Google begins testing Project Starline with customers: sci-fi-like technology for video calls
Google’s sci-fi 3D video calling technology, Project Starline, was announced last May. Starline consists of advanced booths that make it possible to talk to others as if they were there and sitting opposite, even though they are somewhere else.
The company has described the technology as a “magical window” that shows the other party in life-size 3D. Given that the solution is costly and uses cutting-edge technology, Starline will not become consumer electronics in the first place.
However, Google will soon conduct tests with corporate customers such as T-Mobile, Salesforce and WeWork. In addition to recreating the conversation participants in 3D, Starline also includes spatial sound to make it feel like the speech is coming directly from the people’s mouths.
The opponent is recreated in 3D (without the help of glasses) on a 65-inch screen with 8K resolution. Starline doesn’t really enable much new in practical terms, but being able to have conversations from a distance as if both were sitting across from each other can have great value in itself.
Even objects that are held up, such as an apple in the hand, are shown in 3D and appear as if they were very close. The technology is demonstrated below in a demo from last year.
