New Media - Entertainment Technology

For this blog, I decided to cover a new technology that we use for entertainment, specifically in music. The technology I am about to discuss covers the substantial progress in holographic projections.

If you've ever seen a hologram, then you know how unrealistic it looks. They glitch and never do well under strong illumination. However, in Japan, holograms have been taken to a whole new level.

Vocaloid is a Japanese program that provides you with a singer for your music. Simply come up with a tune, then insert the melody into this program along with the lyrics, and then the program organizes a synthesized voice to sing your song. The program comes with a music library that holds more than one type of voice to use, or rather, singer. Each voice is associated with a character, with one most popular being Hatsune Miku, and the vocals were made by sampling the voices of real singers. As Vocaloid grew in the Japan, the company decided to really bring the singers of their programs to life by creating a Vocaloid concert.

This concert brings the characters onstage by projecting them as holograms. But they're not just ordinary holograms. These holograms, or singers, can sustain bright light and their movements are also very realistic. See for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTXO7KGHtjI

If you look closely, you can even see that they even put detail in the insides of her sleeves.


I think that this will help to completely change the way we view entertainment. Multimedia programs will become more geared to creating scenarios where the viewers can feel as if they are in the situation as opposed to right now where many are simply concerned with the realism. As 3D and IMAX movies encourage us to become more involved in what we view, I think that this technology will have real footing later on in the future.

This holographic technology will also be helpful in more practical ways, such as providing the model for a house or an apartment building that has not yet been built, or even giving a better view of what our water systems look like and can help us improve weaknesses in our pipelines. Or help us analyze other areas that need to be improved and updated such as bridges and other roadways. The way we handle our blueprints will be radically different.

Presentations utilizing this technology will be helpful in creating more effective arguments where the listener can be directly transferred into a simulated copy of the situation. For example, if someone were to argue about the deforestation that occurs in the rainforests, that presenter would be able to transfer his or her audience to places where trees have been completely cut down and show people just how vast this occurrence is.