On May 25, Microsoft announced on Tuesday local time that Kawasaki has become a new customer of the company's "industrial metauniverse" business, and its factory employees will wear Microsoft's hololens augmented reality equipment to manufacture robots. Microsoft's "industrial metauniverse" means that factory workers will wear hololens equipment to produce maintenance equipment and manage the supply chain.
Microsoft hololens The device was first released in 2016. Users wearing hololens can experience augmented reality. For users in the industrial field, hololens can also integrate Microsoft's cloud computing and other technologies to help factory workers and managers manufacture products faster and more effectively.
Microsoft hopes to create a digital workspace that can reproduce the real world through augmented reality, so as to speed up the process of repair and starting a new production line. For example, with the help of augmented reality technology, maintenance personnel no longer go to the site to repair damaged parts, but can communicate with workers wearing hololens on site and guide them to complete the whole repair process through the visual prompt of augmented reality technology. This technology also allows workshop managers to remotely manage new production lines, which is a method used by Microsoft to solve supply chain problems.
In addition to Kawasaki, Heinz recently announced that it would use Microsoft's "industrial metauniverse" solution in its tomato sauce factory. Boeing is Microsoft's manufacturing partner.
Although this sounds like a gimmick, in fact, Microsoft customers have been looking for technologies related to metauniverse. Jessica hawk, Microsoft's corporate vice president in charge of hybrid reality business, said in an interview last week that the industrial metauniverse is a technology experience before the realization of fully immersive technology in the future.
"That's why I think you can see a lot of energy in this field," Hawke said. "These are real-world problems that enterprises are dealing with... So such a technical solution can help solve supply chain challenges and will have a great impact."
Although the concept of metauniverse originally came from science fiction, it describes the scenes of people's entertainment, life and work in such a virtual world; But Microsoft's booming business also shows that the current use of the meta universe concept is more enterprise related than ordinary consumption.
For example, meta, the parent company of Facebook, is about to release a hybrid reality headset that is more expensive than the current $299 virtual reality device, and the marketing target is also those who want to work remotely but feel "immersive". In fact, the first metauniverse product launched by meta is also an application that allows users to hold meetings in a virtual reality environment.
But the difference is that Microsoft has taken a step ahead in the meta universe. The company actually sells hybrid reality technology to other enterprises, and also provides developers with the tools they need to build their own meta universe experience.
"Our strategy recognizes that people will experience the metauniverse on a variety of devices and platforms, and we do see differences," Hawke said
Metauniverse products can also be run on a 2D screen. Microsoft last year added a new feature to the chat app teams, which allows users to appear in the form of digital avatars. These functions can also be applied to hololens devices and other platforms in the future.
"We're really excited because this is a time to start so many innovations," Hawke said. "Today we realize something, and we also realize that there are many things we are not fully aware of. So this is a very exciting moment for us."