Microsoft’s Kinect and HoloLens Inventor Thinks ‘The phone Is Already Dead’

Alex Kipman, one of Microsoft's best technicians, believes the smartphone era is over. "The phone is already dead," Kipman says in an interview with Bloomberg. "People just do not realize it." Kipman believes that a mixed-mode device like HoloLens will replace the phone, but he has not shared his exact predictions for the deadline when the phone allegedly dead will be replaced.

Not surprisingly, Kipman chose Microsoft's HoloLens as the phone replacement. Kipman is one of the inventors of the technology inside the HoloLens headset, and helped to develop it secretly under the Microsoft visitor center in Redmond, Washington. Kipman also invented the Kinect sensor, and rose to prominence within Microsoft after it initially sold well as a consumer gadget for the Xbox 360. The Kinect story took a wrong turn when Microsoft tried to group it with the Xbox One at a price $ 100 premium over its PlayStation 4 rival. The Kinect sensor now laughs at gamers, but it is still widely used by researchers and developers as a motion detection 3D camera.

The bold prediction of Kipman suggests that Microsoft thinks that mixed reality, or augmented reality, headphones will soon. The comments also follow a revelation from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella that the company's next phones "may not look like phones.

Microsoft introduced its HoloLens headset more than two years ago, before sending it to developers a little over a year ago. Microsoft has not yet shipped a HoloLens to consumers, but anyone with $ 3,000 can buy one directly from Microsoft. A successor to the developer edition is not expected to arrive until 2019, as Microsoft has delayed its plans due to lack of competition. Both Magic Leap and Apple are working on similar augmented reality headphones, but none seems willing to unveil them as a replacement phone yet.