It will take a bit longer before we experience the holographic telephony all Star Trek fans have been waiting for. This comes after the RED company, the company known for making the high class Hollywood rated video cameras, pulled the plug on the Red Hydrogen smartphone. The discontinuation of the Red Hydrogen follows the massive failure of Hydrogen 1; a phone I never heard being launched.
News regarding RED Hydrogen Smartphone went mainstream around May last year when the RED company gave a few bloggers the prototype device, not to test, but to simply demonstrate that the device actually existed. That’s all I heard about the device, and I waited for all this time to hear that the RED Hydrogen smartphone was finally in the market and those owning it were able to holographically interact with one another.
Then the news finally came. Nothing close to what I expected. As Techradar reported earlier today, RED Hydrogen smartphone has been killed. This news broke when the RED founder Jim Jannard announced his retirement due old age and health concerns. In his retirement speech, Jannard said he is also shutting down the HYDROGEN project, “I will be shutting down the HYDROGEN project, ending a career that has included Oakley, RED Digital Cinema and HYDROGEN,” said the company founder, further declaring that he’s “very proud to have worked with many great people over the years who have signed on to the vision”, he said.
All is not lost though. As I said in this article, several other companies including Microsoft, Facebook, Google, etc are working tirelessly to make Holographic telephony a reality, and since RED has tried to make it possible before 2020, I’m certain within the next 5 or so years holograms will be the way to make those video calls you all love doing via WhatsApp.
