Hologram Phone Device. Coming soon...the phone that lets you talk to holograms of your loved ones

When Princess Leia appeared before Luke Skywalker as a hologram in the 1977 blockbuster Star Wars, it was very much a work of science fiction. But fast-forward four decades and the hologram telephone call – which will allow callers to see a live 3D image of the other person on the line – is set to become reality. The technology is being pioneered by Leia Display Systems, a Polish company named after the Star Wars heroine. The company aims to have a working model of the telephone operating by next year after it successfully built interactive 3D hologram machines. To make a 3D phone call, a person will sit in front of a specially adapted camera featuring two lenses and a microphone. The two images the lenses create are blended to form a 3D version and streamed via the internet to the person who is being called. A hologram machine will receive the image and beam it using a laser projector on to a ‘screen’ of water vapour, which gives the image its third dimension. The hologram image will speak, move and listen in real time. The company also believes its invention will be on the market within five years. ‘Our holograms will take video- phone calls to the next level,’ said Marcin Panek, chief executive of Leia Display Systems.