Google introduced Project Starline at I/O 2021 annual conference and while it was limited for use in Google Offices only until now, the company is now partnering with HP to bring the new 3D video conferencing experience to office workspaces and essentially commercialise it in 2025.
What is Project Starline?
Project Starline was developed at a time when work from home was the trend during the COVID era. In Google’s terms, it is a “technology project that combines advances in hardware and software to enable friends, families and coworkers to feel together, even when they’re cities (or countries) apart”. Google describes it as a sort of magic window, and through that window, you see another person, life-size and in three dimensions. You can talk naturally, gesture and make eye contact.
Google employed research in computer vision, machine learning, spatial audio and real-time compression to make the technology work. It further developed a light field display system that creates a sense of volume and depth that can be experienced without the need for additional glasses or headsets. The effect is the feeling of a person sitting just across from you, like in real world.
Google said it spent thousands of hours testing Project Starline within the organisation as it connected colleagues between the Bay Area, New York and Seattle offices.
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Google & HP To Bring Project Starline In 2025
Now, after enough testing and research showing people prefer such a setup over a traditional video call, Google concluded that meetings in Starline lead to better attentiveness, memory recall and an overall sense of presence.
“Today we’re excited to share that we’re bringing the technology out of the lab with a focus on connecting distributed teams and individuals in the workplace. We’re partnering with HP to start commercialization of this unique experience in 2025, and are working to enable it directly from the video conferencing services you use today — such as Google Meet and Zoom”, said Google in a blog post.
The company says that HP’s expertise in computing, combined with their investment in Poly’s collaboration solutions, makes them uniquely positioned to deliver new and innovative experiences worldwide. Google will be sharing more details about the development later this year.