Japan's Latest Rock Star Is A 3D Hologram - Draws Huge Crowds

Wow! This reminds me of the book Idoru by Willam Gibson.

Idoru on Wikipedia: "In the post Tokyo/San Francisco earthquake world of the early 21st century, Colin Laney is referred to agents of the aging mega-rock star Rez (of the musical group Lo/Rez, and seemingly very much styled after former The Smiths frontman, Morrissey) for a job using his peculiar talent of sifting through vast amounts of mundane data to find "nodal points" of particular relevance. Rez has claimed to want to marry a synthetic personality named Rei Toei, the Idoru (Japanese Idol) of the title, which is apparently impossible and therefore questioned by his loyal staff, particularly by his head of security, Blackwell.[...]" source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idoru

There's a good documentary on Hatsune Miku here - it's in Japanese but with English subtitles (click the 'CC' logo in the bottom right of the YouTube player to turn them on): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBZOlipfjkQ

I find the Hatsune Miku phenomenon somewhat amusing at the moment, given the trend of overt Autotuning in pop music - while virtual singers' voices are getting more realistic, real singers' voices are being manipulated to sound impossibly accurate and digital.

It's also an interesting study in image and marketing: Crypton really pushed the concept of associating a character with the voice, as if Vocaloids were virtual pop stars whose services you could buy, rather than just another virtual instrument.

This looks more like rear-projection video (note the starburst in the back of the stage) or Pepper's Ghost, although the scrim is too vertically oriented to be that.

Nothing here looks 3D, but of course these videos are very carefully shot and enhanced from all appearances.

Here are some famous Miku Hatsune videos.

Po pi po (the vegetable juice one): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0-2lzA7_Cg

"Yukkuri shiteitte ne", which means "take it easy", a Japanese meme/philosophy based on the "yukkuris": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cHsNnDfmDs

Disappearance of Miku Hatsune, about someone deleting the vocaloid program from their computer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN7mR_ECQjo

It's worth noting that all of these videos and songs are completely fan-made. There is no official representative of Miku Hatsune; that's sort of the point. You can make her sing anything you want. She's more of a platform than a star.

There are several other vocaloid singers besides Miku. The whole thing is very popular on the Japanese video site Nico Nico Douga.

Life imitates anime - anyone else get a Macross Plus flashback about the concept?

We can make computer controlled, real-time holographic displays now? That seems like bigger news than a rockstar.

Isn't that the holy grail of 3D displays?

I wasn't expecting an anime character, but more something like in the movie S1m0ne (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0258153/).

In that movie, the movie/pop star is computer generated but is a "real" person and there actually is a scene with a 3D hologram of her on stage.

As someone else mentioned, though I find that to be fascinating, I'm more interested in what they mean exactly by "3D hologram" and how it works.

If we are talking a "virtual" rock star, I prefer a hybrid approach, like sushi k in snowcrash. A real, single musician writing and performing, but using different mediums - the metaverse in snowcrash, or maybe even holograms in real life.

I previously heard of Hatsune Miku because she did a cover of "Still Alive" from the computer game "Portal".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_12b6Om758Q

Reminds me of Genki Rockets, which also has a "vocaloid" singer synthesized from a couple of female singers. I first found out about this sort of think when I was working for Henk Rogers (Tetris mogul) down in Honolulu. The office was always full of really big names from Japan, like the guys from Square Enix, Nintendo, etc... The guys that made Lumines II were in the office playing some sick blu-ray footage of a Genki Rockets concert and from that moment on I was hooked. The DJ was wearing an astronaut suit and there was a hologram projection of Lumi singing and dancing above the crowd. So sick!

Here is a link to Genki Rockets -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genki_Rockets

Is this really that different from Gorillaz? They are also cartoon personas that perform music.

If it gets to the point where an artificial intelligence composes and performs, then we will be in Gibson's Sprawl.

I have to admit, I'm getting a little uncanny-valley vibe from that. The movement is too crisp (they've got to be digitizing the movement of a human dancer?) in combination with the cartoony appearance.

I'm reminded of NG-Resonance[1] from Deus Ex 2. Of course, in that case, it was based on a real person.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_Ex:_Invisible_War_characte...

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I looked into this when Hatsune Miko made the rounds on reddit a month or so ago.

I think the technology used is done by a company called Musion. http://www.musion.co.uk/

And it's based on an old visual trick called Pepper's ghost http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepper%27s_ghost

An unrelated observation, is the layout of this site completely ripped off of techcrunch?

They really missed the boat by not naming her Jem.

I want a t-shirt that says 'Gibson FTW!'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idoru

EDIT: Looks like BjornW and I had the same idea

This disturbs me beyond words.

It seems like a real loss for humanity and a real gain for special interests (although it can be argued that humans can be manipulated as easily as this hologram for such purposes).

In any case, this isn't part of any future I'll be embracing.

Wow! Japan never ceases to amaze me.

Would be interesting if the 3d hologram can be controlled by a human in real time.

Although that would probably suck for the self-esteem "I'm not good enough, they put a fake anime hologram in my place".

Hmm, interesting. Can't wait for the first time they have to sue a real flesh and blood human being over the copyrights to a song by a hologram.

Still, the future its going to be awesome.

Meanwhile American labels waste time suing people when they could be rolling in the dough by producing American vocaloids.

I wonder which one of them will figure that out first?

Have the Japanese hit such an enormous creative block that they're investigating our PBS cartoons from 1998 in hope of business plans?

I didn't know it was possible to have video 3d holograms like that! Does anyone know where to find out more about the technology used?

If only the crowds could also be an hologram.

I guess The Archies were ahead of their time.

'Rock'-star? That's not rock.

I hate the future.

The otaku subculture is getting creepier.