Alex Kipman knows about hardware. Since joining Microsoft 16 years ago, he has been the primary inventor on more than 100 patents, including Xbox Kinect’s pioneering motion-sensing technology that paved the way for some of the features in his latest creation, the holographic 3D headset called the HoloLens.
But today, sitting in his office in Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington, Kipman is not talking hardware. He’s discussing the relationship between humans and machines from a broader philosophical perspective. Whether we interact with machines through screens or stuff that sits on our heads, to him, it’s all “just a moment in time.”
The Brazilian-born Kipman, whose titleistechnical fellow at Microsoft’s Windows and Devices Group, enthusiastically explains that the key benefit of technology is its ability to displace time and space. He brings up “mixed reality” (MR), Microsoft’s term for tech that mixes real-world with computer-generated imagery and will, some day, according to Kipman, seamlessly blend augmented and virtual reality. He says that one of the most exciting features of MR is its potential to unleash “displacement superpowers” onto the real world.