Friday, September 20, 2019

3D Interactive Interface & The Evolution of Technology



This week, our exploration of social media and culture took us deeper into the history of the internet’s early days, which was touched upon earlier this semester during Josh Harris’ tale in “We Live In Public”. Again, we came across yet another extreme viewpoint regarding the evolution of technology in the podcast “What does technology want?”, similar to that of Harris’.

Intrigued by such uninhibited passion, I decided to look further into what specific direction the internet and technology as a whole can take from now on. One very notable theme I’ve found is the gradual transition from 2D to 3D in many aspects of technology, especially communication.

Below are two clips from roughly 2008, from two popular products of entertainment: MCU’s first Iron Man, and Heavy Rain, and Heavy Rain, an interactive drama and action-adventure game developed by Quantic Dream. Both of which predicted an advanced forms of interaction with 3D holograms which seemed implausible at the time but are becoming more and more of a possibility:

The third video clip was an ongoing research by Microsoft back in 2016 on a new type of 3D capture technology that allows high quality 3D models of people to be reconstructed, compressed, and transmitted anywhere in the world in real-time called Holoportation. If you access the link in the video, you can see that Holoportation have since become mobile, allowing users to transfer a 3d hologram of oneself to their conversation partner even while sitting on a moving vehicle.

Said research, coupled with other emerging virtual reality products such as the reputable Oculus Rift gaming headset, makes me quite positive that Tony Stark’s tinkering with his 3D hologram models isn’t as far fetched as we all thought more than 10 years ago. Let me know what you guys think in the comments: do you think interacting with 3D holograms in real time will become a thing? What other trends have you noticed within the last decade?

2 comments:

  1. This blog post was very futuristic and interesting. It reminded me of the Black Mirror episode where the two best friends from college reconnect and engage in a video game. In the video game they are like real life people and do not require controllers. The difference between the episode and the blog post is that I believe you are implying that it is a 3D hologram of the person them selves. This is some Zenon, Spy Kids or Jetsons stuff in my opinion. Who knew we could discuss something even more extreme than Black Mirrors take on the absolute extremes of technology.

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  2. This blog post reminds me of how a lot of pop culture in movies and television shows influences technological innovations. Like in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey it features Hal 9000, which is the artificial intelligence that helps run the space ship that helps transport the main characters in space. Or like how cell phones were inspired by Star Trek’s Handheld Communicator, even Martin Cooper the creator the cell phone admits it, https://youtu.be/wN-_VA5HFwM. Lastly, i movie I can think of that probably had an impact with tech was Minority Report. In that movie, they had a computer that takes gestures to do certain things on the computer, https://youtu.be/wN-_VA5HFwM . Sorta like how smartphones/MacBooks require the same kind of gestures to do certain actions with those devices, unlike the movie we don't need special gloves todo so.

    Technology and pop culture seemingly go hand in hand it feels like, sorta like the points you made with one of Heavy Rain’s protagonists, FBI Agent Norman Jayden who has some AR glasses which helps him analyze what happened during crime scenes. Which parallel to Microsoft’s headset peripheral, the Hololens that you also linked as your real-life example. Now It could be a possibility in the near future that could be one of many practical uses of the Hololens.

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