When dealing with futuristic technologies like virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) it’s difficult not comparing them with some of the great science fiction ideas. How about holographic conversations like that seen on Star Wars for example? Well businesses like DoubleMe are taking steps towards that reality, with the company announcing this week it has been awarded a $3 million USD grant.
The R&D grant was given by the Institute for Information & Communications technology Promotion (IITA), an R&D strategy and planning agency under the Ministry of Science, ICT, and Future Planning in South Korea.
Inspired by a Microsoft Research paper: “Holoportation: Virtual 3D Teleportation in Real-time,” from 2016, DoubleMe began work on its holographic mixed reality capture technology to make holoportation affordable and accessible. A recent success saw the company develop a new algorithm that only requires one depth sensor, and one PC to process high-quality holoportation in real-time.
To help expedite the idea of personal holoportation and win the grant, DoubleMe collaborated with The University of Surrey 5G Innovation Centre (5GIC), optimising the system for a rollout onto the 5G network by the end of 2019.
Helping make the dream of holoportation a reality is Professor Rahim Tafazolli, Director of 5GIC at the University of Surrey, Recently awarded the title of Regius Professor in Electronic Engineering, given to the University of Surrey by Her Majesty the Queen to mark her Diamond Jubilee, Prof Tafazolli commented: “We have been working with DoubleMe for the last two years testing and trialling different VR/AR/MR applications on our testbed. DoubleMe is a visionary company with many talented people. I am looking forward to our teams working closely together and develop advance VR/AR/MR applications for mass market using 5G networks,”
“DoubleMe is always about making this new digital medium, digital holography, widely accessible for everyone,” said Albert Kim, CEO and founder of DoubleMe. “We’ve been demonstrating a large number of applications by working with students and staff at Ravensbourne University London for two years. This new innovation will accelerate the technology adoption. At the end, it will be the real-life Jedi Holographic Conference for everyone.”
DoubleMe has begun working with major telcos and telecommunication equipment manufacturers on global commercial deployment of the “5G-enabled personal holoportation” platform. To see what all this actually means check out the video below, and for further updates on its research, keep reading VRFocus.
via Mint VR