technabob » hologram

the future of desktop computing is looking more and more like star trek

lambert v. — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 13:16:19 +0000

Microsoft’s “top research and strategy officer” Craig Mundie demoed various flashy & functional future tech that the company believes will be an integral part of the future desktop computing experience. Mundie’s demo included “hologram-like videoconferencing, a virtual digital assistant, and multiple surface computers, along with voice-, touch- and gesture-recognition technology.” Where’s the visual & olfactory recognition tech?

Mundie’s sample office setting eschewed the keyboard, mouse and even the monitor. His desk was a multi-touch surface computer, and the walls were monitors as well, capable of displaying “a virtual window or collection of digital photos to a corkboard of sticky notes or various workspaces.” That’s nice, except I hope that in the future we’ll still have real views and not “virtual windows”. Mundie also showcased a Project Natal-like tech, wherein he put himself in the middle of an architectural demo. Imagine being able to see and walk through a life-size model of your house before it’s actually built. The future is going to be awesome. To those who can afford it anyway.

[via Crave UK]

karlsson station hologram: the clock has two faces

technabob — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 23:41:53 +0000

Here’s a nifty clock that’s a bit more dynamic than what you’d typically see hanging on your wall. Depending on the angle you view it from, the face either shows simple hash marks or numerals around the dial.

Named for its similarity to clocks which appear in train stations around Europe, the Station Numbers Hologram clock was designed by Dutch designers Ruben van Boxtel & Reinier Buijs for Karlsson.

And while I’m not really sure that the display counts as a true hologram, there’s definitely some sort of lenticular printing illusion used to produce the effect. And if simple black on white isn’t your thing, the clocks are also available in white on red and white on black versions with stainless steel accents.

You can find a wide variety of Karlsson clocks – including these ones – over at UK retailer ClockCo for £30 (appx. $59 USD) each.

cisco unveils star wars-esque hologram communication

karen m. — Sat, 31 May 2008 00:24:00 +0000

Cisco has unveiled and demonstrated their new On-Stage TelePresence Holographic Video Conferencing. In layman’s terms, it means that now you can actually do that thing they do in Star Wars when they talk to a Princess Leia hologram, and I have to say, it looks quite convincing.

The video is pretty boring except for the fact that it’s a guy on stage talking to two holograms of people who are in other countries. In fact, they look so realistic that it took me a while to figure out that they were holograms. I kept advancing the video to look for the hologram part. So I think that’s proof-positive that this is fully legit.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

This is really heartening because there are so many things from the 70s and 80s that we were supposed to have in the future, and we still don’t have them. Hello, hoverboards? Robot servants? Flying cars? Vacations on the moon? Robocop? And all we got is the Internet. OK, OK, actually the Internet is way cooler than all of those things I just named. But still, I’m glad someone’s ticked one of these “future” technologies off the list and put it squarely into the present.

[via ajb{log}]