Corona Daily 185: The Future Normal is Holographic

Letters. Stationary phone. Fax. Pager. Cellphone. Messenger. WhatsApp. Facetime. Zoom. What’s next? Holograms, of course.

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Last month, ARHT Media, a Canadian company launched HoloPad, a 3D display system that beams presenters from remote locations into meetings and conferences. At a hologram-enabled innovation summit in Singapore, an executive from Los Angeles performed live.

In the same month, a 3-D graphics company Imverse exhibited their product at the CES global tech conference. Its software enables hologram collaboration within virtual meeting rooms. Imverse tries to use smartphones and inexpensive in-depth cameras. Its goal is to replace 2-D video calls with 3-D conversations.  

Most white-collar workers assume they may never return to the traditional ‘commute-work-commute-sleep at home’ pattern. In a recent American survey only 11% of employees thought they would return to pre-pandemic work routine. Some sort of hybrid system will be developed where people will combine working from home and in office. How to best connect remote and in-office work? Holographic technology offers the middle ground.

Facetime or Zoom, though way advanced than our communication two decades ago, present only headshots in 2-D. Holograms offer the entire person, allowing body language so essential in human interaction. When without wearing any 3-D glasses you see somebody in a live hologram, and they appear to be in 3-D, your brain tells you they are in the same room.

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On the remote side, the presenter (say in Los Angeles) usually stands in front of a green screen, and looks at a shot of the (Singapore) audience on the monitor. Meanwhile, cameras capture the speaker from all angles. At the backend worksite, someone rolls the HoloPod, turns on a computer and connects to a live stream. A hologram photographically records a light field rather than an image formed by a lens. The current demonstrations still lack perfect clarity, viewers know it’s not the real person. Still, it succeeds in being in the presence of a life-size, 3-D representation of people.

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Live simultaneous music concerts are a real possibility. Michael Jackson may have missed it, but Justin Beiber or Taylor Swift will be able to perform live in London, Paris, Rome and New York at the same time. India’s PM Narendra Modi actually used the technology to give election speeches at thousands of venues. They were pre-recorded and played locally, but even in a small town; people could attend standing only a few feet away from the 3-D Modi. In a country of 900 million voters, this technology will become essential for charismatic leaders.

In theory, Madonna can sing inside your house, and Obama can join you at the dining table. But the hardware is currently too expensive. Only big companies and plush events can afford holographic technology.

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The company Blank XR goes a step ahead and tries to create what is called a mixed reality. Shah Rukh Khan will dance and give a personalized speech at your daughter’s wedding. How is that done? The company captures Shah Rukh Khan with 360-degree cameras. His voice is cloned based on audio clips. The rest is done by the Artificial Intelligence software. At your daughter’s wedding, AI will put the names of your family members in Shah Rukh Khan’s speech. The more information the artist chooses to feed, the more accurate his holo-clone will be. Blank XR specializes in mixing AI with video and sound manipulation.

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Last Sunday, at the Florida Superbowl final, one of the world’s most watched events, the opening speech was given by the legendary football coach Vince Lombardi. It was not him, but his hologram. The hologram talked about the current pandemic situation as well. Not everyone applauded, particularly since Vince Lombardi has been dead for fifty years.

Walt Disney Co. has a written policy of not creating holograms of dead people.

Ravi