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Augmented Reality Lets You Take a Date with Hatsune Miku

An enterprising electronics engineer who goes by "Alsione" is developing an augmented reality (AR) program with the Microsoft HoloLens that lets you go on a date with the phenomenally popular Vocaloid star Hatsune Miku. As the video below demonstrates, it can not only simulate an appropriate (if strangely empty) environment for a date, but summon a seemingly 3-D model of Miku to go out with. (The model was originally created by Hakutory for the animation software MikuMikuDance.) Miku will look at you as you walk, climb up and down stairs, sit in chairs, and react to attempts to interact with her — we see her get "stroked" with a single finger and kissed. Her face remains mostly expressionless until Alsione tries checking her out from a little too low of an angle...

Alsione has been fascinated with designing AR experiences with Miku for years. He originally posted the video below of a simpler date with Miku in 2012 and also designed a device that lets you "kiss" the idol. His first device was a self-made combination of an Xtion motion sensor with Vuzix Wrap 920 VR eyewear. His new date experience was stimulated by the Japanese release of the HoloLens this year; Alsione says it is "100 times more comfortable" than his own glasses and allows for a more "high-performance" Miku.

Virtual and augmented reality have advanced significantly in recent years and now allow for everything from Pokemon battles to sexual foreplay. Miku, perhaps due to her famous hologram, is often a subject of these experiences.

Source: Gigazine