Holograms as such (three-dimensional images realistic floating in the air) are still an unworkable technology, but if you always wanted to appear to your loved ones like Palpatine did in his hey days, the Portl M is the closest thing you will find.
The device is literally a holographic monitor for the home. The images it shows are enclosed in the box-shaped space of the screen, but they manage to give a really convincing three-dimensional feeling thanks to a series of LEDs arranged inside them that show depth as well as shadows and reflections.
The technology is not exactly new. Portl is a company founded in 2019 by David Nussbaum, an expert in holography who has already worked on this type of images for events in worlds such as cinema or fashion. In fact, the company’s first product is the Portl Epic, a “box” two meters high and a meter and a half wide that allows the display of life-size holographs of people. You can see it in action in this video.
The Epic has speakers on the sides and a 4K touch screen that allows viewers to interact with the content it displays. It even has an independent Internet connection and wheels to transport it to your location. Portl offers the product together with a set of cameras designed to record the images to be displayed in three dimensions.
Obviously, it is a professional system focused on or events whose price is not available to the general public. That is why Portl has developed the Portl M, a much smaller device geared towards homes. The holographic monitor is not just for conferences. It can actually display any 3D content with superior realism and rotate to run portrait or landscape. It also has a touch screen, 16GB of memory to move images, 1TB of internal storage and a voice assistant in the form of a little holographic character. This is the video presentation of the Portl M:
So that a caller can be displayed in 3D, Portl has developed a specific mobile application called Portl Beam that takes advantage of the depth-sensing cameras of modern mobiles to work its magic. The app connects to a cloud space of the company itself that acts as an intermediary between the images that the mobile emits and those that arrive at Portl M. An own webcam allows the person on the mobile to see their interlocutors in a conventional 2D image like that of any video conference.
The Portl M just debuted at CES 2022 and will be available in the spring. In fact, it can already be reserved, although the manufacturer has not detailed its price. Only that it will be a price similar or lower than that of a home television. If you are interested in the product, you only have to pay $ 100 which costs the booking. The Portl M will make its definitive debut at the SXSW festival, shortly before its commercialization. Now we only need one younica and some blue lights to emulate the communications of our favorite Jedi.[[Portl via New Atlas]
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