Microsoft opens HoloLens showcase in its New York City flagship store
Microsoft is opening a new HoloLens Experience Showcase for developers in the new Microsoft flagship retail store on Fifth Avenue in New York City on December 17.
The HoloLens Experience Showcase for Developers will be open "for at least a few months," according to a company spokesperson. Currently, there are no plans to open similar showcases at any other Microsoft stores or other locations.
Developers can register to visit the showcase at hololensevents.com.
The showcase is meant to introduce new developers to HoloLens. The showcase currently includes three different experiences, including mixed-reality gaming, holographic story-telling and HoloLens studio content creation ones.
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Developers will get to don prototype HoloLens headsets that are fairly close to what Microsoft will be including in the HoloLens developer kits, which will be available for purchase for $3,000 in the first quarter of 2016.
Microsoft's HoloLens is an augmented-reality headset that Microsoft is hoping will be used in both business and consumer settings. Microsoft's first target audiences for HoloLens are developers and business customers. HoloLens is one of the Microsoft device platforms that run Windows 10 at its core, meaning developers can target the HoloLens with their Universal Windows Platform apps.
I had a chance to visit the new HoloLens showcase on the fifth floor of the Microsoft New York City store this week, as did my ZDNet colleague Larry Dignan.
I had tried an early version of the HoloLens back in January this year. I found the latest incarnation of the headset a lot more polished (as it should be after 11 more months of development time). I still find the rather limited field-of-view at closer distance ranges tough to negotiate, but I'm still intrigued at some of the potential use cases for HoloLens as the technology advances.