Meeting with Avatars

Avatar, the first movie in history to generate more than $2 billion worldwide in gross sales, was also famous for creating an utopia so enchanting that many audience fell into depression once they returned to the real world after watching the film. What if we were to tell you that avatars do exist in the real world? And that a company has found a way to integrate avatars to our world in order to provide a more substantial impact than merely teasing our minds with the magic dust of science fiction.

Avatar: the 2009 James Cameron movie

The company, ProtonMedia, has developed a software called Protosphere in which life science organizations can use avatars in a virtual conference space to conduct various meetings and group collaboration around the world. Each user is represented by an avatar, connected to a SharePoint profile, blog and wiki. Protosphere allows simultaneous meetings to occur across time zones, thus expediting the most time-consuming process in the drug development phase in which work is passed around between work sites that may be several time zones apart. 

ProtoSphere: Engaging global communication and collaboration via avatars

This virtual work place has many applications that extend beyond overcoming the challenges of simultaneous global communication. According to ProtonMedia, Protosphere is also used across the product life cycle wherever knowledge transfer, collaboration and learning are critical to successful outcomes. Therefore, the use ranges from collaborative research and development, virtual clinical trials, sales training and enablement and project teaming.

Protosphere touches upon a core discussion in today’s IT community: is IT really changing our world? Or is it merely creating new means that provide a more efficient space to convene knowledge via platforms? In the case of Protosphere, it provides an example which bridges the two sides of this argument. Even though Protosphere changed the way that conference meetings are normally conducted through the use of virtual reality technology, the software is nothing more than a new tool that collects knowledge more efficiently to help companies achieve higher productivity. With Photosphere, companies can reduce substantial costs associated with employee travels and can transfer savings into R&D projects, etc. However, ProtonMedia’s use of avatars in the software design raised an interesting point- that human interaction is necessary to enhance engagement level in a virtual setting and acts as an irreplaceable component of virtual reality.

So, it’s like avatar but not J   

Holograms: the music industry Holy Grail?

On May 10, 2012, BBC broadcasted in their website an article where Brian May, Queen’s guitarist, revealed that Freddie Mercury, who is dead for 21 years, would make an “appearance” during the show “We Will Rock You”, at London’s Dominion Theatre.

This performance would celebrate the 10^th anniversary of the Queen’s musical “We Will Rock You”, that is on scene since May 14, 2002, in West End, London. According to Brian, they pretend to give their fans a “live performance” using holographic techniques, and some sort of optical illusions. Among other things, he stated that the “2Pac show” in Coachella music festival wasn’t a pioneer project in terms of holographic entertainment, because the musical’s production team was working for quite a while on the performance of the charismatic singer and entertainer and the idea of having Freddie on stage was a really old one. He also mentioned that the “2Pac show” was kind of an unfortunate event for them, since they were working for so long on Freddie’s unprecedented appearance. Nevertheless, he was confident about the output and even mentioned "People will come out saying, 'did we actually see Freddie?’".

Freddie Mercury, singer, songwriter and entertainer

Brian May also announced that the Hollywood star Robert de Niro would make a special appearance, since he is one of the show’s producers, and he is also associated with this unique show.

Ben Elton, Robert de Niro, Brian May and Roger Taylor

As you all probably know, Brian May is the Queen’s famous guitarist who, in the early 70s, started the band with Roger Taylor, the band’s drummer, and Freddie Mercury, the lead singer and "one of rock's greatest all-time entertainers", according to Allmusic.

We believe that this unprecedented performance opens a completely new chapter in the music industry and raises some questionable issues? Is this the holy grail of music, the juice that leads to immortality? Will the expression post-mortem make any sense in the future? What kind of opportunities does it creates for music producers?

Wouldn’t you buy a ticket for a concert where Ray Charles is in the piano, Bob Marley is in the guitar, Elvis Presley is singing and Michael Jackson is dancing?

Check here the BBC article...

Holographic Projections: the future?

Remember our first article? The one with a digitally recreated hologram of 2pac? If you do remember, then you will recall that, in our reflection on the potential for this type of technology, we mentioned that this could be very helpful for things like business conferencing and communicating amongst friends as an alternative to current forms of video conferencing, such as Skype.

Well, apparently someone was listening because today we logged into WIRED and found the following article:

3-D Video Pod Delivers 360-Degree, Holograph-Like Projections

So TeleHuman is a cylinder that transmits real time videoconferences in 3D as well as a 360-degree view of the opposite party.  The unit has two main components: a cylinder with a special display with an internal projection mechanism, and a set of cameras that track and capture your position as you communicate with whomever is on the other end of the conversation. TeleHuman uses Kinect technology (we are assuming their referring to Microsoft Xbox Kinect) and distortion correction to transmit the users movements. This includes 10 different sensors placed adequately to replicate your position from a 360-degree perspective.

The TeleHuman is so sophisticated that it can supposedly allow users to make eye-contact (something that seems impossible to do on current standard video conference units and programs) as well as an accurate depiction of where people are pointing.

Director of Human Media Lab and Professor of Human-Computer Interaction Roel Vertegaal explains the utility of TeleHuman by saying that “when you think about preserving human communication, it’s more about what you leave out rather than what you add. With this system, we’re trying to leave out as little as possible”.

Professor Raul Vertegaal. Photo:Ariel Zambelich/Wired

We can certainly understand Mr. Vertegaal’s idea, and it makes a lot of sense, but apparently including as much reality as possible comes at the expense of image quality and the users visual convenience. Your image is transmitted within the cylinder. Although the image may appear holographic, it is not. The current technology allows only for low-res images and requires the use of special glasses for 3D imaging. If you look at the demonstration video in the bottom of the article you can really sense that what is projected has rather low image quality, despite its innovative nature.

We must take into account that TeleHuman is very new, and it’s purpose brings together a variety of recent, important technologies such as motion sensoring, virtual/augmented reality and improved visual communication that are currently being used in the business world, video games and digital imaging. Although TeleHuman may be too primitive right now to serve a purpose in any particular thing, the article mentions that doctors may use it to make physical examinations without the presence of a patient and it can be used for sports instruction; it has already been used effectively for yoga instructions. We believe that if developed properly it can be used for more day-to-day things like business meetings, conferences, and inter-personal communication (as mentioned in the 2pac article).

Nonetheless, we don’t believe this will revolutionize the way we communicate with each other, simply because it is not a convenient technology for daily use.  Since there is no hologram the cylinder is currently “life size”, standing at 6 feet and 5 inches, which takes up a lot of space. Also most people prefer non visual communication for daily conversations, either because internet speed is too slow to support video, they don’t want to go through the hassle of formally video conferencing another person, or because they simply feel more comfortable without having the visual aspect while talking over the phone or computer.

If you think about how often you use the camera on your phone or computer versus traditional phone calls you know that video conferencing is a niche. At the end of the day technology like TeleHuman can enhance videoconferencing within that particular niche, but it likely won’t alter traditional forms of communicating.

Watch the video...

Virtual Training: even more real!

Following up on last week´s blog we found the following article: http://io9.com/5861137/army-wants-virtual-training-to-really-hurt

If you read last week´s blog and the article we have posted this week then you now know that the army is considering giving every soldier helmets for virtual reality training simulations and that they can possibly incorporate real physical damage to these simulations.

First of all let me say that if this is in fact true it is truly remarkable. One thing is to place a helmet on your head that creates an alternative visual environment that may be similar to a combat experience. Another thing is that a wrong move or decision within this virtual environment may cause you physical harm. Certainly a soldier will have more at stake during training that will force him to take his training more seriously. If the threat of physical harm is not present in these simulations, a soldier would be more likely to slack off and/or not take this particular training with the right approach.