Guest
Japan's newest singing sensation is a... Hologram. No, that's not a typo! It's amazing where technology is headed these days! Over in Japan Cryton Future Media is actually starting projector concerts using a actual live band to compliment their virtual vocaloid idols like Hatsune Miku. Regardless of being a Hatsune Miku fan or not, just seeing what technology can accomplish is just amazing. While this technically isn't a 'true' hologram (one where light actually takes up volumetric space rather than just a planar surface) like the one we've all seen of in Star Wars, it is still nevertheless quite impressive how real this appears! According to SingularityHub, Hatsune Miku is a based off of the singing synthesizer application developed by Crypton Future Media. Miku's voice comes from Yamaha's Vocaloid synthesizing technology and is sampled off of a real person's voice--Japanese actress (but not singer) Saki Fujita. Regular, technologically-inclined users (such as yourselves) can purchase the Vocaloid software with an avatar (such as Miku) for 15,750 yen (about $190), and create their own songs to share with others. The software is reportedly rather in-depth and allows users to connect vocals note-by-note. The virtual characters have gotten so big that people are no longer satisfied with diving into this world on the internet--Hatsune Miku gave her first concert on March 9, 2010, at Zepp Tokyo in Odaiba. Zepp Tokyo is a moderately-sized concert hall that holds about 3000 people standing, and you can see from her videos that her fans are not only numerous but rabid. If the single concert wasn't enough to convince you that this is a phenomenon, there have also been screenings of the concert in San Francisco and New York. Take a look, if 3,000 people are excited about a singing hologram, imagine where we'll be in a few years where we can interact with these holograms! This video is copyrighted by Crypton Future Media: For more news and videos on immersive technologies visit : Follow us on Twitter: @immersivetechla
