Cisco, the company that owns that video conferencing platform Webex, overnight announced it was launching an augmented reality meeting ‘solution’. And all I can think of is Minority Report.
The dystopian gateway is called Cisco WebEx Hologram. And how it’s described is: the industry’s only real-time meeting solution that takes advantage of augmented reality headsets (such as Magic Leap and HoloLens) to combine feature rich Webex meeting functionality with immersive 3D holograms.
Basically, Cisco believes augmented reality closes the gap between virtual and in-person ‘collaboration’.
“Our mission at Cisco is to empower the 3 billion digital workers on the planet to participate equally from anywhere in the world,” said Jeetu Patel, executive vice president and general manager, Cisco Security and Collaboration. “Webex Hologram represents a large step toward our mission of delivering a delivering a work experience so seamless that there is no gap between virtual and in-person collaboration.”
While Cisco is pushing this for us average office-workers set up with our work laptops in the corner of a room during lockdown, it also reckons industries like healthcare have a lot to gain from this tech.
“When a new surgical device is introduced, physicians, technicians, sales and support teams need to be trained quickly. With Webex Hologram, this training can be handled remotely to save time and travel, while providing the ability to see the surgical device from every angle and at its actual size as if a physician were in the room.”