Microsoft is working on a secret Windows app which will support HoloLens

Microsoft HoloLens

Microsoft is apparently working on a secret new Windows app which has the codename 'Beihai' (named after a Chinese city), according to rumour mongers.

This one comes from Twitter user @h0x0d ('The Walking Cat') who spotted online job adverts from Microsoft which mentioned Beihai and a "Microsoft.Beihai" app.

He notified the ever-inquisitive Mary Jo Foley (of ZDNet) who did her own digging, and according to her sources within Redmond, Beihai is not the codename for a forthcoming game from Microsoft, as some have previously indicated, but rather it will be a Windows 10 consumer-focused app of some kind.

It's apparently being developed by the Windows Apps Studio team led by Kudo Tsunoda, and Microsoft has previously said that this crew are working on apps across all devices, and that includes HoloLens – and apparently this particular app will be designed to work with Microsoft's augmented reality goggles (as well as other Windows 10 devices).

What will it do, exactly? Well, there are no actual details as to the app's function sadly. All we know at this point is that it will be targeted at consumers, and work on the HoloLens.

Microsoft isn't saying anything, as you would expect, and there's no hint of how far along this software is, or when it will arrive of course – and the same can be said of when HoloLens is likely to release (although the development edition of HoloLens should start shipping at some point this quarter).

According to recent feedback from developers, the HoloLens is easy to develop for, and is basically no different to building an app for a phone.

Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).