World’s First Two-Way International Holographic Teleporting Brings Future To Now

The sci-fi future of teleportation is finally within reach, following an experiment that has successfully conducted two-way international holographic transportation.

A team of researchers at the University of Western Ontario made considerable progress in the realm of holographic interfaces with their latest experiment. Students in a boardroom were “holoported”—conjoined from the words ‘holograph’ & ‘teleport’—to a different country.

This was done by using a special camera and a ‘HoloLens’—that resembles gaming headsets—to instantly transport their holographic selves from Ontario, Canada to Alabama, USA.

In April this year, a similar experiment took place where NASA sent a surgeon to the International Space Station via hologram. This experiment, however, is the first time international borders have been crossed via “holoport”.

Holographic teleportation was achieved with the help of hardware from Microsoft and software from Aexa Aerospace. A special camera is used to create a holographic image of the person. The image is then sent to a person wearing the ‘HoloLens’ at the destination of their choice.

The projection will appear as if it’s a part of the environment, and both parties can interact as if they were really there.

The team hopes to advance this technology to aid the medical field. With the help of Canadian company Leap Biosystems, such advancements can bring medical relief to rural areas where access to medicine and help is not readily available.

However, at most, all doctors can do through this new form of communication is talk to patients and assess their vitals. Physical touch is something that cannot be replicated through holograms—yet. However, the team also mentioned they are studying haptic abilities that could possibly be implemented in the future.

[via Interesting Engineering and InceptiveMind, cover image via Western University]