Microsoft may be working on its HoloLens augmented reality technology, but the company has some other ideas in that area as well. One of them is called Room2Room, and it combines Microsoft's Kinect depth camera with a digital projector to place an image of a life-sized person in a room for conversation.
According to the MIT Technology Review, the idea from Room2Room is an extension of a previous Microsoft Research project called RoomAlive, which projected interactive gaming content on the sides of a room's walls. It states:
"Instead of setting up just one room with this hardware, though, they set up two similar ones so they could scan a person sitting in each room and project them into the other one. A video I was shown illustrates how it looks, with one man sitting on a chair, while another man is projected into a chair across from them (Room2Room places the projected image of a person into an open space, like a chair if they are captured in a seated position)."
Room2Room still has a number of challenges, such as its complex setup process and the fact that the images are currently projected in a low resolution. However, Microsoft Research says that with improvements in these and other areas, large companies could be using this technology in conference rooms in the next several years.
Source: MIT Technology Review
