Holograms Next Step in Realistic Training for Tomorrow’s Troops: Ground troops today train in mock villages, where two-dimensional insurgents and civilians pop out of windows or doorways, and the soldier or Marine must instantly decide to shoot or hold fire.
Holographic technology, which is beginning to make inroads in the entertainment industry, could replace those 2D cutouts with virtual characters so realistic that it would make the trainee “crap his pants,” said James Jacobs, senior vice president of entertainment technology at Anakando Media Group, the parent company of HologramUSA.
The company has made headlines by placing the image of the dead rapper Tupac Shakur on a stage. It has teleported the cast of the ballet Swan Lake to other locations and, more recently, had WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange — currently holed up in an apartment in London’s Ecuadorian embassy — give a live interview in the United States, appearing here as a hologram and taking questions from the interviewer as if he were sitting next to him.
HologramUSA came to Washington, D.C., in August to make inroads in the government and political marketplaces, and hired a local lobbying firm to help it spread the word.
The company hopes holograms become a tool for candidates in the 2016 election as they were earlier this year in India, where newly elected Prime Minister Narendra Modi transported his hologram to platforms on trucks to speak to and engage with voters in far-flung provinces.
As for the military market, Jacobs said training and simulation is the most obvious application.
