Google IO: With Project Starline, Google dreams of almost face-to-face virtual meetings

For over a year, a large number of people have not hugged their friends, family, and close ones because the pandemic made physical contact dreadful. At Google IO, the software giant announced Project Starline, a breakthrough in the world of technology that combines both hardware and software to create life-size images and videos of the person you are on call with. According to Google, the project is a result of “research in computer vision, machine learning, spatial audio and real-time compression.” And all of this is happening in a highly advanced setup that has something called the light field display system, which Google thinks is a breakthrough to create a sense of volume and depth to the video of the person, without requiring a mixed-reality headset or high-tech glasses. The video that Google played at the developers’ conference showed one-on-one interactions with people using Project Starline, not group calls. Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that Project Starline is available at a few Google offices where testing is still underway as it relies on “custom-built hardware and highly-specialised equipment”.