Microsoft might be making huge changes to the development of the Hololens behind the scenes, as new reports are suggesting that the company recently fired as many as 60 engineers working on the project, based on technology that Microsoft acquired six years ago.
Apparently the project change has been quite sudden and unexpected, half of those engineers do have one month to find another placement within Microsoft though, so they aren't all entirely out of a job. Apparently the plan now is to move forward with the Hololens based on entirely new technology developed in the US.
This news all comes from Israeli news site, Ynet, so right now all we have are rough translations, so it is hard to get the full story. The team impacted by this change had been working on the Hololens for two and a half years prior to this. According to the report, Microsoft's Israel branch did confirm that it recently made decisions that would impact a number of jobs but didn't mention the Hololens project specifically.
A rough translation of the article was posted to NeoGAF, so take everything here with a pinch of salt. Right now, it is not known if this change impacts the entire Hololens project or just one aspect of it, either way though, the developer edition of the headset is still due out next year for $3000.
KitGuru Says: The Hololens is one of the more exciting projects to come out of Microsoft in recent years. However, we still don't know if or when it will land in the hands of consumers. By the sounds of it, the company still has a lot of work planned if it is making sweeping changes like this.