Holoportation

This week we looked at one of Microsoft's new projects, Holoportation which allows the virtual teleportation of a person into a different space. They have also figured out how to do this from a moving car.

I find this project to be very interesting. I think that this technology could be very big and transformative in the industry and could transform the way people conduct every day business. Some of the benefits would be that this would be a means of communication that would bring people closer. Conferences could be completely remote for all of the people attending yet with this, people would be able to feel present in one space at the same time despite being in different places in the world. It would eliminate the need to travel long distances for a better interaction than video-chat or a phone call. Also another good thing that came out of this research is them figuring out how to compress the transmission so much that it significantly decreases the bandwidth while still maintaining the quality of the hologram.

With this comes the question of how popular this will truly become in the future and I don't expect it to become extremely popular unless there becomes a better way of viewing the transmissions other than the current tech (like the hololense) which is very clunky and is still perceived as odd to be worn in public or "normal" situations.

With all the positives always comes a negative side and in my opinion, although this tech would help bring people together in many different ways, it might also lead them to become more isolated. People might begin to neglect our need for human interaction and subconsciously decide that interacting in a virtual space is more than enough to get through life. We would become engulfed in our technologies that they will overtake our lives and become the center of our lives. (It is also possible that I have watched one too many Black Mirror episodes and have become weary of the situation and worried for the extreme outcomes)

link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/holoportation-3/