Chinese gaming giant NetDragon makes big push into augmented reality with interactive holograms
Company plans series of learning events across Asia using three-dimensional interactive holograms of international celebrities and famous speakers.
NetDragon Websoft, the Hong Kong-listed operator of China’s leading online gaming portal, aims to push augmented-reality technology into the mainstream with a series of so-called learning events across Asia using three-dimensional interactive holograms of international celebrities and famous speakers.
Headquartered in Fuzhou, Fujian province, NetDragon on Friday provided a sample of these “HumaGrams” – a portmanteau of the words human and holograms – inside the Charles Kao Auditorium at the Hong Kong Science and Technology Park, where American television and radio host Larry King was beamed live from a studio in Los Angeles to join executives on stage for the launch of its campaign.
“Interactive holograms are the ultimate form of augmented reality, and we expect to tap into new opportunities for the use of this technology in China and across the Asia-Pacific region,” NetDragon vice-chairman Simon Leung Lim-kin told the South China Morning Post ahead of the event.
NetDragon’s ambitious new initiative followed its C$5 million (HK$30.3 million) investment in HumaGrams developer ARHT Media in February to become the Toronto-based company’s exclusive partner in the Asia-Pacific for education, professional training, seminars and entertainment activities.
Augmented reality provides an overlay of digital information – in the form of text, graphics, audio and other virtual enhancements – onto the real world, as seen from advanced smartphones, tablets and smartglasses which support the technology.
According to ARHT Media, it has developed the most life-like, interactive human holograms. These are generated through its patent-pending augmented reality holographic technology, which provides a scalable, repeatable and transportable form of 3D without the use of special glasses or displays.
“Through NetDragon’s platform, it’s one of those technologies that will help bring the world closer together,” said Paul Duffy, the chief executive of ARHT Media.