As we near the close of 2022, the one thing that remains constant seems to be the increasing number of news stories involving holograms, 3D immersive tech, and the metaverse. Just about every sector of life seems to be in-play as far as being touched by this trend.

Here’s a sampling of what we spotted in the last few months.

  • Sight and sound have been the key experiential elements we think of when we think about the virtual worlds, but what about enhanced interaction with the virtual world, what about touch and smell? Researchers at University of Glasgow are looking into just that. Read about “Touchable Holograms: Interacting With Virtual Words.”
  • Marcus Cantu is the first baseball player to use holographic teleportation. He’s been teleported, holographically anyway, into the coach’s office where he can be coached remotely. It’s the same tech that put a doctor into the space station, but now available at a lower costs. Baseball Prodigy Uses Holographic Teleportation for Batting Practice.
  • In the realm of virtual tourism, Airtel and Nokia are bringing to life the cultural splendor of India’s Kashi Vishwanath temple and the Statue of Unity, showcasing the architecture and design of these iconic monuments and replicating the physical experience through holographic images demonstrating the benefits of ultra-fast and low latency 5G network.  Airtel, Nokia Partner to Bring Holographic Technology to Boost Virtual Tourism
  • A new microscope developed by Korean scientists is able to “see through” the intact skull of a living mouse and produce high resolution 3D imaging of the neural network inside the mouse brain. The scientists have been able to overcome the problems associated with light scattering randomly when falling on living cells, and with the new microscope they were able to successfully achieve a high-resolution image of the neural network of the mouse brain present within the skull. Holographic Microscope to Observe the Brain’s Neural Network
  • VisAR technology from Novarad uses augmented reality technology to superimpose a surgical navigation plan right over the patient’s body to provide guidance during spinal surgeries. The technology has just been cleared by the FDA in the U.S.FDA clears augmented reality system to help navigate spine surgery
  • Medical holography in general has been a hot topic, and Fact.MR has released a report that projects that the global medical holography market will grow from US$ 447.8 million in 2019 to US$ 3.5 billion by 2026.
  • When it comes to life in the metaverse or any virtual world, the ethical questions and human rights issues will inevitably have to be addressed. In Migration to the Metaverse: We Need Guaranteed Basic Immersive Rights the author identifies the issue that “metaverse providers will have unprecedented power to profile and influence their users,” and therefore suggests that it’s time to work toward guaranteeing a set of  “immersive rights.”
  •  And just in time for the Holidays … the Immersive Nutcracker, A Winter Miracle is coming to Vegas. The 30-minute immersive experience retells the Christmas classic, encompassing visitors in over 500,000 cubic feet of projections composed of over 1 million frames of video.