
Mobile Holoportation - Qworg
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/holoportation-3/
======
neom
I'm not one to be easily impressed by technology and I must say the hololens
is incredibly incredibly impressive. We have a couple at the office and
whenever I spend time with one I'm really taken aback at what this will
become. I like VR, but the augmentation between the physical and the virtual
is what I'm most excited about. I mean it when I say, at least for me,
hololens really changed my frame of reality. I feel like I sound kinda fanboi
and overly enthusiastic, but I encourage you to try and find a way to use one
if you've not. (trying it for the first time:
[http://john.je/iDpX](http://john.je/iDpX))

~~~
cryptarch
I'm not sure what that link you posted is. Even after adding 15 uMatrix rules
I couldn't get it to work (whitelisted everything that wasn't tracking i.e.
Google Analytics, Segment, ShareThis).

~~~
neom
[https://d1ax1i5f2y3x71.cloudfront.net/items/063E411607300s0R...](https://d1ax1i5f2y3x71.cloudfront.net/items/063E411607300s0R3u2l/Slack%20for%20iOS%20Upload%20\(1\).mp4)

~~~
cryptarch
Thanks!

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cbisnett
> The greatest challenge was bandwidth, which we reduced by 97% using an
> innovative approach to compression.

Waiting for the Pied Piper partnership announcement.

~~~
nashashmi
You just introduced me to pied piper and that silicon valley sitcom. :(

I should have listened when someone said HN is just noise now.

~~~
mdrzn
It's a great tv serie! Season 3 is so contemporary.

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hossbeast
"Holoportation is 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. When combined with mixed reality displays such as
HoloLens, this technology allows users to see, hear, and interact with remote
participants in 3D as if they are actually present in the same physical
space."

~~~
chipperyman573
Do you mean an absolute reduction of 97% (100mb/s to 3mb/s, for example) or
relative (100mb/s to 53mb/s)?

~~~
cmdrfred
It says it now requires 30 - 50 Mbps, I would assume relative or this
compression algorithm is the real story here. Though, it could of been
uncompressed bitmaps or something to begin with.

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onlyrealcuzzo
So this "transports" you from inside a moving vehicle to a conference anywhere
in the world, assuming the conference is happening with participants wearing
Hololens.

It's crazy impressive, but it seems really far ahead of time for now. Crazy
exciting, but does anyone know when things like this will be more practical,
realistically?

~~~
nashashmi
Just like Apple believed and progressed towards facetime, Microsoft believed
and is progressing towards teleconferencing with people visibly present in
front of you.

~~~
joakleaf
Except Facetime, was really not the first of its kind -- We already had video
conferencing before it.

~~~
vidarh
The first publication of the idea of video-telephony, in fact came only a year
or two after the telephone, and the first _commercial_ video telephony service
was available for public use in the 30's... People usually don't realise just
how old that idea is...

Or how early it became viable on the internet - CU-SeeMee [1] was one of the
first services I used on the internet, back in '93.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CU-SeeMe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CU-
SeeMe)

------
soared
> we reduced [bandwidth requirements] by 97%

> The bandwidth required by Holoportation has been reduced to 30-50 Mbps

Does this mean the previous demos required 900+Mbps of bandwidth?

~~~
nneonneo
I believe that's compared against the full, raw bandwidth requirement of a
30fps hologram and texture.

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jaxomlotus
I think the real importance of this announcement is the reduction of needed
bandwidth by 97% while still maintaining transmission quality - that's
amazing!

~~~
arcticfox
I guess it doesn't amaze me at all without knowing a lot of details. I could
write the most naïve format imaginable as a first draft and easily get a 99%
reduction in a second version.

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doublerebel
Nvidia and Microsoft continue to play friendly competitors in the AR space.
Holoportation is quite similar to Nvidia's Virtual Eye tech, and MS [s]is
using some of Nvidia's optics tech[/s] [EDIT: is using Nokia's tech to compete
with Nvidias AR tech] in the Hololens. Could Nvidia get big enough that
Microsoft wouldn't buy them?

~~~
trsohmers
There are no NVIDIA parts in the Hololens... It uses a ULV Intel processor
with integrated graphics, along with what Microsoft calls a "holographic
processing unit" which is built by Microsoft, but utilizes slightly customized
Tensilica cores for DSP offload.

~~~
doublerebel
Oops it was Nokia's EPE optics I was thinking of, not Nvidia.

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escap
How does it work with N people ? Do I see other with Vive or hololens on their
head ? or the head is actually "reconstructed", and in that case, the eyes are
not tracked ?

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ocdtrekkie
This is the sort of thing that could spur on an interest in Windows as a
mobile platform again. Imagine if someday you could "holoport" to meet and
talk with people using your phone and a pair of glasses.

Of course, the article in question requires a setup in the car, which allows
them to place cameras, and currently it still requires Wi-Fi grade signal for
it to work.

~~~
AlexDanger
If this holo tech gets real traction I'd hope (and expect) that they'd go
cross-platform with iOS/Android as first class platforms. I like WinMo but its
not exactly hoovering up market share from Apple and Android.

Microsoft seems a bit more pragmatic about multi-platform now. I'm sure the
business model will revolve around running your holo-server on an Azure
instance or running holo-skype meetings from your corporate Office 365
subscription tied to your corporate iPad. They are moving towards
device/platform agnostic services. The lock-in is server side in the cloud :)

~~~
joakleaf
Microsoft is pushing Windows Holographic as OS.

It is a Windows platform where you can place 2D windows in 3D space while some
applications can display 3D graphics. You end up e.g. having a browser on one
wall, a photos app on another wall, and a weather app on a third wall. It is
not quite there yet, I think. But it is actually pretty cool!

For now, it feels like Microsoft is way ahead of Apple and Google on the OS
side.

~~~
obj-g
But isn't it just because they show things in development? Apple doesn't do
that. And Google has learned a few lessons in that regard too.

~~~
joakleaf
Hmm... Not entirely sure.

Windows Holographic is out there with end-users. Albeit with some/many
shortcomings and obviously still being developed (like every other OS) -- I
would compare it more to iOS 1.0, which was pretty stable but also had many
short comings.

Apple and Google haves not released anything for end-users or even demoed
anything... so I still feel Microsoft is ahead. Obviously, I don't know what
Apple and Google are working on internally (or Microsoft for that matter).

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kriro
How ready is Holoportation to play around with? If I get a developers edition
of the Hololense...could I recreate the guy with his kid in the room demo they
did?

Found this paper, guess I'll read it on the train:

[http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2984517](http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2984517)

