An ABBA-gram for the Queen

Pictured: sci-fi bullshit we can look
forward to sometime next never.

So, I'm conflicted about holograms. On the one hand, awesome. They're a great way to let everyone know that something takes place in the future, and from a dramatic standpoint it's way more interesting than watching characters use FaceTime. But they're also bullshit, I mean, obviously they're bullshit, everything in sci-fi is just a little bullshit. It's what makes it more interesting than living our real lives, but holograms are a special kind of bullshit because we like to think they're just around the corner.

Which, they're not. Like all. And I'm not sure that's necessarily a bad thing. Something like 20% of all Star Trek episodes are about the goddamn holodeck malfunctioning, and in Marvel movies they're little more than plot exposition devices used to distract us from the fact that the writing is kind of lazy. And can the Empire in Star Wars seriously not improve upon constantly flickering blue palette of their only method of long-distance communication?

"Luke...adjust the tracking."

-The role Sir Alec Guinness

will be remembered for

It's probably best not to underestimate
Swedish pop-technology again.

But the closest thing we have even to these kinds of holographic technologies are incredibly lame by comparison. They're never the free floating, three dimensional images and computer interfaces TV and movies have lied to us about, but instead they're basically screen projections which, when viewed from the right angle in the right lighting might just give the impression that the members of ABBA have worked out they're differences, spontaneously de-aged 35 years and are going on tour again. Huh? No, really, apparently ABBA-gram has been performing since like 2016.

It's like they're right there in the room,
slowly suffocating in a giant tube.

Anyway, holograms. Bullshit, but that's not stopping anyone from taking another swing at them. Researchers from Queen's University in Canada are working on yet another hologram that's not really a hologram technology. This one uses a cylindrical screen and is basically a tele-presence device, allowing someone far away to appear to be standing in the room with you. Standing in a human-sized transparent tube and going all blurry if your viewing angle changes, but still...holograms.

Pictured: the death of human language.

The team behind the device, called the Telehuman 2 (ugh), point out that other, non face-to-face forms of communication loose a lot of non-verbal information. A raised eyebrow, or body language can totally change the message, and ok, they've got a point. Don't we all kind of worry about how a text we send will be read? Sure, we can just use emoji to clarify our tone but I don't know, could we maybe, you know, not?

Still though, I mean, I suppose progress is progress and maybe the work done at Queen's University will someday lead to the terrifying, sentient holograms or our darkest, Black Mirror-iest nightmares. So, fingers crossed?

"Soon my scientists will compete the Holo-Queen and ensure that my reign will be an
 everlasting one. No one, not even the ABBA-gram will be able to stand in my way."

-HRH Elizabeth II, Queen of England and

Canada and soon-to-be immortal holographic