IBM Expects 3D Holographic Mobile Telepresence

You might be chatting to your friends as 3D holograms beamed up from your mobile phone within five years suggests IBM.

Today, computer giant IBM unveiled its fifth annual “Next Five in Five” – a list of innovations that IBM expect to change the way people live, work and play in the next five years and one of the five expected innovations is 'holographic 3D mobile conversations' – something that would truly be science fiction meeting reality.

According to IBM, within the next five years, people will be able to interact with 3D holograms of their friends and objects in real time transmitted (beamed) via the Internet, projected out of 3D mobile phone screens. Imagine speaking to a friend who is located in a different city to you as a 3D object!

IBM expect this to happen because of the entertainment industry’s move into 3D such as 3D movies, 3D gaming and 3D TV. Also, smartphones are likely to be shipped with 3D screens very soon (HTC are likely to be launching a 3D phone in 2011/2012) and as 3D and holographic cameras get more sophisticated and miniaturised into mobile phones, IBM expect us to be communicating with friends, browsing the web and interacting with friends in entirely new ways, possibly Minority Report style!

You might be surprised to discover that scientists are developing ways to enhance video calling by working on 3D tele-presence. The technique uses light beams scattered from objects and reconstructs that to reconstruct an image of that object. What an interesting prospect!

IBM’s prediction of 3D holographic video chat is a bold one as currently, the technology to project holographic 3D images into the air does not exist, plus the bandwidth requirements would be extremely high. Then one also has to ask whether there would be a demand for holographic telepresence. Mobile video calling never really took off as expected when first launched. There was a terrible voice delay over the 3G networks meaning talking to a friend was similar to speaking to him or her via satellite. Plus, people generally prefer to get on with other tasks rather than being forced to stare into a screen. Conversations changed from “how are you?” to novel tours of people’s houses, lots of waving and flattery about the recipient’s clothes.  It was fun for a while but seriously, when was the last time your video Skyped someone?

However, I hope 3D holographic video chats do come and stay and IBM's expectations are based on sophisticated data. Imagine being able to invite friends over for holographic dinner parties – bringing a bottle would just be a trip to the fridge (plus you can drink the lot yourself!) Rows could be interesting – rather than slam the phone down you could dramatically pixellate off. No more waiting for the nightbus  - going home would be a flick of a switch and a crawl upstairs. Could this lead to an even more obese future? Perhaps, but by then printable food will fullfill all our dietary requirements anyway!

For more information about 3D holographic mobile phones and IBMs other expectations for the next five years including air breathing batteries watch the following video …

You might also be interested in reading more about DVE Telepresence solution.

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