Hologramania at CNN

I missed it yesterday, but CNN has one of the coolest things I have seen in a long time. I might be in the minority, which is something I found quite surprising. Just like so many others, I am embedding the video here in my post:





When I was a young child I would sit in the den with my mother and watch the original Start Trek episodes.  This was in the early seventies.  It captured and fed my overactive adolescent imagination and it got me through a lot of awkward year: yes, I was not so popular...with anyone.  But the original Star Trek lacked something that most of the subsequent spin offs had.  The holodeck.

CNN's hologram technology is certainly not a holodeck.  Far from it.  But where others see the potential of web conferencing (boring), I see things differently.  So remove Jessica (the one being holo projected) from the picture.  Then add 3D generated imagine.  Let's say a full sized Lara Croft.  Now add dark corners of the world and you can almost literally stand next to the action as you control it.   But instead of a keyboard or joystick or some other primitive device, your very movements would control her.  From jumping to swimming, punching to shooting, you would control it all and have a kickass VR-like experience.

Okay.  So maybe this technology is too limited and, it's certainly too expensive.  But perhaps its that stone upon which CNN is the first to step.