Silicon Valley giant Google is developing Project Starline, which is supposed to make the person you’re talking to seem like they’re in the same room as you.
The pandemic and the lockdown that accompanied it made Zoom, Teams and other video conferencing systems ubiquitous. Google is working on a more advanced version than just a face on a screen. The Silicon Valley giant organized its traditional annual press conference on Tuesday, May 14, to present its innovations. Before the event, the Mountain View company released a press release about its Starline project and a video to illustrate it. Two people are talking, one on what looks like a TV screen, but we actually get the impression that she is there in three dimensions, without having to use a virtual reality headset. The screen generates a sense of depth and volume, as Google explains. A result obtained thanks to cameras, sensors to capture the movement of the person, some artificial intelligence, obviously, and a specific screen. The California group ensures that this way of communicating improves what we remember from the call by 30% compared to a traditional video conference, among other things because the attention to the conversation increases by 15%. In fact, technology helps with non-verbal communication because we can observe the gestures and expressions of our interlocutor much better.
Google promises arrival on the market in 2025, without giving many more details. We don’t know anything about the price, for example. The Silicon Valley giant has partnered with HP to develop its technology and make it accessible. Does this mean that HP brand computers will be equipped? We don’t know that either. But the idea would also be to integrate the Starline project with Google Meet, Zoom and other video conferencing applications. The project dates from 2021, it has evolved along the way. In early versions, the prototype looked like a kind of cockpit that you had to enter. The equipment took up much more space, jeopardizing its large-scale use. There, the system became considerably lighter. It was tested in about a hundred companies for months.
According to the website Resume Builder, in the United States, the return of employees to the office will take place in 9 out of 10 companies by the end of the year, at least those that still have offices. Even in a company like Airbnb, which has been talked about a lot because it has given its employees the right to work from wherever they want, managers consider that presence in the office is important, as part of training or launching projects in particular. But it’s not a full return either, five days a week. The hybrid mode seems to be preferred by employers and employees. According to the Morning Consult Pro company, in any case, for the first time since the pandemic, the proportion of employees who prefer a hybrid mode has exceeded the share of those who want to work only at home.
At the same time, a CNBC survey puts the proportion of business leaders confident in the hybrid work strategy at 80%, partly because they have observed an increase in the productivity of their employees.