Future Internet will transmit live holograms of people

By Dick Pelletier

      

     Internet2, a new higher-speed worldwide web originally created for the science, corporate and education communities will one day transmit live holographic images of people indiscernible from reality, and provide an array of futuristic applications for consumers.

     With video resolution sharper than today's HDTV and nano-enhanced haptic technologies that provide a realistic sense of touch, researchers will create holographic images of people filmed thousands of miles away enabling lifelike virtual interactions between people (think of the doctor character in Star Trek Voyager). Cameras will capture images of participants from two or more places, process the data, and feed it back to each location.

     We could organize get-togethers with business associates, or friends and relatives from cities scattered around the globe – without anyone actually traveling. We would shake hands, or hug and kiss as if we were all in the same room. Our senses of sight and nano-enhanced touch would convince our minds that the holograms we are interacting with are real people.

     But in order to accomplish these video transmissions and personal interactions and make them appear so real and lifelike, it will require an enormous amount of bandwidth. Bandwidth is the speed at which text, pictures, and videos flow over the Internet.

     Think of the now-vanishing dial-up, with modem speeds of 56 Kilobits-per-second as a slow country road. Broadband such as DSL or cable with 10-to-100 Megabits-per-second might be a city street that you travel to the mall. Internet2, with bandwidths of 100 Gigabits-per-second, but which, according to experts, will soon reach Terabyte speeds, would be the superhighway.

     With a Terabyte-speed Internet, many new projects become possible. Research scientists from around the world will be able to access the Large Hadron Collider in Cern, Switzerland, due to switch on in early 2009, and understand how the universe began; or observe black holes and wormholes as they are created.

     And medical researchers will connect to remote supercomputers and run trillions of simulated trials with biotech and nanotech experiments that could speed cures for cancer, heart disease, obesity, and other killer diseases.

     With this high-speed wonder practically begging for users, when might this technology find its way into our homes? According to the Internet2 consortium, over five million people, including students; and corporate, government, and university researchers, are already using the precursor to this advanced Internet.

     Experts predict that by 2012 Internet2 will find its way into many US homes, and by 2018, holographic transmissions could become possible. We can already download movies through our computer to the TV. "I expect that we will soon see downloadable videos to cell phones viewable on wide-screen eye glasses," says University of Washington researcher Michael Wellings.

     Another futuristic system discussed at Carnegie Mellon might one day enable people to 'teleport' their body over the Internet. Forward-thinkers Todd Mowry and Seth Goldstein believe that by 2030, advanced nanotech will enable us to send a person’s atoms through the Internet, including a copy of their consciousness, and reassemble them at another destination. "Beam me up Scotty."

     Will this future happen? Consumers who want to expand their circle of friends, and corporations searching for business meeting alternatives could turn this "magical future" into reality.

This article appeared in various print publications and on-line blogs. Comments always welcome.