Holographic Communication?

Have we reached the technical capability of having holographic communications?  Well, check out this video - http://www.musion.co.uk/Cisco_TelePresence.html (via Josh Holmes).

At first this looks like we really have reached the capability, but after a little reading on their site you can see this “illusion” has been around since the 19th century.  They have a shorter video that helps visualize what’s actually going on.

The result though is wicked cool and gives the appearance of 3D images or holograms. 

I guess I’ll have to wait a little longer for the Star Wars like communications. 

There’s another “holographic” technology out there via USC.  This one look like it could be made more mobile than the other, but I agree the spinning mirror looks like it could be somewhat fatal if it broke.  Granted the image of the guy running at the very end was undeniably cool.