Musion's Star Wars style technology and MASERGY's Global Network Connection take Telepresence from the Boardroom to the Living Room
  
Musion, exclusive master global Licensor for the Eyeliner (TM) telepresence system, today announced that Star Wars style hologram communication took place between London and Berlin on Wednesday 12th November for German live communications conference, the BlachReportDialog. This was just a week after the fiasco of a major US TV channel's 'hologram' report during the American election - later admitted to be a fake - when the anchorman turned out not to be looking at a hologram of a reporter but a red dot.

On Wednesday, however, there were no red dots. A life-size hologram was transmitted from a studio in London to a live audience in Berlin. The hologram answered questions, laughed, looked into their eyes and was, to all appearances, real. It was, in fact, Ian O'Connell, one of the three directors of Musion, a small British telepresence company founded in 2002. He explained how this remarkable system worked and was followed by his PA, Corinna Jess who became a real-life Princess Leia, though far from asking Obi-Wan Kenobi for help she sang - she's a classically trained singer - an aria from Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus and chatted to her stunned parents sitting in the audience.

 
After that, the audience went wild and leaders in the German communication industry and potential clients from VW to Angela Merkl's publicity director swarmed over the stage trying to get to grips with the future. RTL, Germany's leading commercial television station, got so excited at the afternoon rehearsal, they sent a journalist and crew to London and filmed their own show simultaneously in London and Berlin.

No one has ever attempted before to send a live hologram in real time with full interaction. It was created with the help of MASERGY, which provided a communications network with exceptional video transport enabling high definition images and sound. MASERGY also provided the London studio for the 3D transmission.




"This demonstration represents what is possible when you combine incredible video technology with an advanced video network," said John Dumbleton, SVP and Managing Director of MASERGY. "Musion's faster frame rate of 50 interlaced frames per second creates the natural image edge blurring necessary for 3D images to look realistic. This incredible quality is possible because MASERGY's global network was purpose-built to deliver superior video performance at all times and under all network conditions."
Between them, Musion and MASERGY have boldly gone into very new virtual territory and it could be the start of something very big indeed. Berlin could, in fact, be the prototype for the transformation of communication as we know it. Ian O'Connell believes the possibilities are endless, at this point perhaps even unimaginable.

"Most telecommunications companies see it mostly for use in the boardroom but we think it can be far more inclusive than that," he commented. "Because it's bi-directional both sides interact in real time, so it could work in education where a teacher can be transmitted to a class of two or three hundred but by using touch screen technology, she could home in on any PC for one to one with a particular student. Churches can transmit charismatic preachers, prisoners can have visits with their families in their own living rooms, engineers and inventors can collaborate, entertainers can appear in nightclubs to launch a new album in 1,000 music stores simultaneously or your front room and the possibilities for politicians are obvious. What the implications are for dating I dread to think. If you think the internet transformed everything, if you think You Tube and MySpace are great, where will this go?"

Perhaps the strangest element in this great leap forward in communication technology is that it owes its origins not to a computer nerd or a boffin in a lab but to a piece of Victorian stage trickery. Pepper's Ghost was an illusion presented by Professor John Pepper in which by means of lights and mirrors a figure in the orchestra pit would appear as a ghostly presence on stage. As O'Connell puts it, Musion's Eyeliner technique is "a simple but clever tweak to an old trick."

About MASERGY

MASERGY is a privately held global network service provider specialising in delivering the strongest customer experience in the telecommunications industry. Serving hundreds of customers throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia, MASERGY leverages advanced transport technologies to deliver global Ethernet services across a native MPLS network. The company pioneered customer-controlled network services and the delivery of multiple services over a single network connection. MASERGY's customers include companies from the financial/banking, healthcare, entertainment broadcasting, hospitality/hotels and manufacturing industries. MASERGY received the 2008 Nemertes Research Pilot House Awards for Best Overall MPLS Service and Best Overall Customer Experience for Emerging Providers.
 
More information about MASERGY is available online at http://www.masergy.com or by calling +44 (0)207 173 6888. 
             
About Musion Systems Limited

Musion Systems Limited is a privately owned company and the exclusive master global Licensor for the Eyeliner™ telepresence system. Musion Eyeliner is the new and unique high definition video projection system allowing spectacular freeform 3-dimensional moving images to appear within a live stage setting. Eyeliner brings dramatic, previously unseen 21st century video film effects to the live set mediums of stage - Audio Visual conference or trade show presentations, retail displays, large scale out of home digital signage and artistic performances. Musion Eyeliner technology has been used in a variety of applications including lifesize holograms of Madonna (Grammy Awards), Gorillaz animated band (MTV), General Electric GEnx aircraft engine, David Beckham, Cadillac SLS, John McEnroe, Lewis Hamilton, HRH Prince Charles, Nike, Sir Richard Branson and Nokia.
 
For further information about Musion, please contact Anna Selby by email on anna@annaselby.co.uk or by calling +44 (0)207 740 6447 / +44 (0)774 063 2293
http://www.musion.co.uk