Super Bowl 50 is just days away. But while the Big Game will be paying homage to the sport's past, Microsoft is offering up its vision of the sport's future.
In a two-minute video released on YouTube, Microsoft showed off a demo of what football could be like in the coming year. Using its HoloLens augmented reality technology, Microsoft has teamed up with the NFL to bring football to sports fans' living rooms.
The best seats to the Super Bowl this coming Sunday will belong to fans watching live at the Levi's Stadium in California. The rest of us will be stuck at home watching, if we're lucky, on a big screen television set.
Thanks to Microsoft's HoloLens, however, size won't matter. In fact, it may not even matter if we have a TV or not. As shown in the teaser video below, donning a HoloLens headset could allow video from a TV to spill out over an entire living room wall.
And then, layered on top of that extra virtual screen space, computer-generated content such as player stats, team stats, instant replays and even the players themselves can burst through the wall or wrap around the living room center table.
"Imagine The Big Game, extended beyond your existing screen, with displays, player stats and instant replays on your coffee table. With HoloLens, running Windows 10, your favorite players could be brought to life through high-definition, 3D displays - allowing you to experience the athleticism and skills behind their stats," says Microsoft.
With a flick of the wrist, football fans would literally have the sport at the tip of their fingers. Unfortunately, at least for now, the video demo is just a mockup. Based on live demos Microsoft has already shown to the public, however, everything seems to already be possible with current technology.
Either way, Microsoft scored big partnering up with the NFL to bring a new form of technology into the mainstream. Also, unlike its competition, Microsoft's HoloLens is an untethered device. It doesn't have to be connected to a high-end PC to work. Just like a pair of sunglasses, just pick it up and it's ready to go.
