Holograms on the horizon? San Diego company seeks to make futuristic technology mainstream | News

By Editor On Nov 25, 2021

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Do you remember R2D2 broadcasting a hologram of Princess Leia, whom Obi-Wan-Kenobi asked for help in the first Star Wars film in 1977?

Now a San Diego company is looking to bring similar holograms to life on desktop and handheld devices.

Founded four years ago by Taylor Scott Griffith and Joe Ward, IKIN works on volumetric hardware, “neural adaptive” artificial intelligence algorithms, and other software to deliver holograms to small devices – including accessories that attach to smartphones.

IKIN’s products aren’t ready for prime time yet. They remain in the beta test or special order phase. When they hit the market commercially, they will face stiff competition from more established technologies such as augmented reality data glasses and virtual reality headsets.

“When I look at holograms, I don’t know that there is a huge market now or in the next few years,” said Eric Abbruzzese, director of research at ABI Research, which tracks the industry. “But I’m excited to see the miniaturization of the technology. I think we’ll see the first of this with an IKIN.”

If IKIN succeeds in delivering easy-to-use holograms without headgear, it could find audiences in a variety of industries. These include video conferencing – with lifelike zoom calling and more engaging online education – e-commerce, healthcare, real estate, architecture, remote repairs, and gaming.

Griffith, IKIN’s chief technology officer, claims that holograms provide a more immersive emotional experience. He saw this firsthand while working on holographic shows in Las Vegas that he didn’t want to mention. But holograms are used in some stage productions to bring back late artists like Tupac Shakur, Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson.

“You’d make people cry, especially when it came to the holographic resurrections,” he said. “It is really an incredibly strong thing.

“I worked on developing this optical system,” he continued. “It’s easy to make large systems, but incredibly difficult to make a functional system on a small scale when it comes to holograms. I finally stumbled upon a solution.”

The young company’s technology has appeared on the radar of a U.S. military contractor who picked it up as part of a 5G logistics demonstration at a military camp in Georgia.

It is also being investigated by an unknown cosmetic company that plans to use it for remote product testing.

IKIN has two main projects under development. The ARC is a 32-inch desktop display that projects holograms in ambient light and is aimed at businesses. At the company’s headquarters in San Diego, ARC produced a hologram of an eyeball that rotated so it could be viewed from different angles.

“It’s really cool to scan a turbine engine and see it over time in a hologram for cracks and defects,” said Ward, CEO of IKIN. “The goal is to continue exploring business-to-business opportunities while creating a consumer product.”

The second IKIN project is an accessory display that is attached to smartphones to enable holographic images on cell phones.

The RYZ display is expected to cost under $ 500 and is expected to hit the market next year. It includes a software kit that can be uploaded to the Unity 3D development platform.

Unity is a popular game engine used by software developers on desktop, mobile, console, and virtual reality platforms.

The RYZ kit enables developers to reuse existing content and apps to enable holograms as well as create new holographic content. “Right now, literally all of the applications that exist on a phone are ready to be translated into a holographic environment,” said Griffith.

The company, which has around 20 employees, has raised around $ 15 million in start-up capital since it was founded. According to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the company is now trying to raise another $ 20.9 million.

Abbruzzese, the analyst at ABI Research, said IKIN’s challenge will be to get content creators on board and make the technology easy to use. It was still “early days,” he said.

“I hesitate to compare it to 3-D televisions, but I think it’s appropriate,” said Abbruzzese. “Even if the content is there, the interest may not be there. There have been attempts at glasses-free 3D – holography is the next step in 3D, so to speak – and it never really caught on.”

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