Research and development organisation CableLabs has outlined its vision for the future of education in short film released at the end of last month.
The video, titled The Near Future. Ready for Anything, suggests that augmented reality and interactive holographic type displays will feature heavily in years to come.
CableLabs hopes the film will inspire developers to create technologies that can run on “the broadband network of the future”.
It joins other CableLabs videos in The Near Future series, looking how technology will impact our lives at home (
Bring it on) and how it can help us “age in place” (
A better place).
Head mounted displays that deliver AR and VR experiences are a key part of the latest video on education, showing how students can become completely immersed in other worlds, or merge the real and virtual.
After showing how videowalls could affect remote workers in ‘A better place’, CableLabs has expanded that idea in the education video. Students around the world are seen collaborating on common projects.
To help students perform scientific research, a ‘Light Field Table’ is used in the video, with a group of students working out virtual and interactive experiments.
A ‘Light Field Holodeck’ is also shown – with CableLabs noting that a 2ft x 2ft table would require 800Mb of sustained broadband to operate.
Finally, CableLabs suggests AI agents will accompany us in day-to-day life, while a massively expanded use of sensors will accelerate the capabilities of the Internet of Things (IoT).
The examples may look very futuristic, but CableLabs says they’re looking at systems that are three, to five, to eight years away.