One of the most attractive announcements in 2021 Google I/O is "Project Starline", the future of the video conference. Although there is "Google Meet" for video conference, Project Starline is more advanced and real. This is a technology that combines more advanced hardware and software to make video conferences into reality. Let's understand.
During this pandemic, most of the people are getting used to video conference either Google Meet, ZOOM, Teams etc. In spite of Google Meet, the Google team worked on different options to make the video conference more attractive and real. A big thanks to Google for thinking about such a solution. It is a combination of hardware and software, which uses more information from an image and converts that into a compressed digital data to transfer within available network bandwidth. And again represent this into the screen. This is an amazing, 3D video conference. Feels like you are looking through a window, you see another person. You can talk naturally by making eye contact.
To make this experience possible, Google applied their research in computer vision, machine learning, spatial audio and real-time compression. They have also developed a breakthrough light field display system that creates a sense of volume and depth that can be experienced without the need for additional glasses or headsets. Virtually you can feel that you are with someone, just like they're actually present.
I know for a few people it is a waste. What is the advantage of a 3D video conference? For technology lovers, this is an advancement of video conference which no one thought of before. On the other hand this is an emotion of a human being. You can see your nearest or dearest person in front of your eyes which gives you the feeling that you can touch them.
Project Starline is currently available in just a few of Google's offices and it relies on custom-built hardware and highly specialized equipment. In future this will be available with more affordable and accessible systems with some technical advancements.
However, one point is very clear that this is not for any mobile platform. This technology can provide a benefit to the medical industry. Consultation with the patient in real 3D will be a great application for this. This is a lesson learnt from this pandemic.
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