Holoportation

Holoportation is Microsoft's newest idea for communication in the future. It's full body, realtime, virtual 3D teleportation of a human. It uses VR-like  tracking along with AR to create a Mixed Reality environment. It's revolutionary and a tremendously good idea.

This past week we had discussed different ways people are portrayed in a virtual environment. In applications like Virtual Temporal Bone the user is shown as a wand because to teach people about anatomy in a 3D body, it's better not to show the arms and hands. In applications such as the N.I.C.E. Project or VR Rec room, the users are shown as cartoonish boys and girls.  During his research, Professor Johnson mentioned that some people liked avatars that can represent them in some way (like the Dennis Rodman Chicago Bulls avatar for Chicagoans), but it's hard to make them representative without being stereotypical. Some VR chatrooms have limited selections of avatars and the robot ones are obviously not representative of the user. The most realistic we saw in class was having a person 3D scanned and making a model of themselves, but with limited movements.

It won't be used to teach anatomy, at least I'd hope not, but the Holoportation project addresses some of those other issues. The Holoporation project utilizes Microsoft's Hololens to allow the user to see the environment around them exactly as it truly is. Then they take another user who's in their own separate environment and using the the tracking systems from both users, both users can stand next to each other, one real and one virtual. Since the tracking areas overlap users can give each other virtual high fives and other items brought into the tracking area (like a table with items on it) will be shown to both users.

Not all users liked what they looked like or how they were portrayed in their virtual environments, and suit and tie folk actually wanted to be wearing a suit and tie in the virtual world. And some VR chatrooms have very limited sets of avatars with some being non-representative of users themselves. This can be a good thing in some cases, but bad at times when you might make a joke in the VR world and find out later there was a 10 year old standing (virtually) in front of you that probably shouldn't have heard it.

Using Holoportation you will look like yourself so no need for avatars. Grown men no longer have to embody little girls in virtual environments. You can communicate with real people knowing their real identities and knowing if children or gossipers are lurking in the vicinity. Some people communicate with family members or friends halfway around the world. Using a simple phone call or current VR chatroom to tell them about a new piece of clothing or jewelry is one thing. But using Holoportation it's possible to show them. Got a new pet? Bring Mittens into the tracking area and show everybody in real time. It's not practical for showing off your new car, but for smaller things it is. Holoportation is pretty much the closest thing you could have to face to face conversations... without needing to be anywhere near another person involved in the chat.