Holographic Computers Aren't Science Fiction Anymore

Remember when Tupac's hologram graced the Coachella stage in 2012? Imagine being front row at a holographic concert in your living room, every night. Microsoft's newly announced innovation, Windows Holographic, wants to bring that futuristic concept into the hands of consumers with a new headset called HoloLens.

It's a visor-like wearable computer that projects holograms onto the world around you, using a special processing chip that understands gestures, voice, and positioning. The demo presented at today's Microsoft conference (it's embedded below) showed people pinching to resize the football game being shown on the wall and playing Minecraft on a coffee table in the den. Imagine seeing a Skype window and collaborating with your colleague as you show them around the office. It's a pretty insane vision of the future. Now that Google Glass as we know it is done, maybe HoloLens is the next big thing for augmented reality. We're not sure when Microsoft will release the device, so stay tuned!