November 13, 2012 • 23 mins
Star Trek was famous for its holodeck, a completely immersive holographic environment that could be any space a user wanted. Thanks to telemersion technology built for business conferencing, we're starting to get close to that holodeck after all.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to you stuff you should know from house Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant that makes this stuff.
You snow. Jerry's back there. We're all set got our
(00:21):
Mike's got the dinosaur. What's this dinosaur's name? Frank the chairs?
Uncle is here year old uncle who's in the Olympics,
Uncle Merle, the Frank the chair. His uncle Merle is
the dinosaur. Oh I was talking about the chairs sitting in?
Is that a nameless Oh yeah, this isn't Frank. Is
it Frank's on set at our TV show that we're shooting,
(00:42):
unfortunately with a TV show we're making. Is that set in? Uh? Yeah,
it's set in that I had to sit in that
stupid chair for sixty hours a couple of weeks ago. Yeah,
it's hilarious. Yeah, they followed us there. Uh okay, So
this is Uncle Merle the dinosaur, the stegasaurs. I believe sure.
It's like a stack of source cross with a sharp
pay Look at all those wrinkles. That's about it, all right.
(01:07):
If you want to get in touch with us, hey, buddy,
if you don't mind if I plug my November page
real quick, please do. I am growing a mustache this
month for November for uh for cancer research, specifically male
prostate cancer research. That's right. And you can donate to
my team, which would be pretty cool because you know,
(01:29):
you get a free podcast and it'd be nice to
throw a little money towards cancer research. Being nice here,
give him some money. He's growing out facial here to
help a charitable organization engage in really important scientific research.
That's right. And you can go to mobro dot c
O slash Charles Bryant and that's my page, or just
(01:51):
go to the November site. Type in Charles Bryan in
the search bar and look for the picture of me.
There's only a couple of us out there. Chuck's wearing
a red shirt. It's yeah, um, so what is that again?
That's mo bro dot CEO slash Charles Bryant. Yes, thank
you in advance. Yeah, that's nice, Chuck. All right, let's
get to it. Chuck, you selected this one. How do
(02:12):
you feel it sounded a lot cooler? Yeah. We're talking
about holographic environments. Yeah, and you hear that you think
Man Star Trek. Yeah, it comes to life. So I
wanted to make sure I knew what I was talking about,
and I went and looked up the holidack. Yeah, and
it's apparently just from the next generation, like it wasn't
like original. I didn't see anything. I even looked on
(02:33):
a Star Trek wiki and it's it seemed to indicate
the first I'm so nervous right now. Well let's say this.
We'll find out one way or the other very quickly.
But it seemed to indicate from my cursory research that
the holidack was a feature on the Enterprise from the
twenty three sixties e g. Or I e. The next generation.
(02:57):
All right, so what it was? The hollow deck? Have
you seen it? Are you familiar? Star Trek cital? And
now I was in a Star Trek guy. I mean,
it just kind of got past me. But have you
seen it? Did you? Did you see it? Yeah? Okay,
it's cool. You know, it is a projection, a holographic
projection room, and basically, you know, is what you would think.
You know, remember in Star Wars, which I am a
(03:19):
fan of, when our two D two spit out the
little holographic image of Princess Leiah rendering her message. Um,
imagine a room of life sized people doing that as
if you're interacting. Yes, that's a very important key, um,
because what we're talking about is not just a three
D projection like Star Wars clunked along with. But we're
(03:41):
talking about the Star Trek holographic environment where you can
move around and you get a three D and sixty
degree view and you can shake hands and maybe uh,
have a cocktail or play a trombone or something with
someone else in a virtual environment. But you can interact
like you don't like when you walk around the backside
(04:02):
of somebody. It's not you're not getting in the way
of the projector. Can I read a line from the article? Yes,
eventually you will even be able to hug other people
using this technology. They should have put hug in quotes
because because it's not a hug, No, they're not really there.
Oh I meant I thought that they were talking about
(04:24):
like having virtual sex. Of course, it's going to go
to virtual sex. It's gonna be the first thing that
they come up with. That's what everybody at Microsoft is
working on right now. I'm quite sure you'll make a
trillion dollars it's like, uh, is it total recall? Ah, yeah,
where you had the three D or virtual reality experiences. Yeah,
(04:46):
and I'm sure it's been another stuff too. I'm not
thinking of like total recall the remake. Yeah, that was
the other thing I was thinking of. All right, what
we're talking about telet immersion. That's the real name for it, yes,
not the holidack, And it right now is mainly being
um developed for a few different things, potentially video game use, hugging,
(05:07):
hugging your family members at Christmas, yeah you can't be there, um,
but mainly for uh, something that's not quite as exciting
video conferencing, right which we've seen like the pinnacle of
video conferencing right now, I think so, Yeah, man, they
owe us a couple of bucks. Yeah, we've plugged them
(05:28):
like heavily. Well, I mean it's amazing technology, it is,
but it's it's just like nothing compared to teleimersion. Yeah,
goal of true. And this article is has got to
be outdated, because laughably out of date because after witnessing
the Tanburg in use, which basically feels like you're sitting
in a room, you know, it's HD It's not like
(05:50):
a hologram or three D or anything. But it's really
good and it feels like you're sitting in a room
with someone. There's no lag, there's no stuttering. And this
article talks about like these days, you know, there's some
stuttering and flickering when you try to teleconference. Right, they
figured that all out, they did. Um. They also this
article you know, this article also no it's not but
which I mean, like it's kind of I think where
(06:12):
the tele immersion was at when this article was written.
Where we're at with like it's pretty decent now, you know.
But the the the author Kevin Bondser makes a point
like if you walk out of the way of the webcam,
nobody can see you any longer if you are um,
like when you're looking at the computer screen, the webcams
(06:33):
getting your eyes, but you're not making eye contact, like
nobody thinks to do that. That's all this stuff just
kind of goes away with tele immersion. Um, because you
have a webcam that's tracking your eyes to see where
you're where you're looking at. That's a big part of it.
Facial recognition helps with that too, and then also there's
a camera ray. It's not just one webcam pointing at you.
(06:54):
Your there's cameras around you, but pretty much three D
and sixty degrees, so there capturing everything you're doing. So
you can't leave the the view of the other person. Yeah,
you have to go into a different room and then
what you know, what's the point? Hang up? Your call
is over at that point, unless you just have to
(07:16):
be real quick and you're like, hold on, I'll be
right back. Um. One thing that's in the way right now.
I mean, they made a lot of headway that this
article points out in two thousand, twelve years ago is
when they made their first big breakthrough. Um uh, the
National telet Immersion Initiative. Yes, working together Chapel Hill looks
(07:37):
like North Carolina. Did you look up this group? Are
they still around? Their websites still around? But they reached
their pinnacle in May two thousand. Is it my space? Oh? Man,
yeah it is. And it's like what we're doing two thousand? Nothing? Nothing?
All right? Well, at the time, it was a big
(07:58):
breakthrough because it was the first time they were able
to see three dimensional holographic images of like colleagues in
different cities. Yeah, all sitting in the same room, right,
And it was a big deal. Yeah, and that's we
should also say, like the point of telemersion is basically
to create say if you want to telecommunity and you
have a conference, rather than everybody flying to the conference room,
(08:21):
you have a virtual conference room set up to where
everybody basically projects himself into this shared space, the shared
room that you can get up and move around and
see from different angles and um, each user is depicted
three D and sixty degrees. So it it is a
sort of telepresence, is what they call it. Yeah, and
it's sort of a green initiative to you could look
(08:43):
at it that way. Yeah, save a lot on jet
fuel and commuting costs, and that there's some huge challenges
to this there we're back in two thousand and it's um,
a lot of them are still around. One of them
is the kind of bandwidth that we will need because
I think it's said for the frame to refresh itself
um at ten, or the screen to refresh itself, or
(09:05):
the projection to refresh it time frames a second, that'd
be seamless, but it was hitting at like three back
in two thousand. I wonder what is that now. I'm
sure that we can do that now, but the problem is, um,
transmitting that data right is problematic, shuts up a lot
of bandwidth. Yeah. So you're talking about two things. A
(09:27):
computers that are way more juiced than they are now
even now, and you're talking about an internet um from
my internet to basically yeah, now that's still going on, right,
it's um basically this initiative by a bunch of universities
around the country to wire the US at speeds that
(09:49):
are just blistering fast compared to what we've got now,
up to a thousand times faster. That's really really fast. Um.
They also have enormous storage capabilities, and I saw one
of the things that they're doing is using this to
move out to underserved areas of the country. Oh really, Yeah,
it's not just like just it's not just for New
(10:10):
York or Francisco. It's like, yeah, it's for North Dakota.
Why can't North Dakota get online? Finally, that's funny. Uh
but true. You also have UM, well just basically tracking somebody,
which Microsoft has done a lot to get past. Are
(10:32):
you talking about that new thing, the hollow desk? Yes, yeah,
I just found this today. Did you look at that
the video? Yeah, it's pretty cool. Microsoft is developing something
and this is current UM called the hollow desk, and
UM he uses an overhead screen to project a two
D two D image through a half silvered beam splitter
(10:55):
onto a desktop. Basically, what it looks like is, UM,
it looks like you're working on a desk with a
screen between you and the desk. I can see through
clear screen. Yeah, so if you look below that screen,
you're just gonna see your hands doing nothing. If you
look through that screen, you're gonna see holographic images. In
this case, there were like little glowing balls that you
(11:15):
could pick up and juggle, and you could pick it
up with a piece of paper. You could put it
in a coffee cup and swirl it around. Pretty cool. Yeah,
that's huge. That's hugely different than anything that this article
was talking about or anything we thought of before, because
like you're interacting with a virtual environment. It's reacting to you.
I mean, yeah, super advanced. And it was like you
(11:38):
could tell looking at it. It's like the po of
what it will be one day, you know, because it's
it's kind of jittery, it's um, the edges aren't clear.
You can when you're holding one of those balls. You
can still see your fingers through on the other side,
but like there's a virtual ball and you're picking it
up and like throwing it from hand to hand, and
(11:59):
it's reacting to you like it's there, but it's not there.
And I mean that's an enormous lead forward. It's pretty wicked. UM.
Right now, it's a research project, so they're not gonna
like roll this out anytime soon. But the stuff you
see in movies of the future where like a surgeon
will take a model of a heart and you know,
a holographic model and moving around with his hand or
(12:21):
something like that's coming down the pike at some point. Um.
Training surgeons is one application. Training soldiers is another. UM.
When I was doing the research in the article for PTSD,
which we need to do eventually, it's just gonna be
like there's a lot to it. Is we have that
source who like keeps sending us like research up to
(12:43):
the date research, um, and yeah, we need to do
it anyway. UM. I found that one way that they
were trying to prevent PTSD later on was immersing soldiers
and like basically what they were gonna see like dead
bodies handled. It's just horrible stuff. Yeah, beforehand, it's part
of their training. Interesting, but it looked a lot like
a current video game now, which is good, but it's
(13:05):
not really lifelike. If you could nail this and have
somebody immersed in it, then all of a sudden, like
they're going to see what they're going to experience, and
maybe it's kind of like easing them into it a
little bit to prevent PTSD further down the road. Interesting,
so like desensitizing them beforehand. Well, that have to be
pretty real though. I imagine even the realist projection, when
(13:28):
you still see the real thing, it's like, I don't know,
I imagine that's still pretty bad. Sure, it's like missing something.
It's like interacting with a robot. It's missing something. Even
the greatest robot is missing. Yeah, it could maybe prime
your brain to see the real thing. At the very least,
even if it doesn't work to prevent PTSD, they'll make
(13:48):
a lot a lot of money. It's making video games
like that, like using it as a straight up video game.
I think that's one of the big goals of tele immersion,
is to create a virtual world that you are interacting with,
Like look at the Microsoft connect the little bar that
tracks your movements. So now you can like dance and
like the little avatar and the screen is making your movements. Right.
(14:11):
You've been to the mall and seeing people doing this? Right? Yeah?
I think so I know what you're talking about. So
what have you seen, like people just dancing in the
middle of the mall in front of the TV screen? No?
But is it like we fit very much? Okay? Um,
but I think Microsoft is the one who really had
the breakthrough with this connect gotch um. So they they've
got that, They've got tracking human motion down. Yeah. Now
(14:31):
all they have to do is make it so that
you're not looking at a screen, you're in the screen. Yeah,
that's the tele imersion part. Yeah, and the whole um
hubbub we were talking about with being able to hug
something for with the hollow deck with Microsoft, like you're
you're juggling these invisible balls, these holographic balls, but you
can't feel them. Um. But with something called haptics tectic sensors,
(14:56):
potentially you might be able to at least replicate some
of this. Um it is uh tactile feedback technology. So
if you ever played like PS three, now they have
the vibrating controllers. Yeah, that's one. So like when you
get shot or you shoot a guy or something in
the first person shooter at like vibrates. They also have
them so that like you can you get little shocks
(15:17):
to stimulate your sense of touch really to simulate pressure,
temperature change and basically just screw with your brain. Um.
So that yeah, then that all of a sudden, now
hugging would be virtual hugging is like that's I guess
that would be the holy grail. But it still needs
to be something physical. So when you have to like
wear some sort of a suit that's wired to like
(15:40):
compress like arms around you or m but I mean,
like we're almost there, and and I don't even know
if you would have to wear I mean a suit
would probably be helpful, but I'll bet there's little like
patches of your skin where if you're wired into that
and you electrocute those, you could simulate like your whole
arm feeling a sensation rather than just that finger that
(16:02):
has that electrode array on it. So you're talking about
plugging in very much so, and that's the haptic part
of it. And I think we're already starting to get
there like some of the some smartphones have like this.
This haptic effect or is what it's called. The haptic
sensor senses you squeezing something, and the haptic effect or
(16:22):
would be the array on the person's arm that simulated
the pressure of that squeeze. In between, you have a
lot of information being measured and crunched and transmitted because
you know how much pressure are you applying, like are
you trying to hurt the person? Like that? All that
has to be tracked and then sent and sent out
(16:43):
to the effect or which replicates it. Well, you want
it to be exact right, otherwise it's just clumsy, sure,
or it hurts. That's a good point. It's like, stop squeeze,
it's hard. I'm not it's the machine. You always say that.
I know. Uh, the two pack hologram. Yeah, um, I
looked up. Actually, the NPR did a great story on
how that was done. But I think I should just
(17:05):
read real quickly what one of the designers um. He
sort of explains it by saying sort of a lot.
He's one of those guys. Uh. He said. There's an
overhead projector that sort of reflects down onto basically a
tilted piece of glass that's sort of on the stage floor.
Then uh, that reflects the well reflection onto a milar
sort of screen and it sort of projects in this
(17:27):
sort of three D kind of thing where it allows
the other performers to sort of walk in front of
Tupac and basically interact with him. And he said sort
of literally like six times. But that's a pretty basic
way of explaining how hologram works. But we have a
really detailed article on that if we ever feel squirrely holograms. Yeah,
(17:48):
Tracy wrote it and it's I tried to read it
today and it flew way over my head. So it's
gonna require some more effort. That and Blood is going
to require like a lot of effort that we should
That should be our last podcast ever. Yeah, and we
should just like at the same time, cut each other's
jackulars and flee out on cameras and you got anything else. Oh,
(18:08):
tele immersion is still going on, yeah, um at Berkeley.
Berkeley has a big tele immersion lamb you see Berkeley,
not the music school, same school though, mm hmmmm, Berkeley
School of Music. That's it. Um, that's like in Massachusetts. Yeah,
I didn't know that Massachusetts. Yeah, I think it's around Boston.
(18:29):
I feel like a dummy. Now. Oh it's okay, man,
and it's not related to Berkeley in California at all.
I don't believe, so I will. It's all right. Sometimes
you're swinging thiss, but you look good doing it. I
appreciate it. Um. Can we be done talking about this?
I think so? Look for um realistic holographic video conferencing
(18:50):
in an office near you in the future. In seven years,
your boss in Japan will be hugging you just because
he can. Yeah. All right, Well, if you want to
learn more about virtual environments or holographs or holodecks, you
can type any of those words into the search bar
at how stuff works dot com. See what comes up,
(19:12):
spin the wheel, take your chances, and then just read
them all. There you go, I said, search bar, Yes,
so do it, Josh, I'm gonna call this email from
or Ol buddy Lance Spangler. Oh him, he was, Um,
he's in the military. Okay, rights all the time. Yes,
I remember, get hats from him. I don't remember. I
(19:36):
think our traditional Afghani tribal heads. How was that for him?
I believe so? If not, we're gonna hear about it.
Josh and Chuck in your production assistant, and I was
not talking about Jerry. I think he thinks we actually
have like a team working for us, which is funny
in itself. It is we've got Uncle Merle. Let's take
a source. Sharp Pick always crack up when people email me,
(19:57):
They're like, whoever entranses were? Josh and Chuck? Yeah, I
wish Um. I first discovered y'all while working in Iraq
several years ago and continue to listen to everything you do. Um.
You even sent me some stickers in two T shirts
back then. The stickers are no doubt still stuck to
a number of buildings from Baghdad to Kuwait. I love
that you missed one testing method, however, in your nuclear devices.
(20:21):
In your most recent podcasts, Um, remember we talked about
underground outer space and what in the water and yeah
yeah what is currently the world's fastest computer located in
California has been contracted by the d O E and
d O D to run simulations on each device's output
real life versus the estimated design output. The computer is
(20:44):
powerful enough that it models the simulators at the sub
atomic level. Each sub atomic particle from beginning to end
is represented that it's crazy because our nuclear arsenal is aging.
Some weapons are twenty five plus years old. That is
kind of crazy, uh, in any number of treaty restrictions. Uh.
These simulations are the perfect way to test the device
(21:06):
without any nuclear fallout. Even more interesting, these simulations have
uncovered some surprises, some good, others not so good. I
guess he's gonna keep this private, right, um, but last
you think this computer is just a mushroom cloud in disguise.
They're also modeling the human heart at the cellular level, um,
each individual cell. That is, to determine the effects of
(21:27):
various drugs and diseases. All and I'll keep up the
great work in what you're doing. And as an old
television producer, knock them dead with the new TV show.
Thank you. What an interesting project to be a part of.
And with the kind of brand awareness and the following
you have, it's sure to be a success. And that
is from our old buddy Lance Spangler in Castle Rock, Colorado,
(21:48):
who hopefully um knocked on wood with that last sentence.
We're knocking now just in case. Yeah, UM, thank you
very much, Lance. I won't I don't know if you
saw me sending the hats are not well. I definitely
remember that we sent him stickers and shirts and now
they're in baghday and I believe he might have sent
a picture back of them wearing the shirts, but that
(22:10):
might have been another year. Right. But then we have
another guy who's taking who took pictures of the flint
Stone Amusement park in Baghdad. Oh yeah he I think
he was the one who sent us the hat that
was awesome off to all our military listeners. Afghany hats off. Uh,
let's see if you have a correction or uh like
(22:30):
lance head just a I guess a mind blowing add Yes,
thank you, Chuck, because I was really having trouble there. Um.
You can tweet it to us at s Y s
K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com
slash stuff you should don't. You can also send us
an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com. For
(23:01):
more on this and thousands of other topics, visit Howstuff
Works dot com.
Welcome to you stuff you should know from house Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant that makes this stuff.
You snow. Jerry's back there. We're all set got our
(00:21):
Mike's got the dinosaur. What's this dinosaur's name? Frank the chairs?
Uncle is here year old uncle who's in the Olympics,
Uncle Merle, the Frank the chair. His uncle Merle is
the dinosaur. Oh I was talking about the chairs sitting in?
Is that a nameless Oh yeah, this isn't Frank. Is
it Frank's on set at our TV show that we're shooting,
(00:42):
unfortunately with a TV show we're making. Is that set in? Uh? Yeah,
it's set in that I had to sit in that
stupid chair for sixty hours a couple of weeks ago. Yeah,
it's hilarious. Yeah, they followed us there. Uh okay, So
this is Uncle Merle the dinosaur, the stegasaurs. I believe sure.
It's like a stack of source cross with a sharp
pay Look at all those wrinkles. That's about it, all right.
(01:07):
If you want to get in touch with us, hey, buddy,
if you don't mind if I plug my November page
real quick, please do. I am growing a mustache this
month for November for uh for cancer research, specifically male
prostate cancer research. That's right. And you can donate to
my team, which would be pretty cool because you know,
(01:29):
you get a free podcast and it'd be nice to
throw a little money towards cancer research. Being nice here,
give him some money. He's growing out facial here to
help a charitable organization engage in really important scientific research.
That's right. And you can go to mobro dot c
O slash Charles Bryant and that's my page, or just
(01:51):
go to the November site. Type in Charles Bryan in
the search bar and look for the picture of me.
There's only a couple of us out there. Chuck's wearing
a red shirt. It's yeah, um, so what is that again?
That's mo bro dot CEO slash Charles Bryant. Yes, thank
you in advance. Yeah, that's nice, Chuck. All right, let's
get to it. Chuck, you selected this one. How do
(02:12):
you feel it sounded a lot cooler? Yeah. We're talking
about holographic environments. Yeah, and you hear that you think
Man Star Trek. Yeah, it comes to life. So I
wanted to make sure I knew what I was talking about,
and I went and looked up the holidack. Yeah, and
it's apparently just from the next generation, like it wasn't
like original. I didn't see anything. I even looked on
(02:33):
a Star Trek wiki and it's it seemed to indicate
the first I'm so nervous right now. Well let's say this.
We'll find out one way or the other very quickly.
But it seemed to indicate from my cursory research that
the holidack was a feature on the Enterprise from the
twenty three sixties e g. Or I e. The next generation.
(02:57):
All right, so what it was? The hollow deck? Have
you seen it? Are you familiar? Star Trek cital? And
now I was in a Star Trek guy. I mean,
it just kind of got past me. But have you
seen it? Did you? Did you see it? Yeah? Okay,
it's cool. You know, it is a projection, a holographic
projection room, and basically, you know, is what you would think.
You know, remember in Star Wars, which I am a
(03:19):
fan of, when our two D two spit out the
little holographic image of Princess Leiah rendering her message. Um,
imagine a room of life sized people doing that as
if you're interacting. Yes, that's a very important key, um,
because what we're talking about is not just a three
D projection like Star Wars clunked along with. But we're
(03:41):
talking about the Star Trek holographic environment where you can
move around and you get a three D and sixty
degree view and you can shake hands and maybe uh,
have a cocktail or play a trombone or something with
someone else in a virtual environment. But you can interact
like you don't like when you walk around the backside
(04:02):
of somebody. It's not you're not getting in the way
of the projector. Can I read a line from the article? Yes,
eventually you will even be able to hug other people
using this technology. They should have put hug in quotes
because because it's not a hug, No, they're not really there.
Oh I meant I thought that they were talking about
(04:24):
like having virtual sex. Of course, it's going to go
to virtual sex. It's gonna be the first thing that
they come up with. That's what everybody at Microsoft is
working on right now. I'm quite sure you'll make a
trillion dollars it's like, uh, is it total recall? Ah, yeah,
where you had the three D or virtual reality experiences. Yeah,
(04:46):
and I'm sure it's been another stuff too. I'm not
thinking of like total recall the remake. Yeah, that was
the other thing I was thinking of. All right, what
we're talking about telet immersion. That's the real name for it, yes,
not the holidack, And it right now is mainly being
um developed for a few different things, potentially video game use, hugging,
(05:07):
hugging your family members at Christmas, yeah you can't be there, um,
but mainly for uh, something that's not quite as exciting
video conferencing, right which we've seen like the pinnacle of
video conferencing right now, I think so, Yeah, man, they
owe us a couple of bucks. Yeah, we've plugged them
(05:28):
like heavily. Well, I mean it's amazing technology, it is,
but it's it's just like nothing compared to teleimersion. Yeah,
goal of true. And this article is has got to
be outdated, because laughably out of date because after witnessing
the Tanburg in use, which basically feels like you're sitting
in a room, you know, it's HD It's not like
(05:50):
a hologram or three D or anything. But it's really
good and it feels like you're sitting in a room
with someone. There's no lag, there's no stuttering. And this
article talks about like these days, you know, there's some
stuttering and flickering when you try to teleconference. Right, they
figured that all out, they did. Um. They also this
article you know, this article also no it's not but
which I mean, like it's kind of I think where
(06:12):
the tele immersion was at when this article was written.
Where we're at with like it's pretty decent now, you know.
But the the the author Kevin Bondser makes a point
like if you walk out of the way of the webcam,
nobody can see you any longer if you are um,
like when you're looking at the computer screen, the webcams
(06:33):
getting your eyes, but you're not making eye contact, like
nobody thinks to do that. That's all this stuff just
kind of goes away with tele immersion. Um, because you
have a webcam that's tracking your eyes to see where
you're where you're looking at. That's a big part of it.
Facial recognition helps with that too, and then also there's
a camera ray. It's not just one webcam pointing at you.
(06:54):
Your there's cameras around you, but pretty much three D
and sixty degrees, so there capturing everything you're doing. So
you can't leave the the view of the other person. Yeah,
you have to go into a different room and then
what you know, what's the point? Hang up? Your call
is over at that point, unless you just have to
(07:16):
be real quick and you're like, hold on, I'll be
right back. Um. One thing that's in the way right now.
I mean, they made a lot of headway that this
article points out in two thousand, twelve years ago is
when they made their first big breakthrough. Um uh, the
National telet Immersion Initiative. Yes, working together Chapel Hill looks
(07:37):
like North Carolina. Did you look up this group? Are
they still around? Their websites still around? But they reached
their pinnacle in May two thousand. Is it my space? Oh? Man,
yeah it is. And it's like what we're doing two thousand? Nothing? Nothing?
All right? Well, at the time, it was a big
(07:58):
breakthrough because it was the first time they were able
to see three dimensional holographic images of like colleagues in
different cities. Yeah, all sitting in the same room, right,
And it was a big deal. Yeah, and that's we
should also say, like the point of telemersion is basically
to create say if you want to telecommunity and you
have a conference, rather than everybody flying to the conference room,
(08:21):
you have a virtual conference room set up to where
everybody basically projects himself into this shared space, the shared
room that you can get up and move around and
see from different angles and um, each user is depicted
three D and sixty degrees. So it it is a
sort of telepresence, is what they call it. Yeah, and
it's sort of a green initiative to you could look
(08:43):
at it that way. Yeah, save a lot on jet
fuel and commuting costs, and that there's some huge challenges
to this there we're back in two thousand and it's um,
a lot of them are still around. One of them
is the kind of bandwidth that we will need because
I think it's said for the frame to refresh itself
um at ten, or the screen to refresh itself, or
(09:05):
the projection to refresh it time frames a second, that'd
be seamless, but it was hitting at like three back
in two thousand. I wonder what is that now. I'm
sure that we can do that now, but the problem is, um,
transmitting that data right is problematic, shuts up a lot
of bandwidth. Yeah. So you're talking about two things. A
(09:27):
computers that are way more juiced than they are now
even now, and you're talking about an internet um from
my internet to basically yeah, now that's still going on, right,
it's um basically this initiative by a bunch of universities
around the country to wire the US at speeds that
(09:49):
are just blistering fast compared to what we've got now,
up to a thousand times faster. That's really really fast. Um.
They also have enormous storage capabilities, and I saw one
of the things that they're doing is using this to
move out to underserved areas of the country. Oh really, Yeah,
it's not just like just it's not just for New
(10:10):
York or Francisco. It's like, yeah, it's for North Dakota.
Why can't North Dakota get online? Finally, that's funny. Uh
but true. You also have UM, well just basically tracking somebody,
which Microsoft has done a lot to get past. Are
(10:32):
you talking about that new thing, the hollow desk? Yes, yeah,
I just found this today. Did you look at that
the video? Yeah, it's pretty cool. Microsoft is developing something
and this is current UM called the hollow desk, and
UM he uses an overhead screen to project a two
D two D image through a half silvered beam splitter
(10:55):
onto a desktop. Basically, what it looks like is, UM,
it looks like you're working on a desk with a
screen between you and the desk. I can see through
clear screen. Yeah, so if you look below that screen,
you're just gonna see your hands doing nothing. If you
look through that screen, you're gonna see holographic images. In
this case, there were like little glowing balls that you
(11:15):
could pick up and juggle, and you could pick it
up with a piece of paper. You could put it
in a coffee cup and swirl it around. Pretty cool. Yeah,
that's huge. That's hugely different than anything that this article
was talking about or anything we thought of before, because
like you're interacting with a virtual environment. It's reacting to you.
I mean, yeah, super advanced. And it was like you
(11:38):
could tell looking at it. It's like the po of
what it will be one day, you know, because it's
it's kind of jittery, it's um, the edges aren't clear.
You can when you're holding one of those balls. You
can still see your fingers through on the other side,
but like there's a virtual ball and you're picking it
up and like throwing it from hand to hand, and
(11:59):
it's reacting to you like it's there, but it's not there.
And I mean that's an enormous lead forward. It's pretty wicked. UM.
Right now, it's a research project, so they're not gonna
like roll this out anytime soon. But the stuff you
see in movies of the future where like a surgeon
will take a model of a heart and you know,
a holographic model and moving around with his hand or
(12:21):
something like that's coming down the pike at some point. Um.
Training surgeons is one application. Training soldiers is another. UM.
When I was doing the research in the article for PTSD,
which we need to do eventually, it's just gonna be
like there's a lot to it. Is we have that
source who like keeps sending us like research up to
(12:43):
the date research, um, and yeah, we need to do
it anyway. UM. I found that one way that they
were trying to prevent PTSD later on was immersing soldiers
and like basically what they were gonna see like dead
bodies handled. It's just horrible stuff. Yeah, beforehand, it's part
of their training. Interesting, but it looked a lot like
a current video game now, which is good, but it's
(13:05):
not really lifelike. If you could nail this and have
somebody immersed in it, then all of a sudden, like
they're going to see what they're going to experience, and
maybe it's kind of like easing them into it a
little bit to prevent PTSD further down the road. Interesting,
so like desensitizing them beforehand. Well, that have to be
pretty real though. I imagine even the realist projection, when
(13:28):
you still see the real thing, it's like, I don't know,
I imagine that's still pretty bad. Sure, it's like missing something.
It's like interacting with a robot. It's missing something. Even
the greatest robot is missing. Yeah, it could maybe prime
your brain to see the real thing. At the very least,
even if it doesn't work to prevent PTSD, they'll make
(13:48):
a lot a lot of money. It's making video games
like that, like using it as a straight up video game.
I think that's one of the big goals of tele immersion,
is to create a virtual world that you are interacting with,
Like look at the Microsoft connect the little bar that
tracks your movements. So now you can like dance and
like the little avatar and the screen is making your movements. Right.
(14:11):
You've been to the mall and seeing people doing this? Right? Yeah?
I think so I know what you're talking about. So
what have you seen, like people just dancing in the
middle of the mall in front of the TV screen? No?
But is it like we fit very much? Okay? Um,
but I think Microsoft is the one who really had
the breakthrough with this connect gotch um. So they they've
got that, They've got tracking human motion down. Yeah. Now
(14:31):
all they have to do is make it so that
you're not looking at a screen, you're in the screen. Yeah,
that's the tele imersion part. Yeah, and the whole um
hubbub we were talking about with being able to hug
something for with the hollow deck with Microsoft, like you're
you're juggling these invisible balls, these holographic balls, but you
can't feel them. Um. But with something called haptics tectic sensors,
(14:56):
potentially you might be able to at least replicate some
of this. Um it is uh tactile feedback technology. So
if you ever played like PS three, now they have
the vibrating controllers. Yeah, that's one. So like when you
get shot or you shoot a guy or something in
the first person shooter at like vibrates. They also have
them so that like you can you get little shocks
(15:17):
to stimulate your sense of touch really to simulate pressure,
temperature change and basically just screw with your brain. Um.
So that yeah, then that all of a sudden, now
hugging would be virtual hugging is like that's I guess
that would be the holy grail. But it still needs
to be something physical. So when you have to like
wear some sort of a suit that's wired to like
(15:40):
compress like arms around you or m but I mean,
like we're almost there, and and I don't even know
if you would have to wear I mean a suit
would probably be helpful, but I'll bet there's little like
patches of your skin where if you're wired into that
and you electrocute those, you could simulate like your whole
arm feeling a sensation rather than just that finger that
(16:02):
has that electrode array on it. So you're talking about
plugging in very much so, and that's the haptic part
of it. And I think we're already starting to get
there like some of the some smartphones have like this.
This haptic effect or is what it's called. The haptic
sensor senses you squeezing something, and the haptic effect or
(16:22):
would be the array on the person's arm that simulated
the pressure of that squeeze. In between, you have a
lot of information being measured and crunched and transmitted because
you know how much pressure are you applying, like are
you trying to hurt the person? Like that? All that
has to be tracked and then sent and sent out
(16:43):
to the effect or which replicates it. Well, you want
it to be exact right, otherwise it's just clumsy, sure,
or it hurts. That's a good point. It's like, stop squeeze,
it's hard. I'm not it's the machine. You always say that.
I know. Uh, the two pack hologram. Yeah, um, I
looked up. Actually, the NPR did a great story on
how that was done. But I think I should just
(17:05):
read real quickly what one of the designers um. He
sort of explains it by saying sort of a lot.
He's one of those guys. Uh. He said. There's an
overhead projector that sort of reflects down onto basically a
tilted piece of glass that's sort of on the stage floor.
Then uh, that reflects the well reflection onto a milar
sort of screen and it sort of projects in this
(17:27):
sort of three D kind of thing where it allows
the other performers to sort of walk in front of
Tupac and basically interact with him. And he said sort
of literally like six times. But that's a pretty basic
way of explaining how hologram works. But we have a
really detailed article on that if we ever feel squirrely holograms. Yeah,
(17:48):
Tracy wrote it and it's I tried to read it
today and it flew way over my head. So it's
gonna require some more effort. That and Blood is going
to require like a lot of effort that we should
That should be our last podcast ever. Yeah, and we
should just like at the same time, cut each other's
jackulars and flee out on cameras and you got anything else. Oh,
(18:08):
tele immersion is still going on, yeah, um at Berkeley.
Berkeley has a big tele immersion lamb you see Berkeley,
not the music school, same school though, mm hmmmm, Berkeley
School of Music. That's it. Um, that's like in Massachusetts. Yeah,
I didn't know that Massachusetts. Yeah, I think it's around Boston.
(18:29):
I feel like a dummy. Now. Oh it's okay, man,
and it's not related to Berkeley in California at all.
I don't believe, so I will. It's all right. Sometimes
you're swinging thiss, but you look good doing it. I
appreciate it. Um. Can we be done talking about this?
I think so? Look for um realistic holographic video conferencing
(18:50):
in an office near you in the future. In seven years,
your boss in Japan will be hugging you just because
he can. Yeah. All right, Well, if you want to
learn more about virtual environments or holographs or holodecks, you
can type any of those words into the search bar
at how stuff works dot com. See what comes up,
(19:12):
spin the wheel, take your chances, and then just read
them all. There you go, I said, search bar, Yes,
so do it, Josh, I'm gonna call this email from
or Ol buddy Lance Spangler. Oh him, he was, Um,
he's in the military. Okay, rights all the time. Yes,
I remember, get hats from him. I don't remember. I
(19:36):
think our traditional Afghani tribal heads. How was that for him?
I believe so? If not, we're gonna hear about it.
Josh and Chuck in your production assistant, and I was
not talking about Jerry. I think he thinks we actually
have like a team working for us, which is funny
in itself. It is we've got Uncle Merle. Let's take
a source. Sharp Pick always crack up when people email me,
(19:57):
They're like, whoever entranses were? Josh and Chuck? Yeah, I
wish Um. I first discovered y'all while working in Iraq
several years ago and continue to listen to everything you do. Um.
You even sent me some stickers in two T shirts
back then. The stickers are no doubt still stuck to
a number of buildings from Baghdad to Kuwait. I love
that you missed one testing method, however, in your nuclear devices.
(20:21):
In your most recent podcasts, Um, remember we talked about
underground outer space and what in the water and yeah
yeah what is currently the world's fastest computer located in
California has been contracted by the d O E and
d O D to run simulations on each device's output
real life versus the estimated design output. The computer is
(20:44):
powerful enough that it models the simulators at the sub
atomic level. Each sub atomic particle from beginning to end
is represented that it's crazy because our nuclear arsenal is aging.
Some weapons are twenty five plus years old. That is
kind of crazy, uh, in any number of treaty restrictions. Uh.
These simulations are the perfect way to test the device
(21:06):
without any nuclear fallout. Even more interesting, these simulations have
uncovered some surprises, some good, others not so good. I
guess he's gonna keep this private, right, um, but last
you think this computer is just a mushroom cloud in disguise.
They're also modeling the human heart at the cellular level, um,
each individual cell. That is, to determine the effects of
(21:27):
various drugs and diseases. All and I'll keep up the
great work in what you're doing. And as an old
television producer, knock them dead with the new TV show.
Thank you. What an interesting project to be a part of.
And with the kind of brand awareness and the following
you have, it's sure to be a success. And that
is from our old buddy Lance Spangler in Castle Rock, Colorado,
(21:48):
who hopefully um knocked on wood with that last sentence.
We're knocking now just in case. Yeah, UM, thank you
very much, Lance. I won't I don't know if you
saw me sending the hats are not well. I definitely
remember that we sent him stickers and shirts and now
they're in baghday and I believe he might have sent
a picture back of them wearing the shirts, but that
(22:10):
might have been another year. Right. But then we have
another guy who's taking who took pictures of the flint
Stone Amusement park in Baghdad. Oh yeah he I think
he was the one who sent us the hat that
was awesome off to all our military listeners. Afghany hats off. Uh,
let's see if you have a correction or uh like
(22:30):
lance head just a I guess a mind blowing add Yes,
thank you, Chuck, because I was really having trouble there. Um.
You can tweet it to us at s Y s
K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com
slash stuff you should don't. You can also send us
an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com. For
(23:01):
more on this and thousands of other topics, visit Howstuff
Works dot com.
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