Hands on: Microsoft Hololens augmented reality headset, by Adam Turner

Picking up where Pokemon Go leaves off, Microsoft’s Hololens delivers a new way of looking at the world.

Virtual reality is stealing the headlines this year as the major VR headsets finally hit the shelves, but in the long term I suspect augmented reality will have a greater impact on our lives. VR whisks you away to a fantasy land, blocking out the real world, while AR seamlessly blends the digital and physical realms to place virtual objects into the world around you.

After an early limited release Hololens has just gone on sale to developers in the US and Canada for US$3000. Right now it’s aimed at business users and Microsoft doesn’t have any immediate plans to sell it to the general public, so you might consider it a work in progress compared to what might eventually be offered to consumers.

Melbourne software developer Two Bulls was one of the first in Australia to get its hands on Hololens headsets and prefers the term “mixed” reality to “augmented” reality because Hololens is capable of doing far more than just pasting graphics over your view of the world.

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