Singapore, U.S., Switzerland to jointly develop 3D real-time teleconference system

Singapore, U.S., Switzerland to jointly develop 3D real-timeteleconference system

SINGAPORE, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- Three universities in Singapore,the United States and Switzerland announced a joint research centeron Wednesday to develop an advanced teleconference system thatbrings together people from distant places through real-time three-dimension interaction.

The research center, known as BeingThere Center, will be an 18million U.S. dollar investment by Singapore's Nanyang TechnologicalUniversity, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zuich and theUnited States' University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as wellas the Media Development Authority of Singapore.

The system will allow people to "send your avatar which will takeon your appearance as well as gestures and even give you a report ofthe meeting at the end," the universities said.

One of the prototypes to be developed is a telepresence roomvirtually joining several similarly instrumented remote rooms.

The rooms which all have wall-sized displays will provide eachperson in the room with the correct, personalized stereo view intothe remote rooms, giving the illusion the rooms are adjacent andseparated only by glass walls even though they are in differentcountries or regions.

In another application, researchers will work on a mobile displaythat brings a three-dimension graphical representation of one personin a distant location to a place that is controllable by both users.

The researchers are also thinking of a mobile robotic mannequinthat acts as a remotely located "avatar" that freely navigates adistant environment and takes on the appearance of its far-awayhuman host.

Also in the pipeline is an autonomous virtual human with memoryand awareness capabilities that can take the place of its host whenhe or she is absent.

"Telepresence will convey much of the nonverbal, oftensubconscious communications that make face-to-face interactions sovaluable and satisfying," says Henry Fuchs, a professor at theUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"As media and telecommunications converge, consumers will startto demand new forms of communication that bring about greaterpracticality and convenience," said Michael Yap, executive directorof the interactive digital media program office at the MediaDevelopment Authority.

Yap said some other institutions will also be involved in theresearch, including the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Chinese Academy ofSciences, Keio University and Tsinghua University.

Telepresence is a market that will be worth multiple billiondollars as broadband Internet and superfast computer chips aredeveloped, and emerging Asia will be one of the fast growingmarkets.