Hologram

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发布于: 11年前  

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Hologram

(SOUND)

TIM MARLOW: Hello, I'm Tim Marlow and this is Culture Shock. First, are you to busy ever to go to that important meeting? You can't afford the time or the money to fly half way across the world to do business or maybe you're just concerned about your carbon footprint. Well, how about sending a hologram of yourself instead?

For years, holograms, or virtual 3D images have appeared in science fiction books and films. We were promised a future, where rather that having physically to travel, we could just send a hologram to another place or country to communicate for us. And now that technology seems to have arrived making this fantasy a reality. A number of businesses have already started to use holograms as the next level alternative to video conferencing, giving the impression of a human presence on stage or in a room instead of merely linking up by telephone or video screen. And of course, celebrities are getting in on the act too; a virtual David Beckham and Manchester United Manager Alex Ferguson are just a few of those who are now being beamed in for product launches.

It sounds fascinating, doesn't it? At least I think so. So I decided to go and try and experience this new hologram technology at first hand. I'm in the offices of MUSION, the technology company in Coven Garden, not a million miles from the opera house. But I'm sitting looking at a very different kind of stage that I'd encounter in the traditional opera house. It's just a screen, there's flicking lights, there's the sound of a fan and a performance of some kind, or an image of some kind is going to appear before my eyes soon enough. I'm kind of prepared for it, but in a way I'm not, I'm not really sure what I'm going to be experiencing. I'd be joined by one of the directors of MUSION, James Rock, who's developed the hologram that's about to play. James just explain what's going to happen and then let's have it happen.

JAMES ROCK: Okay Tim, what's you're going to see is an old theatre trick called "The Pepper's Ghost". But delivered in a modern twist using very bright video projectors, high definition video signals and a reflective medium that means you don't see how the trick is done. So if we just queue a file then we'll get your reaction from seeing this first clip which is a dancing girl.

TIM MARLOW: Blimies! Suddenly there's a girl. She's scantly clad, I think I'd say. She's dancing to some very soft music. And I have to say, as a trick, it's pretty good. I mean it does look like there is a three dimensional human figure up there.

JAMES ROCK: And actually what you're looking at is two dimensional video but the projection system creates the illusion that the image is there in space, on the working stage. So we could have the real dancer dancing next to her holographic image and it would be pretty difficult for the audience to differentiate who's real and who's not.

TIM MARLOW: What you are saying to me is absolutely compelling and for our listeners, fortunately they don't have the distraction of a scantly clad girl in the background dancing. I mean I feel I'm in some kind of gentleman's club. For reason's of decorum, but also because I want to see the range of what you do, can we see something else?

JAMES ROCK: Yeah, of course we can. Why don't we see if we can find His Royal Highness Prince Charles who was beamed into a environmental conference in Abu Dhabi as a key note speaker. And two and a half thousand eminent world future energy people saw Prince Charles give his address. And obviously he wasn't there and I think his last word is "Without so much as a carbon footprint, I'll leave you to enjoy the rest of the conference".

TIM MARLOW: Well while we await His Royal presence to appear on the screen, I mean that does raise one of the broader issues about the hologram. I mean one of the uses is for business, it's for conferencing, it's for conference calling, it's for meetings and so on and it does have this environmental spin off. Is that one of the motivations for developing it?

JAMES ROCK: It certainly has a huge application and we're definitely moving down that route in terms of cost savings and environmental savings for business meetings. We've done some work with a big telecoms provider where we've had a real life hologram sent down an internet signal. And somebody who was in San Hose appeared on a stage in Bangalore and talked to a CEO onstage, was able to look at the audience and take questions and answers from the audience, even though they were fourteen and half thousand miles away, in real time with no delay.

TIM MARLOW: Prince Charles is now here actually. Again that's pretty life like; I mean I don't know if you should remain seated at this particular point.

PRINCE CHARLES: I believe that we must use the world's natural resources responsibly and sustainably.

JAMES ROCK: We really do believe that we've got new media here. This is somewhere between live theatre and actual television. Some of the teleconferencing people are talking about video phones in your home where you'll be able to talk to your family and see them there.

TIM MARLOW: James I presume that this technology, as all technology in its early stages, is expensive. Roughly how much would something like this cost if it became a domestic possibility?

JAMES ROCK: I think it's difficult to give you an exact cost obviously. With economies of scale and business being able to mass market things, prices will come down. This is a top line product at the moment. There is the vision with the telecoms companies to actually put this into every house that has an internet feed and so it's going to become a mass market product certainly.

TIM MARLOW: How soon then?

JAMES ROCK: I'm not sure what the time scale is.

TIM MARLOW: Two years? Ten years?

JAMES ROCK: I would have thought within two years to five years yeah.

TIM MARLOW: And inevitably, celebrity culture has to start playing a role in all of this as it seems to be a global obsession. As you and I are talking, I think this is "Girls Aloud" isn't it? The five strong all girl band, and they're doing their make up. They're playing around performing as if we are looking into their dressing room but they're quite clearly aware that we're watching them and now they've gone into a dance routine.

JAMES ROCK: The girls performed a number in a high street shop window in South London and people were filming thinking that the girl's were actually there, missing their bus. It was quite, quite bizarre that job.