CNN is cool. In addition to the huge touchscreen “Magic Wall” (which was originally military technology), CNN’s Wolf Blitzer gets to play with Holograms today during their coverage of the presidential elections.
CNN’s Jessica Yellin is the guinea pig, appearing virtually with Blitzer.
I have no idea why Yellin doesn’t just go to the studio instead of being wherever she is, or why they don’t just point a camera at her and bring her into the story in the normal way, and I don’t care. They have a hologram, and if I wasn’t getting on a plane in twenty minutes I’d be watching CNN the rest of the evening.
Update: (Robin Wauters) since Michael’s on a plane, here’s a bit more information about the technology side of all this:
The network has created green-screen virtual-set environments that will be set up in mobile trailers outside the Obama and McCain headquarters and will use a mix of mechanical and infrared camera-tracking technology to create a realistic holographic image of the correspondent on the floor of the “Situation Room” set in New York. The field correspondents will have a 37” plasma monitor showing a return feed of the “Situation Room” set with Blitzer to give them a frame of reference.
CNN Senior VP and Washington Bureau Chief David Bohrman, who has been evaluating the technology at NAB shows for years, has indicated that introducing discreet virtual set elements into a real-world set is something they hope to do more of in the future, e.g. for live interviews.
They don’t have holograms. They have camera animations. It’s the cameras talking to each other.
yeah. well. i assumed that was obvious.
but they’re calling them holograms, which is cool.
It is pretty cool though.
I think it is using this Cisco stuff
http://www.yout...h?v=rcfNC_x0VvE
so had they called them androids it would have been cooler? comeon…
Star Wars! Senate!
its a hologram, moron. its just basically green-screening…blitzer doesn’t really “see” her.
arent you the head of a tech blog?
Yeah, I just watched this and was fun. Reminded me of pricess Leia on the original Star Wars
Lol, yeah somekind.
That is wild! I can only imagine the implications for gaming.
Telegram -> Telephone -> Fax -> Email -> Webcam -> Hologram
I was at a presentation 2 weeks ago when Tim Draper said, in the next 20 years, we will see advancement just like what we saw the last 120 years. This is simply amazing.
Imagine the implication for web conferencing.
I know people are gonna say this so I’ll go ahead and be the first:
“Help me Wolf Blitzer, youre my only hope!”
Vote you Must!
When was the last time a TV network tried to showcase its technical prowess?
It’s a awesome effect and worth tuning in for. Also nice to see Andersen Cooper talking about it.
My wife and I had to shut off CNN, too many flashy gimmicks. Kinda ridiculous. I’m sticking to the net for my info.
Why would they do something so stupid as that? ..o wait, of course! Because they can. Geeeeeeeeez
Why is it that whenever somebody else does a stupid trick on the net everybody goes ooooh aaaah, but if a network does it as a part of a commercial agreement with the company that makes such technology just to showoff then everybody goes meh!.
I think that many will appreciate the technical feat (you know, where they make both camera sets move at the same time and the news director gets to choose which one will be showing, or where they set the delay correctly so both videos appear to be in sync).
Imagine when live reports combine this tech with green screen sets that actually make the news caster appear at the site? Live keynotes that feature speakers from around the world? World conferences? The possibilities, to me, seem cool.
Now, for our every day use… Forget it.
Why is it CNN has all the cool stuff? And why is it CNN is the first to do the hologram? Seriously, to see this technology on a news station is so bizarre.
That being said, it is freaking COOL!
“why they don’t just point a camera at her and bring her into the story in the normal way, and I don’t care. They have a hologram”
So true. gimicky sure, cool? hell yea.
Is Cisco running their Telepresence commercials?
Confirmed as of 8pm Eastern on Time Warner Cable’s CNN feed.
Cisco is running the ads.
Clever.
CNN has a clue and knows how to compete with social media. They mash it up all together in a nice HD package and keep information pouring in in crisp red and blue colors.
Correct me if I’m wrong… I think this is the first time anything resembling a hologram has been used in mainstream media.
The “hologram transmission” was somewhat jittery. I guess even CNN has bandwidth issues which almost strikes me as normal since holo-report was made out of 30+ HD cameras streamed in real-time.
Cheers!
Shonzilla
I was just joking with my housemate last night that after using multitouch this year maybe they’ll have holograms for the next elections! I almost lol’ed at the gym later this afternoon when I actually saw this on the TV.
Edutainment ftw. It’s along the same lines as better data visualization, it makes it all more fun to watch. I give CNN credit for trying something new!
I just saw that and tweeted about it, pretty cool.
(intended humorously) – and now you’ve posted a comment about tweeting about seeing a television image of a hologram of a (presumably) actual person. It’s like reality at five removes!! Amazing, this modern world.
Fuck your tweet retard
If you vote obama you can say goodbye to cool stuff like holograms. He hate the military and everything it stands for.
That’s fine cause NASA come out with way more useful stuff than the military anyway.
NASA collaborates with the military – in particular, the Air Force – for a lot of their biggest projects.
LOL, cool. I just saw that on TV a few minutes ago, and I was thinking … nice, this is like a special product saved up just for election day.
haha… this is some Star Wars type ishhh
Where can I download this video in high quality? Thanx)
“Please state the nature of the journalistic emergency”
pretty cool tech
As long as their coverage doesn’t suffer due to this tech distraction.
it was cool. no steel bikini like Leia, tho. But it’s the future of coverage.
i’m just jazzed that they care enough to invest in the level of technology that they do…can only imagine the complexity of project managing and producing their show…
CNN has the best coverage, in terms of touch screen technology, map statistical analysis and integration of social media. But the ‘hologram’ was cheesy … a self-love media moment … and the comparison to 1970s Star Wars animation is dead on. Maybe they’ll have R2D2 doing a piece on ‘robo calls’ next.
i hope the Daily Show makes fun of this.
CNN has the hot chics too.! technology and hot chics. Sweet!
Just saw the CNN hologram of Will.i.am. I’m certainly impressed with this, although it was a little weird to see my first tv hologram on election night, of a pop star ?!!!
whatever or how they do that, all i can say is its very cool.
This is PATHETIC — these have NOTHING TO DO WITH HOLOGRAPHY. This is a simple off-the-shelf chroma-keying affect available with video switchers for a few years. What a joke …
Bob,
You are completely wrong regarding it not being a hologram. It was a hologram. In the next couple of years holograms will be part of video conferencing.
It looks cool though. STAR WARS!
Btw
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God, your website sucks so much… buggy everywhere, you get stuck in forms without any option to leave apart from closing the browser tab.
Why linking this crap?
it was silly and totally playing with a gigantic budget, but it was cool-looking nonetheless. incidentally the “magic board” or “wall” (and the vertical one they intro’d tonight to show exit-poll breakdowns) was developed by Jeff Han’s team at NYU, demo’d at TED and now spun into the company Perceptive Pixel; they sell these things to the military with some kick-ass applications, but i’m pretty sure the tech itself wasn’t military per se. (scoped one of these for a project
)
So Cisco is behind this?
The technology is from Vizrt and SportVu. see http://tinyurl.com/5stdl3 All graphics on CNN is rendered by the Viz Engine from Vizrt and in addition they use the touch screen from Perceptive Pixel for the interactive map.
I’m stunned that people thought this looked cool. It was easily the most ridiculous moment of the night. Her feet looked like the talsons of some weird hybrid creature. Our party replayed it to laugh some more.
The CNN holograms are the dumbest things ever. It’s just regular chroma key overlay, but made to look like 1960s Star Trek. C’mon.
Help me Obama. You’re our only hope.
No wonder TWX is going down the shitter.
I have been deceived…. *closes tab
hologram lame…might be great for porn
I knew it. They’re testing the teleporting app for the iphone. Darn it, I want it!
Michael, You are so right! Did you notice the animated logo too–it was all sparkly? I was hypnotized by it. I wasn’t sure if i was watching MTV News or CNN.
Wow…. this is really cool… d 1st time i saw this was at WCIT conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia which Bill Gates was doing it…. but now CNN did it as well….. really cool….
Hmmm …. when gimmicks overshadow the outcome… Anyway, it was a historical night!
N
Nobody would be complaining about the quality if they were projecting the image out of an R2D2 replica.
Help me Obi Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.
very dumb
I think that an Israeli start-up (can’t remember the name) is doing the tech of this application – it looks very cool imho
my comments at http://www.commentino.com/orim
totaly awesdome;we can not imagine how great this innovation can bring.
greetings from senegal,west Africa
i think she was just behind the stage. the technology is still impressive!
wht ever u say!! this is just amazing!! think of it for gaming.. wow!!