Bill Gates: HoloLens Is "Pretty Amazing," But Will Take A Few Years

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates held a Reddit AMA today, and, as you could have probably guessed, someone asked him about the company's recently announced HoloLens technology. Gates' verdict? He's excited, but says it might be a few years before we see the true potential of the technology.

"The HoLolens is pretty amazing," Gates said. "Microsoft has put a lot into the chips and the software. It is the start of virtual reality. Making the device so you don't get dizzy or nauseous is really hard--the speed of the alignment has to be super super fast. It will take a few years of software applications being built to realize the full promise of this."

For its part, Microsoft doesn't think HoloLens is like anything else out there. It doesn't compete directly with the likes of virtual reality headsets such as Oculus Rift or Project Morpheus because HoloLens is "something different," Microsoft says.

Someone else asked Gates what he thinks the next 30 years holds in terms of advancements to technology overall. Gates said he foresees lots of progress, including mechanical robots being used to pick fruit, among other things.

"There will be more progress in the next 30 years than ever," Gates said. "Even in the next 10 problems like vision and speech understanding and translation will be very good. Mechanical robot tasks like picking fruit or moving a hospital patient will be solved. Once computers/robots get to a level of capability where seeing and moving is easy for them then they will be used very extensively."

Gates also reveals that he's working on some form of "Personal Agent" initiative with Microsoft. He explains:

"One project I am working on with Microsoft is the Personal Agent which will remember everything and help you go back and find things and help you pick what things to pay attention to," he said. "The idea that you have to find applications and pick them and they each are trying to tell you what is new is just not the efficient model--the agent will help solve this. It will work across all your devices."

The full AMA is a fascinating read. Though Gates doesn't answer questions about Xbox or gaming directly, he does talk about his various humanitarian efforts, his dogs, and machine super-intelligence, among many other topics. You can read the full post here.

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