Microsoft HoloLens: Does anyone know where it’s going?

HoloLens, Microsoft's self-contained holographic computer, arrives in developers' hands around the world today, but when they open those exquisitely designed black boxes, the devices they receive will largely be a mystery to them -- both how they work and, more importantly, what they're good for. At its Build 2016 developer conference, Microsoft did its best to dispel the mystery, while at the same time enhancing the HoloLens mystique. SEE ALSO: HoloLens IRL: What it's like in Microsoft's version of augmented reality HoloLens certainly played a starring role this week at Build, but unlike the code demonstrations and sessions on bots (Microsoft is obsessed with bots), its Azure cloud platform and machine intelligence, HoloLens is treated like a rare beast, behind lock and key and only on display in something called the Holographic Academy and Destination Mars, a reservation-only HoloLens Experience space housed in a giant, self-contained black box. A co-production of NASA's Jet Propulsion laboratory and Microsoft, the Mars experience uses HoloLens mixed reality capabilities to put you on the surface of Mars. Eventually the 30-foot square box will end up NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida, but, for a few days, developers were getting tickets and lining up for the opportunity to finally strap on the HoloLens headgear and stand a few feet away from a holographic image of astronaut Buzz Aldrin.