Windows 10 is officially out and thanks to the international time zone, we are one of the first countries to celebrate it’s release. With amazing views of the Sydney harbour, Microsoft held an invite-only event to welcome the new release.
The launch party included a number of devices running Windows 10, including their own Surface Pro 3, the Dell XPS 13 and a few others. On display was a couple of Xbox living room setups that showcased Xbox streaming over WiFi to a laptop, something many of us have already used at home with the preview bits.
The most interesting part of tonight’s event was getting to experience Windows Hello hardware. While the feature is in Windows 10, most of us don’t have hardware to test the facial recognition feature. After discussing the relatively large camera hung on the top of a few Windows laptops, I asked how long they thought it’d take to shrink the technology to fit into a standard laptop form factor. I then got pointed to one of the laptops doing the Xbox demo, it has a integrated 3D depth sensor that works for Windows Hello.
While the laptop was a large Acer 17” desktop replacement, the bezel containing the camera technology, was surprisingly thin. This is the biggest indication I’ve seen to show that Windows Hello camera technology isn’t far away and will likely be built right into your device.
During a demo of Windows Hello, I seen just how fast the login process worked, it’s seriously fast, like sub-second fast to unlock the computer. I asked how lengthy the setup process was and got a demo of that as well. After diving into Settings > Account > Sign-in, we deleted the Hello information, essentially diabling the feature. Clicking enable displayed a camera preview, which appears like an infrared image, about 5 seconds later the process was done. There was no head turning, he literally just stood in front of the thing. The down side is that Windows Hello doesn’t currently auto-lock the computer when you walk away, it should.
Now for a few photos from the event, including Managing Director of Microsoft Australia, Pip Marlow who gave a quick speech welcoming the new OS to the country, with the first official, Microsoft-held party in the world (sorry New Zealand).
