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MR is just Microsoft branding. The new headsets are VR headsets with integrated tracking cameras so their is no need for Vive-style Lighthouse trackers or Rift-style external cameras.

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Microsoft branding? This is the same thing Magic Leap has been touting, it's an actual term in the industry.

Magic leap is creating glasses which overlay things onto the real world. These are VR headsets - your view is completely blocked.

It's an actual term to decribe an entire spectrum of augmented to virtual reality. It's an incredibly confusing term to brand a product that very clearly falls on a specific part of that spectrum.

People also fling critique at Magic Leap for the same problem, since it is very clearly an AR device.

Because tracking is done via camera (instead of more cumbersome room sensors like Oculus/Vive), those cameras can also be used to display surroundings and augment them, like a lower quality hololense.

So there is support for augmented reality, but it looks like most if the demos currently being made are for VR.

People in this set of threads keep jumping to the conclusion that because there are cameras on the headsets you'll be able to integrate real world visuals to create AR-style exeperiences.

It would make a lot of sense, but there is no support in the API for the low cost devices for doing any of these things. The cameras are purely used for tracking purposes at this point and none of the HoloLens-style AR experiences that would seem to make sense are possible with this generation of low cost MR headsets and APIs.

What's kind of frustrating is that MS did show concept videos of what's called "Spatial Capture" on the HoloLens running on the MR Display, so that you would at least have the gross shape of large objects in your VR space. But that hasn't been the case so far, and it's been difficult to suss out documentation that is specific to the VR headset, rather than just old HoloLens docs.

If they can, it's not a feature that has yet been released. There is no data about the outside world coming in to the headset.

> there is support for augmented reality

Unfortunately this isn't the case. It's just pure VR.

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