Skip to main content

Turns out Microsoft’s HoloLens 3 might not be dead after all

Recent rumors indicated that Microsoft’s next-generation Hololens 3 mixed reality headset could be dead, but now there’s a chance that might not be true at all. In a tweet, Alex Kipman, who invented HoloLens and is currently a technical fellow at Microsoft, seemed to indicate that the product could still be alive.

As a recap, the whole saga started after a Business Insider report revealed the state of internal disarray and uncertainty within the HoloLens Team. The report also indicated that Microsoft could be working with Samsung on a next-generation headset, and HoloLens 3 was canceled in the middle of last year when that project began. Kipman, though, says not to “believe what you read on the internet,” and that “HoloLens is doing great.”

Recommended Videos

don't believe what you read on the internet. #HoloLens is doing great and if you search said internet they also said we had cancelled #HoloLens2… which last I checked we shipped with success [)-)

— Alex Kipman (@akipman) February 3, 2022

In 2017, similar reports indicated that the follow-up to the original HoloLens could have been dead. As you know, that wasn’t true, and just two years later in 2019, the HoloLens 2 launched with improvements to the field of vision and other areas. Kipman poked fun at this, saying that “if you search the internet, they also said we had canceled HoloLens 2, which last I checked, we shipped with success.”

A Microsoft HoloLens 2 headset on a woman's head.
Microsoft HoloLens 2/Microsoft

Of course, no one at Microsoft officially is talking about HoloLens 3, but this is a good indicator that it might still be in the works. Before the recent saga, previous rumors suggested the headset could be a little more like reading glasses. However, it’s still uncertain if it could be a consumer product or an enterprise one, which is reportedly  another source of a rift on the HoloLens product team at Microsoft. In previous interviews, Kipman indicated that HoloLens technology wasn’t ready for consumers just yet.

As more players like Meta, and even Apple with its rumored headset, enter the mixed reality space once only occupied by Microsoft, HoloLens is more important to monitor. Many Microsoft employees who used to work on the HoloLens team have left the company for Microsoft’s competitors, but Microsoft recently picked up key talent. It hired Ruben Caballero, a former Apple executive, to work on the HoloLens team. Previously, Caballero was in charge of Apple’s wireless technology, including antennas that are embedded in iOS devices.

Arif Bacchus
Arif Bacchus is a native New Yorker and a fan of all things technology. Arif works as a freelance writer at Digital Trends…
Nvidia’s RTX 5060 Ti could be 20% faster than the RTX 4060 Ti
Logo on the RTX 4060 Ti graphics card.

Nvidia's upcoming RTX 5060 Ti 16GB graphics card has once again surfaced in leaked benchmarks, showcasing a decent performance uplift over its predecessor. According to data obtained by VideoCardz, the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB outpaces the RTX 4060 Ti 16GB by approximately 20% in synthetic tests, while trailing the RTX 5070 by nearly 33%.

The leaked benchmarks results are primarily from 3DMark's suite of tests including SpeedWay, Steel Nomad, Port Royal, Fire Strike and Time Spy, suggesting that the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB offers a generational improvement over the RTX 4060 Ti.  

Read more
New Nvidia GPU leaked by the most unlikely source
A RTX 5060 Ti Hatsune Miku Asus graphics card.

Asus has just unveiled a bunch of Hatsune Miku-themed goodies, including a motherboard, PC case, keyboard, mouse, and more. The lineup, made as a homage to the virtual pop sensation, looks pretty dreamy -- but one thing in particular caught my eye. Asus may have just revealed one of Nvidia's upcoming best graphics cards at least a day early.

Hatsune Miku is a vocaloid, which is a type of voice synthesizer software that lets users pick a song for Hatsune Miku to sing. Hatsune Miku has achieved worldwide fame, which is presumably why Asus decided to launch a whole lineup centered around the virtual pop star.

Read more
Apple is right to make iPadOS more Mac-like, but I’ll never buy an iPad that runs macOS
Magic Keyboard and iPad Pro.

Do you use a Mac or an iPad? Huge numbers of people use both, yet there are growing calls for Apple to merge the two devices into some kind of all-in-one super product. I’m not one of those people -- in fact I think it would be a terrible idea -- and I’m determined to steer clear of any hypothetical iPad that runs macOS.

Over the past few years, Apple’s best iPads have grown closer to the Mac. We’ve seen the devices get outfitted with Mac-grade chips like the M4, gain macOS-like software features such as Stage Manager, and gain increased compatibility with mice and keyboards.

Read more