A Spanish actress will be "tele-transported" to act on a stage in London.
A Spanish actress will be tele-transported on Thursday, February 24 at 17:00 from the Event Lab of the University of Barcelona to a stage at the University College of London. She will perform there a scene together with another English actor.
The Spanish actress will be able to act and dialogue with the other actor as if she were in London, thanks to the technology based on Virtual reality that the European project Beaming is developing.
Whereas there are already advanced systems of videoconferencing, virtual shared environments and platforms such as Second Life, the most effective option to hold business, scientific or family meetings remains that of travelling, in spite of the huge economic, energetic and ecological costs involved. To tackle this problem Beaming proposes a new type of virtual transportation allowing people separated by thousands of kilometres to share the same virtual environment where they'll be able to physically interact through representations of their bodies in natural size. This will be achieved by displacing one's own perception means to this environment and transforming one's actions as well as physical and emotional state in a flux of data to be transmitted through Internet.
Beaming will integrate technologies such as computer vision, computer graphics, virtual reality, touch technologies and human-machine interfaces in a way never attempted before, going beyond what is currently possible. These technologies will be strengthened by the application of the latest developments in cognitive neuro-sciences and, more specifically, the process through which our brain represents our own body.
With a budget of over 12 millions €, the Beaming project started last January 1st, 2010 and runs for four years to develop a technology capable of generating the feeling of being physically in a remote location with other people without having to go there. It is supported by the European Commission's 7th Framework programme and is coordinated by the Barcelona-based company Starlab, leading an international consortium of 11 companies and research institutions across Europe.
The Beaming consortium:
- Starlab (Spain) - Project Coordinator
- Universitat de Barcelona (Spain)
- University College London (United Kingdom)
- Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (Switzerland)
- Scuola Superiore di Studi Universitari e di Perfezionamento Sant’ Anna (Italy)
- Technion - Israel Institute of Technology (Israel)
- Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya (Israel)
- IBM Haifa Research Lab (Israel)
- Institut d’Investigacions Biomediques August Pi i Sunyer (Spain)
- Aalborg Universitet (Denmark)
- Technische Universitaet Muenchen (Germany)
The project Beaming acknowledges the financial support of the Seventh Framework Programme for Research of the European Commission DG-INFSO-D2, under grant number 248620.
