Larry O’Reilly, CEO of ARHT Media, talks about the groundbreaking hologram technology that, he says, ‘humanizes digital communication.’
By Jojo Dass
Used to be when holograms were the stuff of sci-fi movies – from Star Wars to Total Recall, Resident Evil and Minority Report.
Bruce Willis, a cab driver, would come home to a female hologram in “The Fifth Element,” and so did Ryan Gosling, who had “Joi” in Blade Runner 2049.
These days however, hologram technology has shot out of the movie houses and into real life, being put into practical, game-changing use redefines digital communication into its most revolutionized form thus far.
“I was introduced to the technology and it blew my mind. I couldn’t get over how real it looked and sounded. I knew I had to be part of this story,” Larry O’Reilly, CEO of ARHT Media, tells Dubai Vibes Magazine.
He added: “ARHT Media’s technology is beneficial to mankind in a variety of ways. We make busy people way more productive and by reducing the need for air travel, we have a significant positive impact in reducing carbon emissions. Our technology humanizes digital communication – I find all of this extremely exciting.”
O’Reilly was recently in Dubai to introduce their company’s groundbreaking technology. “The response has been incredibly positive. Dubai is very much a tech-forward marketplace, eager to adopt new technologies to improve guest experiences. So, we believe the adoption of our offering here will happen quickly,” he said.
Holograms, O’Reilly said, have been used in live theatre for over a century, usually casting a shadow or as a ghost.
But it “took off in popularity,” as O’Reilly puts it, after iconic rap star, Tupac Shakur, who died in a drive-by shooting on the night of Sept. 7, 1996 in Las Vegas, was “resurrected” at the 2012 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California.
Entertainment aside, hologram technology has found a new niche: the MICE or Meetings, Investment, Conferences and Exhibits industry.
Says O’Reilly: “While we have done activations in the entertainment space, we are really focused on making the most in-demand people around the world more efficient by eliminating the need to travel in order to share their expertise.”
The cornerstone of their company’s technology, the CEO said, is the ARHT Engine software which enables them to take large data packs of video and audio and transfer them anywhere on the planet in 0.3 seconds or less.
“When the presenter appears life-sized, life-like and with no noticeable latency, the audience have the feeling that the person is actually in the room with them. We call this, ‘creating presence,’” he said.
Through the use of their HoloPresence technology, ARHT Media can caption a person’s holographic form and beam it across the world with almost no noticeable latency. This means that speakers can appear in lifelike, high definition form in Singapore while in a studio three blocks from their Chicago office, as company representatives say.
The company also has expertise around staging, holographic capture, project management and our proprietary screen technology.
O’Reilly said challenges remain. “It takes time to change the behavior of enterprise organizations. If they are used to flying everywhere for meetings, it takes time for them to change that behavior,” he said.
However, he added, the pandemic “has forced everyone to embrace technology to communicate, and business travel will never go back to the way it was in 2019.”
O’Reilly said the technology is transforming the way executives communicate.
“I am going to be on this path for a while,” he said.
