TECH

Tired of Zoom? US company creates hologram machine

Looking for a new way to communicate during the pandemic? A Los Angeles company created machines the size of phone booths to transmit live holograms to your living room.
The device manufactured by PORTL allows users to chat with someone else's life-size hologram.
The machines can also be equipped with technology to allow interaction with recorded holograms of historical figures or relatives who have passed away.
Each PORTL device is 2.1 meters high, 1.5 meters wide and anyone with a camera and a white background can send a hologram to the machine, in what Chief Executive David Nussbaum calls “holoporation”
"We say that if you can't be there, you can broadcast there," said Nussbaum, who previously worked at a company that developed Ronald Reagan's holograms for the library of the former president and rapper Tupac Shakur.
"We are able to connect families of military personnel who have not seen each other for months, people from opposite sides (from the United States)" or anyone in social isolation, added Nussbaum.
The machine starts at $60,000, a cost that Nussbaum expects to fall over the next three to five years. The company also plans a smaller device with a lower price that is expected to launch early next year.
The devices can be equipped with artificial intelligence technology from StoryFile, based in Los Angeles, to produce archival hologram recordings. Adding that to the current device raises the price to at least $85,000.
Companies are promoting the machine to museums, which can allow patrons to chat with holograms from a historical figure, and for families to keep messages for future generations.
"(You) feel their presence, see body language, see all non-verbal cues," said StoryFile chief executive Heather Smith.
"You feel like you've really talked to this guy, even if he's not there."

Provided by (https://portlhologram.com/)