Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica and Vodafone are working together on a joint project with software developer MATSUKO to realise mass market holographic communication. Working with standard smartphones and VR glasses, the hologram call should feel like a normal video call, with the selfie camera on the smartphone filming the face, and each caller seeing the other as a digital hologram in his or her VR glasses, with the 3D effects – back of head, etc – delivered via AI, all achievable thanks to the 5G network.
“We are in an exciting phase,” said Sven von Aschwege, XR Topic Lead, global devices partnerships at Deutsche Telekom. “New technologies are emerging and with them new opportunities. Telephoning as if the person I was talking to was standing in front of me is such a dream that is now getting closer to reality. We are testing this together with the other mobile phone companies. Because holographic phone calls should work for all connections and not just among the customers of an operator.”
Daniel Hernández, VP devices & consumer IoT of Telefónica, added: “We are confident that in the near future we will be able to offer our customers a new way of communicating by using this new holographic technology to offer a more immersive ‘virtual’ experience . Our cross-operator collaboration with MATSUKO will help accelerate this innovation and ensure it works regardless of the operator chosen.”
Matus Kirchmayer, CEO of MATSUKO, concluded “The goal of the project is a holographic experience with a virtualized transmission approach. This should enable the audience to see a person virtually – as a hologram – with amazing realism.”
