Bill Gates: Virtualized

Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp, made a five-minute virtual appearance at the World Congress on Information Technology 2008 held at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

A 4.6m holographic projection of the billionaire enthralled the 400-strong audience at the congress yesterday at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, KLCC.
The image was shot in high definition and projected onto plastic foil which was stretched out in the centre’s Plenary Hall. The result was life-like and impressive and the crowd applauded the effort.

This marked the first holographic appearance of Gates anywhere in the world.
Making it happen involved rendering a pre-recorded image of Gates with speech that was filmed in Seattle, United States, two weeks ago. The holographic Gates spoke about the wonders of computing power and how it was growing and creating more opportunities worldwide.
“There are one billion people (in the world) who have a personal computer each but there are five billion others who don’t. Microsoft also wants to reach these people.”