Alex Kipman Nominated for Inventor’s Award

The Brazilian-born inventor gets recognition for his groundbreaking work with the Microsoft Hololens.

The European Patent Office (EPO) announced that it has nominated U.S.-based inventor Alex Kipman as a finalist for the European Inventor Award 2018.

“Alex Kipman’s invention is a vision for the future of computing with the potential to change how we connect and collaborate,” said EPO President Benoît Battistelli. “His ideas are enhancing the real world with digital information that helps people achieve higher levels of efficiency, and creating new opportunities in fields such as engineering, communications, and healthcare.”

Kipman started his professional career at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington, right after graduating from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2001. In a career spanning more than 15 years as a developer for the company, he has been named as the primary inventor on more than 150 U.S. and Asian patents, as well as two granted European patents and more than a dozen European patent applications. His current position as Technical Fellow of the Windows and Devices Group enables him to maintain a hands-on approach to building the HoloLens and related Windows Mixed Reality software platform.

The HoloLens incorporates several patent-protected Microsoft inventions, including Kipman’s motion sensors initially brought to market for the Xbox Kinect video game controller. The software for the HoloLens is developed in the Windows 10 operating system in the Windows Mixed Reality software environment. Current applications of the device include telecommunications (e.g. for enhanced video calls), a 3D virtual tourism application, and a suite of mixed-reality games, as well as industrial uses for metering and quality control, and interactive digital human anatomy. A host of promising new applications are being developed. In 2017, a Spanish team of surgeons used the mixed-reality headset successfully while operating on a patient with a malignant muscular tumour. During the procedure, the surgeons were able to view live diagnostic imaging from MRI and radiography data feeds, without taking their eyes off the patient.

Thanks to built-in machine learning and AI-algorithms, the HoloLens is contextually aware of its surroundings and able…