Forget Zoom. Microsoft wants you to chat with holograms.

Imagine it's time for a meeting. Instead of clicking on a Zoom or Google Meet link, you put on an AR/VR headset. And rather than stare at co-workers through tiny windows, you interact with their avatars in a virtual space and pass "objects" to one another.

That's the vision for Mesh, a new cloud mixed-reality platform, officially announced Tuesday at Microsoft Ignite, the company's annual developer conference. 

Taking a meeting in Microsoft Mesh

"I can tell you're sitting down," Greg Sullivan, Microsoft's director of mixed reality, told me despite the fact neither of us had our webcams on. With my HoloLens 2 strapped to my head, I stood up, walked closer to the virtual table, and looked at an avatar of Sullivan before he turned to me and said, "This is Microsoft Mesh."  Read more...