololens. Once the image was aligned so it was clearly visible, I was instructed to gaze around the room so that the device can learn the surroundings. In our case, once we looked at the walls, the walls started to be full with Minecraft blocks, when you looked at a table, the table had Minecraft blocks falling onto it.  Commands can be spoken without using any prefix like “OK Google”, the device is always listening for commands. While looking at the wall, I spoke the command “Place Screen” which would create a workspace that was used to show a fixed 2D example of Minecraft - like a big TV was pinned onto a wall showing the game. Minecraft can be played normally using an Xbox controller. From here, commands could be spoken to manipulate the viewing mode to stereoscopic 3D by saying “3D”. However the most exciting mode of all is the holographic “Reality Mode” which takes 3D viewing to a whole new level. The command “Reality Mode” provided a whole level of reality with a perspective viewing angle. This mode almost felt like the world was behind a window on the wall, and walking around the room could reveal a whole new way of viewing the minecraft world. I was encouraged to go up close and peer around the window to see objects unseeable from just sitting down. Now for the part I had been waiting to see, I was told to look at the center wooden table located in front of me, I then proceeded to use a voice command “Create World” to make the wood surface turn into a model world that was being created in real time. Using the controller I could move around this holographic world where I was also joined by a Microsoft employee using a surface tablet. As the device is wireless I could walk all around the table and see the game from many different perspectives, even moving my head right up close to clip through holographic walls and see inside a villagers house. A virtual crosshair was centre in the field of view,  which would move according to the movement of your head rather than where you eyes was looking which I initially thought. Another aspect to the Hololens is the use of hand gestures which tied in nicely to the demo shown, an index finger tap was used as a virtual left click to navigate menus, holding an index finger down was used as a permanent click which in turn could be used to grab the world and move it laterally exposing new areas of the map and also pulling vertically upwards to expose underground subterranean areas of the map. Other commands used: “Zoom In” The Hologram was zoomed in to the player “Close Up” The Hologram was zoomed in close up to the player And my personal favorite “Lightning Strike” The crosshair location on the world was, when the command was spoken, struck with lightning. The experience lasted for about 15 minutes in a room with 3 people, presumably developers working on the project. We were then asked about the experience and escorted out of the room. Other Information The Minecraft Hololens build was called something like 0.11 DEV The Hologram was slightly opaque, I’d say the hologram had a 95% Opacity rating so people/ objects on the other side of the Hologram could be seen slightly. This could be seen as a positive or negative since as the Opacity decreases, does the image quality/ colors wash away too? This wasn’t too big of an issue as the gameplay still looked incredible. One of my friends and the IGN reviewer said they could see a small RGB Split around the corners of blocks. This could be due to the setup of the Holograms being rushed, though. The field of view was small, meaning holographic objects could not be seen in your whole peripheral vision - only within the field of view. The Field of view was centered through the Hololens, and was about the size of an A4 piece of paper held half an arm's distance from your face. Gestures outside this field of view were also not registered, so dragging the world outside the field of view would stop dragging. The Hololens was very light and was comfortable on the head. There was no wires so you were free to move around the room. One of my friends demo crashed when the application was being setup and had to restart, another friends hologram wasn’t correctly placed on the table and was instead placed half way up the tables leg and the setup had to be restarted. These issues will likely be fixed, though. When the “Create World” hologram was placed on the table, unlike the E3 demo the world was not placed edge to edge on the table, and had a slight border/ wasn’t correctly parallel to the table's edges. This could be due to the fitting of the device, bugs in the software or positioning of the user, though. Sometimes the voice recognition system didn’t register commands, but this could have been down to volume, tempo of speech, english accent or just my sheer excitement. The device is always listening and requires no prefixes like “OK Google”. Overall This was an awesome experience which has to be seen to be fully appreciated, while there a few issue’s, the device itself felt polished and had plenty of time to be iterated upon before hand. The fact of being able to view holograms inside the home is a fantastic idea and truly was amazing to experience the cutting edge technology. The design of the Hololens is consumer worthy, featuring a light, comfortable and wireless structure while looking aesthetically pleasing. I do feel the possibilities of the device are plentiful and really can stand as consumer product in its own right, I may be waiting a few years yet for the virtual zombie apocalypse experience of my dreams. Feel free to ask as many questions as you want!