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Title: Goodbye Project Starline, hello Google Beam 3D video conferencing

Date: Tue, 20 May 2025 17:10:56 +0000
Link: https://www.engadget.com/ai/goodbye-project-s...

Google first teased Project Starline in 2021, billing it at the time as a
"magic window" that uses special hardware, computer vision and machine
learning to create an almost holographic video call experience. Since then,
we've checked out an early version of the experiment for ourselves and
learned last year that the company is teaming up with HP to bring a scaled-
down version of the product to enterprise clients. At I/O 2025 today, Google
announced that Project Starline "is evolving into an AI-first 3D video
communication platform" called Beam. CEO Sundar Pichai said onstage that the
first devices will be available later this year to "select customers," though
there's no word on pricing just yet.

Adding to the computer vision and machine learning that already go into
Project Starline (now Beam), Google says the platform will "use AI to enable
a new generation of devices that help people make meaningful connections, no
matter where they are."

Part of this is a "state-of-the-art AI volumetric video model" and that, plus
some power via Google Cloud, combined with the light field display from
before, is what makes the calls "appear fully 3D from any perspective." There
are six cameras built into the Beam system to capture you from various
angles, and the system uses AI to merge the streams and render you and your
caller on the light field display. It'll track your head movement to make
sure it's delivering the data to your eyes at the right angles, and do so at
60 frames per second.

Though we don't know yet how much a unit of Google Beam might cost, it might
be worth pointing out that Logitech made a different version called Project
Ghost, and estimated that it will cost between $15,000 and $20,000 per booth
depending on the configuration. To be clear, though, Project Ghost is not
holographic or rendering 3D, it's just a large TV streaming 2D video that's
so big it makes your callers seem life-sized.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at
https://www.engadget.com/ai/goodbye-project-s...
video-conferencing-171056302.html?src=rss

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