TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Microsoft shows off keynote speaker hologram speaking a new language
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Back view of young businessman and woman looking at digital business screens and holograms in futuristic interior. (Shutterstock/Peshkova)
D
uring this week’s Microsoft Inspire conference in Las Vegas, the company demonstrated a new HoloLens technology developed in collaboration with Azure AI services that produces a full-size hologram of an individual speaking another language.
A few days into Microsoft’s Inspire conference, the company presented a new HoloLens technology during a keynote that produced a perfectly replicated hologram version of the anglophone keynote speaker delivering the presentation in Japanese.
The speaker and subject of the hologram was Microsoft Corporate VP Julia White, an executive working with the Azure AI team. Before the presentation, White was scanned at the company’s Mixed Reality Studio so that a hologram of her — outfit and all — could be replicated in front of the Inspire audience.
Her voice was sampled using Azure’s AI tech which converted it to Japanese using Neural-Text-to-Speech; this allowed the Japanese version of her presentation to retain her vocal tone and delivery style.
With this information collected and stitched together, audience members in Japan using a HoloLens could watch her keynote in perfect Japanese as if she were delivering it right in front of them.
Read also: Whitney Houston estate working on hologram tour, new album
While this technology is not yet available to the public, it demonstrates that language and even distance are no longer the barriers they once were. In the not-so-distant future, speakers like White will be able to put this technology into practice to deliver presentations across the world and be in several places — using several languages — at once.
