Google announced it’s partnering with HP to commercialize Project Starline, the company’s light-field display for immersive, headset-less video conferences.
Google says it’s partnering with HP to start commercialization of Starline in 2025, which the company says will “focus on connecting distributed teams and individuals in the workplace.”
Additionally, Google says it wants to eventually bring Starline support to video conferencing services such as Google Meet and Zoom—which will be interesting to see given how different livestreaming light-field video is to standard video.
First unveiled in 2021, the telepresence platform was initially a cumbersome, booth-sized unit that Google said would allow for a glasses-free 3D chatting experience thanks to its host of sensors, light-field display, spatial audio, computer vision, and novel compression.
The HP-built units won’t be the first time Starline has made its way out of Google’s offices though. In 2022, Google began installing prototypes at the offices of Salesforce, WeWork, T-Mobile, and Hackensack Meridian Health. And at last year’s Google I/O developer conference, the company showed off a newer, slimmer Starline unit, which at the time seemed a lot closer to the sort of product you’d expect to see in a company boardroom.
We’re hoping to learn more about the Google/HP Starline partnership and other XR projects at Google I/O developer conference this year, so stay tuned today, May 14th, for more info as it arrives.
