Inaugural Holographic Teleportation Performed Between US and Canada

While researchers examine possible applications of holographic teleportation in healthcare, the technology may also be potentially used to improve virtual meetings.

A team of researchers from the University of Western Ontario has managed to perform the first ever international holographic teleportation.

The technology in question does not involve teleporting physical objects – that remains the premise of science fiction - but, as its name implies, allows the projection of a hologram to a remote location.

The holographic teleportation was performed by a team at the university’s Institute for Space Research on July 27.

"We transported one person from Alabama to London, Ontario, and then each of the students here on the project were able to instantly holoport themselves in holographic form down to Huntsville, Alabama," the institute’s faculty member Adam Sirek said as quoted by Interesting Engineering.

According to the media outlet, the researchers worked in collaboration with Canadian company Leap Biosystems and Houston-based Aexa Aerospace – a provider of software that allows holographic images of a subject and their environment to be created via a special camera.

The team reportedly hopes to find a way to use this tech to facilitate medical examinations in remote areas.

However, while holographic teleportation does allow the transmission of images and voices, the hologram will not be able to touch a patient during an examination.

Healthcare aside, the technology may also help take virtual meetings to a new level, the media outlet noted.

"Wouldn't it be nice if you're on a three-month deployment to the space station, and you could come down and sit in the room (at home) for a family dinner," Sirek remarked.