Microsoft today released a new update to its VR platform, Hololens. This is the third update in a row. If you own compatible hardware with a build of HoloLens RS4 installed, you can update it now.
This build is delivered over the air (OTA) through Windows Update after you've manually installed the HoloLens RS4 Preview using the instructions at the top of this page.
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The key changes in this release include the following.
Features for all users
- Reliability issues for exclusive apps.
- Interactions while moving slates and blooming.
- Cortana/Skype integration.
- Speech in OOBE stability.
- UWP app reliability with mouse/gamepad integration.
The build available for HoloLens is 17134.1000 (rs4_release_svc_analog.180412-1700).
Warning! HoloLens RS4 changes that may affect your apps:
- Permission requests to use sensitive resources (camera, microphone, etc.) - RS4 on HoloLens will enforce permission requests for apps intending to access sensitive resources, such as the camera or microphone. RS1 on HoloLens did not force these prompts, so, if your app assumes immediate access to these resources, it may crash in RS4 (even if the user grants permission to the requested resource). Please read the relevant UWP app capability declarations article for more information.
- Calls to apps outside your own - RS4 on HoloLens will enforce proper use of the Windows.System.Launcher class to launch another app from your own. For example, we've seen issues with apps calling Windows.System.Launcher.LaunchUriForResultsAsync from a non-ASTA (UI) thread. This would succeed in RS1 on HoloLens, but RS4 requires the call to be executed on the UI thread.
Microsoft expects that mixed reality will change the way we work in the near future. They expect Firstline Workers and Information Workers to benefit significantly from solutions that blend their physical and digital reality.
Microsoft is trying to attract even more developers by supporting more tools and technologies on its platforms with the HoloJS framework. HoloJS is a C++ library that hosts Chakra (Microsoft's own JS rendering engine used in Edge) to run JavaScript code, and also hosts ANGLE to handle OpenGL ES graphics calls. OpenGL ES calls are translated from WebGL calls by the JavaScript app. When running on Microsoft HoloLens, HoloJS supports holographic rendering. There are also some useful samples of HoloJS apps already available so if you'd like to check out what Microsoft's new apps framework for HoloLens has to offer, you should definitely check out the official GitHub repository for it.
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