Microsoft believes that holographic meetings via mixed-reality tech will be a mainstay of the future of work. In a sign of that commitment, this week it demoed new augmented reality technology developed in collaboration with the company Spatial, which will integrate Microsoft Teams and the mixed-reality Microsoft HoloLens 2 headset to create virtual meetings that connect remote workers with one another through lifelike avatars.
The demo was done at Microsoft Build by the founder of Spatial, Anand Agarwala, who showed how a team would collaborate remotely on the design of a robot hologram, reports Fast Company:
Participants in other locations were represented by holographic avatars. They all could access data from Microsoft productivity apps; Since HoloLens now does decent hand tracking, the people could pick up a virtual document and toss it over to another participant in virtual space. They could even adjust the size and positioning of the robot with their hands. Participants could also write annotations around the design. It’s not just hands, either. Agarawala says Spatial uses the HoloLens 2’s eye tracking to accurately reflect user eye movements in their avatars in virtual space.
