Microsoft Testing Experimental Project Irides Cloud-Based VR Headset

Microsoft looks to be making its own inroads into VR headsets, with the latest leaked info suggesting it’s working on an experimental cloud-based head-mounted display. Going by the name Project Irides, the headset is designed to offload some of the rendering to cloud-based servers. in theory improving the image quality and the visual effects, before streaming straight back to the headset.

The technology used for the Project Irides headset is Microsoft’s proprietary Kahawai streaming service. In order to beat problems with latency, a typical byproduct of streaming, the Kahawai tech attempts to predict what is going to happen on screen, in order to render parts of the image before they even happen.

This is achieved using likelihood-based foveation, as the cloud-service detects the likelihood of specific images turning up, rendering matched predictions in a higher quality. Clearly a lot of its success is going to stem from its efficiency, if only parts of specific frames are going to be rendered in higher-quality, it could look a little jarring. Microsoft claim it ‘gracefully degrades’ the image, based upon where the human eye is looking.

So far testers have had a hands-on with Doom 3, and it seems early impressions are positive. Lowering the quality of peripheral images means where the user’s directly looking can be of an even higher quality, a shortcut to better image quality without needing serious extra horsepower.

At the moment it's unclear whether Microsoft is intending to roll out this technology as part of its HoloLens, pictured above, or whether Project Irides will become its own beast. One thing's for sure, we'll certainly be keeping a close eye on this.