By Steven Rosenbush

Google and HP are scheduled to release this year a 3-D video communications platform that works without requiring users to wear glasses or a headset, an effort to infuse virtual meetings with a greater sense that people are together in the same space.

Video calls famously turned heel in the past few years, transforming from a panacea of the early pandemic into a soul-sapping burden for workers. Alphabet's Google and HP think Project Starline is a breakthrough sufficient to take virtual communications to the next level. And based on a shockingly visceral remote conversation I just had at HP's headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., I'd say they are on to something.

I knew that the person on the screen in front of me wasn't sitting in the room with me, but when he reached toward me with an apple, I felt as if his hand had crossed into my space. It seemed for a moment like the apple could drop into my lap.

In my demo, an artificial-intelligence model used feeds from six cameras at each end of our conversation to generate real-time 3-D video. Specialized screens called lightfield displays simulated depth by projecting different angles of the images to each of our eyes. And Google AI tracked the positions of our mouths and ears for sound that seemed to come from our lips even as the two of us shifted positions.

The Starline experience requires the lightfield displays, and won't work on a standard display or laptop.

Starline, born out of Google Labs, does work with Google Meet as well as Zoom, the companies said. And the technology makes use of innovations in data compression, which means it doesn't demand extreme bandwidth or esoteric internet connections.

Google and HP declined to disclose the price of the service or the hardware.

Making technology work better for humans

It feels at times that digital technology can drain the life out of people, given endless messages, the particular strain imposed by extended video calls and social-media streams that won't let go. Starline is, among other things, an effort to use technology to make one important realm of our interaction with technology more human and less robotic.

"A lot of folks have tried many different things to make video collaboration feel like we're sitting across from each other, and we all know how hard it is to do. I think this starts to break through the barrier of that screen," said Dave Shull, president of HP Solutions. "It's starting to redefine what collaboration could be, especially for hypersensitive conversations where body language is more than 50% of what's actually being communicated."

In one study, Google found that people were more animated on Starline calls than they were on 2-D video chats, using significantly more hand gestures, head nods and eyebrow movements.

Google research also found that users reported significantly less video meeting fatigue after Starline calls and had faster reaction times on a complex cognitive task.

HP isn't the only company investing in next-generation videoconferencing. Cisco Systems Executive Vice President and Chief Product Officer Jeetu Patel told me the company has been working on such areas for years, investing in different approaches. Cisco is particularly excited about a new platform that allows for the transmission of 3-D video from a conference room to someone wearing an Apple Vision Pro headset. "It's a blending of culture and technology all coming together," Patel said.

Over time, these types of spatial video and audio should unlock all sorts of possibilities for remote and hybrid work. It will lend itself not only to business pitches, team check-ins and other company meetings, but also to applications such as recruiting and mental-health counseling.

All of that will take time, though, as the technology evolves and comes down in price.

"I'm really excited, in terms of making it more ubiquitous, getting it into more hardware, at a lower cost point," Shull said.

Starline also only works one-on-one for the moment. But Google and HP have plans there too. "I also think there's some interesting ways we can make it more of a three-person to three-person dialogue that feels natural," Shull said. "We're working on that."

The goal is to push highly natural virtual communications beyond the CEO's conference room or the boardroom. "And then the question is," Shull said, "how do you bring that out to other users over time as well?"

Write to Steven Rosenbush at steven.rosenbush@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 03, 2025 06:00 ET (11:00 GMT)

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