Star Trek fans however, will be happy to
hear that soon to be incoming technology will add a further dimension to
international conference calls. What has been termed as a holographic
telepresence, involves transmitting a three-dimensional moving image of you at
each destination – allowing you to converse as if you were in the room.
One such system that is property ofMusion,
based in Britain, uses Pepper’s Ghost, an effect popular with illusionists, to
beam moving images onto sloped glass. Using the technology, Musion has already
digitally resurrected rapper Tupac Shakur at a music festival. However, full 3D
holographic communication is not too far behind – in the shape of the Polish
company Leia. Named after the Star Wars princess, its Leia Display XL uses
laser projectors to beam images onto a cloud of water vapour. The end result is
a walk-in holographic room, in which 3D objects can be viewed and manipulated
from every angle. An IBM survey of 3,000 researchers
recently named holographic video calls as one technology they expected to see
in place in the next year or so.
