Stuff You Should Know - How close are we to holographic environments?

Episode Date: November 14, 2012

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. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Flooring contractors agree. When looking for the best to care for hardwood floors, use Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner, the residue-free, fast drying solution, especially designed for hardwood floors, delivering the safe and effective clean you trust. Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner is available at most retailers where floor cleaning products are sold and on Amazon. Also available for your other hard surface floors like stone, tile, laminate, vinyl, and LVT. For cleaning tips and exclusive offers, visit Bona.com slash Bona Clean. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff, stuff that'll piss you off. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging?

They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jackmove or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. That makes this Stuff You Should Know. Jerry's back there. We're all set. Got our mics. Got the dinosaur. What's this dinosaur's name? Frank, the chair's uncle

is here. His 97-year-old uncle who's in the Olympics. Uncle Murrell. The Frank the Chair, his uncle Murrell, is the dinosaur. Oh, I was talking about the chair sitting in. Is that a nameless chair? Oh yeah. This isn't Frank, is it? No. Geez. Frank's on set at our TV show that we're shooting. Unfortunately. We have a TV show we're making. Is that set in? Yeah, it's set in that I had to sit in that stupid chair for 60 hours a couple weeks ago. Yeah, it's hilarious. Yeah. They followed us there. I know. Okay, so this is Uncle Murrell, the dinosaur. The Stegosaurus, I believe. Sure. It's like a Stegosaurus crossed with a Sharpay. Look at all those wrinkles. Yeah, I mean. That's about it. All right. If you want to get in touch

with us. Hey, buddy, if you don't mind if I plug my Movember page real quick. Please do. I am growing him a stash this month for Movember 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, you get a free podcast and that'd be nice to throw a little money toward cancer research. Yeah. And the name of my stash. Chuck's 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.co slash Charles Bryant. And that's my page or just go to the Movember site, type in Charles Bryant 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. That's right. Yeah. So what is that again? That's mobro.co 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. I did. How do you feel? It sounded a lot cooler. Yeah, we're talking about holographic environments. Yeah. And you hear that and you think, man, Star Trek. Yeah. It's come to life. So I wanted to make sure I knew what I was talking about. I went and looked up the holodeck. Yeah. And it's apparently just from the next generation. Like, it wasn't like original. Oh, really? I didn't see anything. I even looked on a Star Trek wiki and 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 holodeck was a feature on the enterprise from the 2360s, e.g. or IE, the next generation. All right. All right. So what was the holodeck? Have you seen it? Are you familiar with Star Trek at all? And now I was in a Star Trek guy. Me neither. It just kind of got past me. But have you seen it? Did you see it? Yeah. Okay. It's cool. It is a projection, a holographic projection room and it basically is what you would think. Remember in Star Wars, which I am a fan of, when R2D2 spit out the little holographic image of Princess Leia rendering her message. Yeah. Imagine a room of life-size people doing that as if you're interacting.

Yes. That's a very important key. Yeah. Because what we're talking about is not just a 3D projection like Star Wars clunked along with. Yeah. But we're talking about the Star Trek holographic environment where you can move around and you get a 360 degree view and you can shake hands and maybe 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 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. Yeah. Because sure. Because it's not a hug.

No. It's not really there. Oh, I meant, I thought that they were talking about like having virtual sex. Of course it's going to go to virtual sex. It's going to 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. That's like a, is it total recall? Yeah. Where you had the 3D or virtual reality experiences. Yeah. And I'm sure it's been in other 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 is tell it immersion. Right. That's the real name for it. Yes. Not the holodeck. And it right now is mainly being developed for a few different things.

Potentially video game use. Hugging. Hugging your family members at Christmas. Yeah. If you can't be there. I thought that was a nice one. Sure. But mainly for 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. And the Tamburg system. Yeah. Man, they owe us a couple bucks. Yeah. We've plugged them like heavily. Well, I mean, it's amazing technology. It is. But it's just like nothing compared to tele-immersion. Yeah. The goal of tele-immersion. True. And this article has got to be outdated. It's laughably out of date. Because after witnessing the Tamburgen use, which basically feels like you're sitting in a room, you know, it's HD. It's not like a hologram

or 3D or anything. Right. 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. Yeah. And this article talks about like these days. You know, there's some stuttering and flickering when you try to tele-conference. Right. They figured that all out. They did. They also, this article. Not Skype, you know. This article also, no, it's not. No. Which I mean, like it's kind of, I think, where the tele-immersion was at when this article was written. Yeah, although Skype was pretty decent now. Right, you know. But the author, Kevin Bonser, makes a point, like, if you walk out of the way of the webcam, nobody can see you any longer. Sure.

If you are, like, when you're looking at the computer screen, the webcam's getting your eyes, but you're not making eye contact. Like, nobody thinks to do that. Yeah. That's all this stuff just kind of goes away with tele-immersion. 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. Yeah. Facial recognition helps with that, too. And then also, there's a camera array. It's not just one webcam pointing at you. There's cameras around you. They're pretty much 360 degrees. So they're capturing everything you're doing. So you can't leave the view of the other person. Yeah, you'd have to go into a different room.

And then, what, you know, what's the point? Just hang up. Your call is over at that point. Unless you just have to, like, pee real quick. You're like, hold on. I'll be right back. One thing that's in the way right now, I mean, they made a lot of headway that this article points out in 2000, 12 years ago, is when they made their first big breakthrough the national tele-immersion initiative. Yes. Working together, Chapel Hill looks like North Carolina. Did you look up this group? Are they still around? Their website's still around, but they, they reached their pinnacle in May 2000. Oh, really? Is it MySpacey? Oh, man, yeah. It is. And it's like, what we're doing, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, nothing, nothing. Yeah.

All right. Well, at the time, it was a big breakthrough because it was the first time they were able to see three-dimensional holographic images of 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 tele-immersion is basically to create, say if you want to telecommute and you have a conference. Yeah. Rather than everybody flying to the conference room, you have a virtual conference room set up. Yeah. To where everybody basically projects himself into this shared space, this shared room that you can get up and move around and see from different angles. And each user is depicted 360 degrees. So it,

it is a sort of telepresence is what they call it. Yeah. And it's sort of a green initiative too. You could look at it that way. Yeah. Save a lot on jet fuel and commuting costs and things like that. Sure. There's some huge challenges to this. There were back in 2000 and it's, a lot of them are still around. One of them is the kind of bandwidth that we will need. Yeah. Because I think it's said to, for the frame to refresh itself at 10 or the screen to refresh itself or the projection. Yeah. To refresh at 10 frames a second, that'd be seamless. Yeah. But it was hitting at like three back in 2000. I wonder what it's at now. I'm sure that we can do that now. But the problem is, is transmitting that data. Right. Is problematic. So it's up a

lot of bandwidth. Yeah. So you're talking about two things. A, computers that are way more juiced than they are now. Yeah. Even now. Yeah. And you're talking about an internet, I'm talking about internet too, basically. Yeah. Now that's still going on. Right. It's basically this initiative by a bunch of universities around the country to wire the US at speeds that are just blistering fast compared to what we've got now. Yeah. Up to a thousand times faster. That's really, really fast. Yeah. 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, it's not just for New York or San Francisco. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. For North

Dakota. Well, I can't North Dakota get online finally. That's funny. But true. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I was being charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah. And they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging?

They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. On the podcast howler back now with Holland Rodin. Join Holland and other stars of the series Teen Wolf for a rewatch of the popular show. You know me as Lydia Martin from Teen Wolf. And on this podcast we will rewatch every episode from the beginning. The moon is full in Beacon Hills and the wolves are coming out again. So join me and my favorite Teen Wolf stars and friends as we reunite the cast, the crew and the heroes and the villains. We'll be sharing every gory detail

with you. Fall in love at first bite all over again with the Teen Wolf. The series that you just can't get enough of. Because as if a hundred episodes wasn't enough. I am bringing you all the behind the scenes. There's going to be so much more from each episode. Nothing is off limits. And oh that's right. We'll be talking about Teen Wolf the movie. Listen to howler back now with Holland Rodin on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. You also have well just basically tracking somebody which Microsoft has done a lot to get past. Are 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. It is. Microsoft is developing something and this

is current called the hollow desk and uses an overhead screen to project a 2D image through a half silver beam splitter onto a desktop. Basically what it looks like is it looks like you're working on a desk with a screen between you and the desk. Like a see-through clear screen? Yeah. So if you look below that screen you're just going to see your hands doing nothing. If you look through that screen you're going to see holographic images. In this case they were like little glowing balls that you 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 could tell looking at it it's like the palm of what it will be one day. Because it's kind of jittery. 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 there's a virtual ball and you're picking it up and throwing it from hand to hand and it's reacting to you like it's there but it's not there. I mean that's an enormous leap forward. It's pretty wicked. Right now it's a research project so they're not going to 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 move it around with his hand or something like that's coming down the pike at some point. Training surgeons is one application. Training soldiers is another. When I was doing the research in the article for PTSD which we need to do eventually. I know. It's just going to be like there's a lot to it. We have that source who like keeps sending us like research up to the date research. I know. And yeah we need to do it. Anyway I found that one way that they were trying to prevent PTSD later on was immersing soldiers in like basically what they were going to see like dead bodies. Oh beforehand. It's just horrible stuff. Yeah beforehand as part of their training. Interesting. But it looked a lot like a current

video game now. Right. Which is good but it's 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. Right. Boy that have to be pretty real though. Yeah. I imagine even the realist projection when 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. Yeah. It's missing something. Even the greatest robot is missing something. But it could help. 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 a lot a lot of money 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. Yeah. It's 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 on the screen is making your movements. Right. You've been to the mall and seen people doing this. Right. Yeah. I think so. I know what you're talking about. So have you seen like people just dancing in the middle of the mall in front of a TV screen? No. But is it like we fit? Very much so. OK. But I think Microsoft is the one who

really had the breakthrough with this Connect. Gotcha. So they've got that. They've got tracking human motion down. Yeah. Now 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 immersion part. Yeah. And the whole hub hub we were talking about with being able to hug something or with the holodeck with Microsoft like you're juggling these invisible balls these holographic balls but you can't feel them. But with something called haptics. Yeah. Haptic sensors. Yeah. That's a big one. Potentially you might be able to at least replicate some of this. It is tactile feedback technology. So if you ever played like PS3 now they have the vibrating controllers.

Yeah. That's one. So like when you get shot or you shoot a guy or something and a first person shooter it like vibrates. Right. They also have them so that like you can you get little shocks to stimulate your sense of touch. Really. To simulate pressure temperature change and basically just screw with your brain. Huh. So that yeah then that all of a sudden now hugging would be right virtual hugging is like that's I guess that would be the holy grail. But it still needs to be something physical. So wouldn't you have to like wear some sort of a suit that's wired to like. Yeah. Compress like arms around you or something. Yeah. But I mean like we're almost there. Yeah. 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 has that electrode array on it. So you're talking about plugging in. Then very much so. Yeah. 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 a haptic sensor senses you squeezing something. Right. And the haptic effect or would be the array on the person's arm that simulated the pressure of that squeeze. Right. In between you have a lot of information being measured and crunched and transmitted. Yeah.

Because you know how much pressure are you applying. Yeah. Like are you trying to hurt the person like that all that has to be tracked and then sent and sent out to the effector which 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 squeezing so hard. I'm not it's the machine. You always say that. I know. The two pack hologram. Yeah. I looked up actually the NPR did a great story on how that was done. But I think I should just read real quickly what one of the designers he sort of explains it by saying sort of a lot. Yeah. He's one of those guys. 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 that reflects the well reflection onto a mylar sort of screen. And it sort of projects in this sort of 3D kind of thing where it allows the other performers to sort of walk in front of two pack and basically interact with them. Yeah. And he said sort of literally like six times. Yeah. But that's a pretty basic way of explaining how a hologram works. Yeah. But we have a really detailed article on that if we ever feel squirrely. Holograms. Yeah. Tracy wrote it and it's I tried to read it today and it flew way over my head. Yeah. So it's going to require some more effort. That and blood is going to require like a lot of effort. That should be our last podcast ever. Blood. Yeah. Blood.

And we should just like at the same time cut each other's jugglers and bleed out on camera. You got anything else. Oh. Tele immersion is still going on. Yeah. At Berkeley. Berkeley has a big tele immersion lab. Oh really. You see Berkeley. That figures. Not the music school. Same school though. Berkeley School of Music. That's at that's like in Massachusetts. Oh is it. Yeah. Oh I didn't know that. Massachusetts. Yeah. I think it's around Boston. 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 swing and miss. But you look good doing it. I appreciate it. Can we be done talking about this? I think so. Look

for realistic holographic video conferencing in an office near you in the future. In seven years. Your boss in Japan will be hugging you. Just because he can. Yeah. The war on drugs impacts everyone whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course yes they can do that and on the prime example. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly.

And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil asset. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. On the podcast howler back now with Holland Rodin. Join Holland and other stars of the series Teen Wolf for a rewatch of the popular show. You know me as Lydia Martin from Teen Wolf and on this podcast we will rewatch every episode from the beginning. The moon is full in Beacon Hills and the wolves are coming out again. So join me and my favorite Teen Wolf stars and friends as we reunite the cast the crew and the heroes and the

villains will be sharing every gory detail with you. Fall in love at first bite all over again with the Teen Wolf the series that you just can't get enough of because as if a hundred episodes wasn't enough I am bringing you all the behind the scenes there's gonna be so much more from each episode. Nothing is off limits and oh that's right we'll be talking about Teen Wolf the movie. Listen to howler back now with Holland Rodin on the iHeart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 house.forks.com see what comes up 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 our old buddy Lance Spangler. Oh no he was um he's in the military. Okay yes he's the writer's all the time. Yes I remember. Did we get hats from? I don't remember. I think our traditional Afghani tribal hats. Oh was that from him? I believe so. Wow. If not we're gonna hear about it. Josh and Chuck and your production assistant who I know he's 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's Pegasaurus sharp pick. I always crack up when people email me they're like whoever answers these were Josh and Chuck. Right. Yeah I wish. It's us. I first discovered y'all while working in Iraq several years ago

and continue to listen to everything you do. You even sent me some stickers and 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 in your most recent podcast. Remember we talked about underground outer space and what in the water? Water. What is currently the world's fastest computer located in California has been contracted by the DOE and DOD to run simulations on each device's output real life versus the estimated design output. The computer is powerful enough that it models the simulators at the subatomic level. Each subatomic particle from beginning to end is represented. That is crazy. Because

our nuclear arsenal is aging some weapons are 25 plus years old. That is kind of crazy. In any number of treaty restrictions these simulations are the perfect way to test a device without any nuclear fallout. Even more interesting these simulations have uncovered some surprises some good others not so good. I guess he's going to keep us private. But lest you think this computer is just a mushroom cloud in disguise they're also modeling the human heart at the cellular level. Nice. Each individual cell that is to determine the effects of various drugs and diseases. All in all keep up the great work in what you're doing and as an old television producer knock them dead with a new TV show. Thank you. What an interesting project to be a part of

and with the kind of brand awareness in the following you have it's sure to be a success. That is from our old buddy Lance Fangler in Castle Rock, Colorado. Who hopefully knocked on wood with that last sentence. We're knocking now just in case. Yeah. Thank you very much Lance. I don't know if he sent us the hats or not. Well I definitely remember that we sent him stickers and shirts. Another in Baghdad. And I believe he might have sent a picture back of them wearing the shirts. Yeah. That might have been another one. But then we have another guy who's taking pictures of the Flintstone amusement park in Baghdad. Oh yeah. He I think he was the one who sent us the hat. That was awesome. That's off to all our military listeners. Afghani hats off.

Let's see if you have a correction or like Lance had just a I guess a mind blowing addiction. Yes. Thank you Chuck because I was really having trouble there. You can tweet it to us at SYSK podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you should know. You can also send us an email to stuffpodcast at discovery dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics visit howstuffworks.com. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff stuff that'll piss you off the cops. Are they just like looting? Have they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil asset work. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the

iHeart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. On the podcast Hey Dude the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude the 90s called on the iHeart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.