Imagine that you, as an international importer, are able to have a business meeting in Hong Kong at 9:00 in the morning and another meeting in Athens, Greece at 7:00 p.m. You don’t have to make travel arrangements, and you don’t even have to leave your house.
Technology Utopia?
No. This can (and will) be accomplished in the very near future through the innovation of Tele-Immersion. (Look alive, Captain Kirk.)
What is Tele-Immersion?
Tele-Immersion is a new technology that combines the internet telephone and cameras. (Think holodeck on Star Trek.) It allows you to have a meeting with people from anywhere in the world. It is not, however, videoconferencing. In fact, tele-immersion makes videoconferencing look like two tin cans and a string.
With tele-immersion, a single room in a simulated environment will house all of the participants “present” in a meeting – only they are not really there. Soon, these people will virtually be able to even shake hands with the holographic images of each other.
There are three steps to creating a holographic setting:
1. The computer recognizes people, objects and movement.
2. The images are tracked by the computer.
3. The computer projects the images onto a surface that is “stereo-immersive.”
How It Works:
Mauli Halan, an IT expert who wrote the article, “Immersion: Virtually Here!” in August of 2003, has provided a simplified explanation of the mechanics of tele-immersion:
“3D reconstruction for tele-immersion is performed using stereo, which means two or more cameras take rapid sequential shots of the same object, continuously performing distance calculations, and projecting them into the computer-simulated environment to replicate realtime movement. By combining cameras and Internet telephony, videoconferencing has allowed realtime exchange of more information than ever, without physically bringing each person into one central room.”
Bandwidth:
It will take somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.2 gigabits per second to run tele-immersion. For awhile, only large companies will be able to afford the afford the high connection speeds. Right now, the best computer science departments in the United States are using an OC3 line, which can carry 155 megabits per second. An OC3 line is three times more costly to use than regular broadband.
More Technology:
Faster processing power will need to be produced, and new innovations in compressing information will need to be developed. But, even with the work needed in upgrading these technologies, tele-immersion is on the horizon for the near future in the fields of business, medicine, construction planning, education, and more other areas than most people today can even fathom.
Sources:
Mauli Halan. (2010). Tele-Immersion: Virtually here! University of North Carolina, Information Technology Department. Retrieved on February 7, 2011, from http://www.cs.unc.edu/Research/stc/inthenews/pdf/InformationTechnology_Aug2003.pdf
Bonsor, K. (n.d.). How Holographic Environments Will Work. howstuffworks. Retrieved on February 7, 2011, from http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/gadgets/high-tech-gadgets/holographic-environment.htm?printable=1
How holographic environments will work. (2010). Holy Kaw! All the topics that interest us. Retrieved on February 7, 2011, from http://holykaw.alltop.com/how-holographic-environments-will-work
Electronic devices: how holographic environments will work. (2002). Essortment. Retrieved on February 7, 2011, from http://www.essortment.com/hobbies/electronicdevi_sfot.htm
Tele-Immersion.(n.d.). TopBits.com. Retrieved on February 7, 2011, from http://www.tech-faq.com/tele-immersion.html
