Today Microsoft previewed its augmented reality goggles, HoloLens. A prototype will be released later this year for testing, and it has plenty of potential uses for travel companies.
HoloLens claims to offer high-definition holograms with the spatial illusion of being integrated with your physical places, spaces, and things.
All about the interface
The virtual reality eyewear is similar to Oculus Rift and Google Glass. While Google's eyewear has a heads-up display of static information in a static location, Oculus Rift -- like HoloLens -- creates the illusion of 3D depth.
Unlike Rift, Microsoft's HoloLens is an all-in-one unit, without the eyewear and the computer being separate.
Market research firm Forrester predicts that 3.6 million people will likely buy HoloLens products by the end of 2016.
Microsoft isn't saying what HoloLens will cost and when it will be for sale, but it is promoting a video for what it calls "the most advanced holographic computer the world has ever seen":
Microsoft's promotional videos specifically show users plotting a vacation to Hawaii and San Francisco, using holograms of the destination, such as to fly over the Golden Gate Bridge, in one example.
More importantly, the videos show the ability of wearable technology to surpass the analog experience of booking travel via one of today's two-dimensional screens.
HoloLens offers a fundamentally different user experience that's based on touch, gesture, and voice.
Travel uses
We can all imagine possible uses for the new device.
A more intuitive, voice-and-gesture-based interface for travel search? Enhanced in-flight entertainment on planes and trains? Virtual tours to help promote in-bound visits, deployed by a direct marketing organization?
Filip Filipov, head of B2B at UK-based travel metasearch giant Skyscanner, said in an interview:
"We believe any such devices will serve as a window-shopping tool, enticing consumers to experience their destination before visiting it."
Filipov points out that Skyscanner recently predicted in its Future of Travel report that travel companies will soon experiment with virtual reality technologies in a variety of ways. Predicted the report:
“Virtual reality will offer holidaymakers the opportunity to ‘try-before-they-buy’ by test-driving trips such as a dive on the Great Barrier Reef...
Everyone will have a 'digital buddy', which will essentially be an artificial intelligence device, constantly connected to the web, which has learned to intimately understand our individual preferences.
It could have the face, voice and personality of our favourite actor or comedian and appear to us as a 3D hologram image, or inside a virtual environment, at our verbal command....
It will personalise all of our travel experiences, planning itineraries based on our particular likes and dislikes, and act as a tour guide, telling us only about the elements of the destination that it knows we will be interested in.
Travel brands will even be able to rent out a personalised e-agent to their consumers as part of the holiday package.
Customers will be able to continually engage and interact with their travel company to fine-tune their trips in real time and troubleshoot any problems that arise."
There are other competitors out there, of course. Oculus Rift is still innovating. And Google has backed Magic Leap, a startup working on similar, rival eyewear.
All of this innovation means augmented reality wearable could be as significant to travel tech companies someday as the mobile device revolution has been.
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Technology and tools that will shape the future of how we travel, by Amadeus
Wired: An exclusive hands-on with Microsoft HoloLens