PARIS ― The French mobile operator Orange, together with Germany’s Deutsche Telekom, Spain’s Telefónica and the UK’s Vodafone have joined forces with the Matsuko startup to develop a European platform for holographic communications.
The idea is for callers to be able to appear in hologram form, either in a real or entirely virtual environment.
The aim of these four operators is to offer immersive 3D experiences to their home and business customers in the coming years, thanks in particular to advances in communications networks. Indeed, a high-speed, low-latency network like 5G makes it possible to create and manage smooth, seamless holograms, opening up a whole range of potential uses in the metaverse.
A first pilot project should allow a few customers to embark on this kind of holographic communications session. As such, a person equipped with a 5G smartphone would be able to film themselves and appear to their counterparts in the form of a real-time, 3D holographic image processed by a 3D rendering algorithm.
This hologram can then appear, move and interact either in a real environment, such as a meeting room, or in an entirely virtual setting. However, for the moment, the result can only be viewed through augmented reality glasses or virtual reality headsets.
