bluesrat@gmail.com has shared: Star Wars-style holograms coming our way

Holograms remain one of those things that exist in the nebulous realm of scifi despite our best efforts. Well, maybe not anymore. What you see in that video is not *exactly* 3D. Holograms have the interesting property of changing depending on where you're standing in relation to them, even though they're being projected onto a 2D surface. Weird, eh? Funny thing about holograms: traditional data transmission works by taking a discrete chunk of data--a file--and breaking it down into tiny bits, each of which is flagged by the computer. It then ships those chunks across a communication network to another computer, which puts the bits back together according to how they were flagged. If you lose some of those chunks, you don't end up with a functioning file at the other end. Makes you wonder how the internet works so reliably, doesn't it? Holograms are different. In every bit of data, the code for the *entire* hologram exists. It's like DNA. I don't pretend to understand exactly why or how, or how it produces the effects it does--I'll have to go read up now--but there it is. Among other things, this makes holography a far more reliable form of data in the case of rocky, unstable communications--such as interplanetary, if we ever get around to that. So it's been highly desirable for quite some time. Looks like that 40GB transmission rate is coming along at just about the right time, eh?
Star Wars-style holograms coming our way http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/02/25/star-wars-style-holograms-comi...
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