Holoportation: travel without moving an inch
Go a long way without even leaving home. This is the promise made by the inventors of holoportation solutions. For, with this revolutionary “transport” system you only need a virtual reality headset, a good internet connection and a few 3D cameras around you. Of course, the movement is a virtual one. But the effect is stunning.
Equipped in this way, you are projected into an environment that could be on the other side of the planet or on the other side of the street. Represented by a “holographic” avatar, you can interact with that environment: handle (virtual) items and talk to the holograms of other people who are also connected. Imagine: using this augmented reality solution, you can use your digital double to take part in a business meeting organised in Sydney without even leaving Paris, you can follow an interactive conference in a New York museum with your friends…
The applications are almost limitless and they concern all areas of life:
- communications, of course, where holoportation will transform the principle of videoconferencing and entertainment (video games, etc.);
- education (with the possibility of remote participation in tutorials and laboratory experiments);
- medical consultations: the Australian company Silver Chain, which specialises in home care assistance for the elderly, has thus co-developed a virtual reality control panel which floats above the “patient” when the nurse is providing care. It is now hoping to take a further step forward with medical examinations by hologram.
BNP Paribas Real Estate revolutionises the customer experience
Let’s be realistic and not get carried away: progress still needs to be made with holoportation before some journeys can be avoided. In particular, in terms of the miniaturisation of the equipment necessary to create the experience. However, that is to take nothing away from the magic of the first holoportation applications available to the general public.
And in this area, BNP Paribas Real Estate, together with Mimesys and HTC Vive offer an innovative experience with an augmented reality, remote property viewing solution. This service is already operational, and, for example, enables a London buyer or investor to view a property (whether existing or off-plan) located in Hong Kong or anywhere in the world. Equipped with an HTC Vive headset, he can instantly attend a venue, talk with his agent – also present in the form of a hologram, and potentially handle mock-ups to alter his project.
This could completely revolutionise the customer experience: no time lost travelling, perfect visualisation of projects using 3D immersion, direct communication with the agent to make rapid alterations, etc. For BNP Paribas Real Estate, holoportation is anything but a technological gadget: it is a genuinely major innovation to facilitate its customers’ daily lives.
To be discovered and tested at Viva Technology
BNP Paribas Real Estate’s property viewing by holoportation, which has been developed in collaboration with the start-up Mimesys, a holographic platform specialist, will be one of the big attractions of the Viva Technology Exhibition. Visitors will be able to test the solution “live” and to travel from space to space in a fraction of a second. It is worth noting that it is already possible to experience this using the HTC Vive Pro headset. In addition to improved audio quality and comfort, the user can be immersed in a property and explore it in the highest resolution.
The pitch at VivaTech by Florian Couret of BNP Paribas Real Estate, “Holoportation: defying space and time to reinvent the customer experience”, on the BNP Paribas stand at 2.45 p.m. on Saturday 26 May, is not to be missed.