Virtual VS Augmented Reality

Hold on to your chairs for this one....  No, I really mean it... HOLD ON TO YOUR CHAIRS!!!

I just received my Virtual Reality headset (Oculus Rift DK2) that lets me fully immerse myself into virtual words. I loaded the software onto my Mac Mini, put the headset on and BANG!  I was really transported into another world.  So much so, that I literally fell off my chair!

Yossie with his Oculus Rift DK2

The headset may look large in this "selfie," (selfies distort close up images...) but it is surprisingly lightweight - like a pair of ski goggles.  With this device, I can go on virtual tours of museums, perform virtual dissections and actually live in ancient Egypt! (Hey... AMIT schools - you could create virtual tours of Israel) This device, added with my Leap Motion, allows me to use my hands to fully manipulate my virtual world.  It is AMAZING!!  (Yes, I will set up demos for all of my schools for sometime next month.)

BUT WAIT THERE IS MORE!!!!!!!!! Microsoft just announced in on Wednesday.......

While I was "deep diving" into virtual worlds, Microsoft was bringing the virtual world to us with a new device called HoloLens.  YES, this is for real.....  Daqri and Aurasma have been doing virtual reality with our smart phones and tablet devices for a couple of years now (I reported on this in an earlier post and we have used this technology in some of our schools) and Daqri has made a helmet (also posted on my blog), but what Microsoft has done will (Yes, I am making a prediction here folks... Yossie "haNavi" is predicting....and I have been pretty accurate over the last 15 years!) CHANGE THE WAY WE TEACH!!!!!!! 

Early versions of this device have been used by some of the most reliable industry testers (Ben Gilbert for one....  http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/21/microsoft-hololens-hands-on   WARNING... the picture of the open circuit boards that Ben shows is NOT the HoloLens.) and while these test Hololens headsets are cumbersome, The final version (displayed in the video) promises to be very usable.  (By way of example, the original Oculus headset was huge and now they just keep on getting smaller!!)  Tell you what.... YOU watch the (latest) video from the link below and you tell me what you think.  Remember to post your comments to the blog page please!

click this link to view video

Here is a video from YouTube that shows
some of the earlier versions
(that Ben mentions in his article)

I made sure that my next PC will run Windows 10 (with the built in API holographic interface for the Hololens) and as soon as a production version of this headset is out (no release date yet but it could be soon), I will be buying one..... ah, that is, if my wife will let me.

Regards to all.

Yossie

Yossie Frankel
Director - Consortium for Information and Academic Technologies
Member Schools:
Harkham Hillel Hebrew Academy - yfrankel@hillelhebrew.org
Oakland Hebrew Day School - y.frankel@ohds.org
Shalhevet High School - y.frankel@shalhevet.org
Yeshivat Yavneh - www.yha.org
Arete Preparatory Academy - yfrankel@areteprep.org

Midreshet Emunah V'Omanut - Jerusalem - yfrankel@emunahvomanut.org
Checkout my blog @ technorebbe.blogspot.com
Twitter @yossiefrankel
YouTube Channel: YossieFrankelChannel
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/yossiefrankel