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Hologram technology reaches new heights...

Dr. Dre apparently teamed up with James Cameron to create a hologram of Tupac. For those that don't know, Tupac was a rapper back in the 90's who was murdered in his mid-twenties I believe.

You can wikipedia him for more details though.

Anyway, holograms have never much impressed me. To date the only mental image I've had of a 'hologram' has been the scene from star wars...


But the hologram of Tupac is amazing. I mean, it looks about as close to a real person being there as you can get. Later in the video Snoop Dogg is rapping with Tupac and it almost looks like two actual people.

[warning: excessive amounts of foul language in this video clip. Turn off your volume if you are offended by such language]


It makes you think, just how far are we from a day when we won't even know if who we are seeing is actually there (in the flesh) or just a hologram, even if they are standing 10 feet in front of us.

The implications for PR? Umm... endless. Too many to even discuss right now.

But just off the top of my head...

How about an Obama speech with special guest John F. Kennedy in hologram form?  Can you imagine if presidential candidates started giving speeches joined by a hologram of their favourite past (and dead) presidents?

Like I say, there are so many implications to this technology if it becomes good enough such that you can't distinguish a hologram from a real person that it's almost scary to think about.

For PR folks it could one day be a game changer. The 'hologram news release' will only be the beginning.

Comments

  1. AnonymousApril 23, 2012 at 9:05 AM

    This technology is absolutely incredible! I've seen it used mostly for concerts and I only worry what consequences it will have in PR as it becomes more "real." I wonder if it will begin to create scandals much like lipsyncing has in the past?

    ReplyDelete
  2. rob mcleanApril 23, 2012 at 10:24 AM

    Or to really blow your mind, how quickly could you damage someone's brand using a hologram of them?

    You could create entire 'scenes' that were fake, from the room to the people in it (replicas of reality though), and then play out that scene as you desire. Then take the video of that scene and release it in to the social network and before you know it the whole world believes something that isn't true.

    Right now you couldn't do that because you would need the actual participant. If you wanted to create a video of me you actually need me. But with this hologram technology, you wouldn't.

    Think of what groups like Anonymous would do with this technology?

    Hmmm... makes you wonder if in the future one of the key PR skills that will grow in demand will be a variation on crisis communications - brand defender or something like that. Responding to false propaganda created using hologram technology.

    At least it's all still a decade away (or at least I hope it).

    ReplyDelete

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