holograms

Pinchas Gutter has told his story many times. Of the horrors of childhood in the Warsaw Ghetto. Of being ripped away from his parents and 10-year-old twin sister the day the family arrived at the Majdanek concentration camp in Poland, never to see them again. Of barely surviving a brutal Nazi prisoner "death march" away from front lines and allied forces. Of his liberation in 1945.

The story never loses its power, its agony, or its moments of hope. Only this time it's not the 80-year-old Gutter who's telling his tale, but a Princess Leia-like full-body hologram of him. Gutter's digital representation is a product of New Dimensions in Testimony, a high-tech initiative to record survivors' first-person accounts for interactive 3D exhibits that live on long after the storytellers have passed. … Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Ho-hum. The iPhone 5 isn't going to wow anyone

- Don't kid your selves, Apple's dock connector change is awful

- Planning for winter: the worst accessory for your new iPhone

- "Tupac hologram" maker Digital Domain files for bankruptcy

- Emoticon creator says emojis are "ugly"

Bathroom break video: 770 pounds of eggs spill onto the road in China, gets looted… Read more

Jeff's still gleeful after the results of this weekend's NHL Eastern Conference Finals, but there are other things going on in the world of The 404 too.

On today's show, Jeff gives a 50/50 review of "The Avengers," Justin gets an East Coast geography lesson, airports around New York announce holographic avatars designed to "help" lost passengers, Facebook reveals plans to develop yet another Facebook-exclusive phone, and Sony files a patent that could pause games to show players advertisements.… Read more

He's been gone since 1991, but legendary Queen frontman Freddie Mercury is preparing for a long overdue encore performance tonight in London.

Well, sort of.

Queen guitarist Brian May told the BBC that an image of Mercury will appear onstage during a special 10th-anniversary performance of the musical "We Will Rock You" at London's Dominion Theatre. May said the image will not be a hologram, referring to it instead as an "optical illusion," but hinted at similarities to the hyped Tupac hologram seen at the Coachella festival last month. … Read more

Concertgoers who attended last week's Coachella music festival apparently had their minds blown by a "hologram" performance by the late rapper Tupac Shakur. The centuries-old illusion made it seem that Snoop Dogg and Tupac were sharing the same stage.

That got us thinking about what the future of concerts will look like. We've already seen some jokes about the next "all hologram Coachella lineup," but will the concert experience 50 years from now allow us to watch the show from the comfort of our homes? We can only hope to still be rocking out when we're that age -- minus the skull head-tattoo. … Read more

"Does anyone else want to tackle the "adorkable" Zooey Deschanel after watching those Siri commercials?" You may not be as annoyed with Apple as Jeff, but we can all agree that the latest batch of iPhone 4S commercials have lowered the bar.… Read more

Jeff took a spill on the ice during a hockey game yesterday, but he manages to limp his way into the studio to help us out with today's rundown. We wouldn't be The 404 if we didn't cover the 2Pac holographic concert at Coachella last weekend, and even though it's technically just a clever optical illusion, we're excited about the upcoming 2.0Pac tour and the potential of resurrecting our own favorite performers from history.

Meanwhile, Ikea furniture designers in Sweden have come up with a new way to vertically integrate their furniture with another … Read more

Rapper Tupac Shakur was murdered in 1996. In 2012, he shared the stage at the Coachella music festival with Snoop Dogg.

The startlingly realistic appearance came courtesy of AV Concepts, a company specializing in holographic projection technology. According to AV Concepts, the holographic return of Tupac required months of planning in conjunction with Dr. Dre's production company.

There are quite a few YouTube videos of the performance floating around, showing the life-size hologram giving shout-outs to Coachella, Snoop Dogg, and Dr. Dre and rapping the song "Hail Mary." It gets even more impressive when Snoop Dogg comes out for a synchronized duet.… Read more

For me, it's the American Airlines check-in staff in Miami. For some reason, they seem to function in such chaos that they are desperate for you, the passenger, to have as miserable a time as they seem to be having.

For you, it might be another airport whose staff members make you wish that the nice, but very firm, lady from Tabatha's Salon Takeover would perform a flyover atop their attitude.

Now some enterprising, technology-loving Brits are attempting to see if virtual staff can be more helpful than the skin-and-boned.

From this week, passengers in Terminal 1 of Manchester airport will be greeted by smiling, happy, and possibly even helpful airport staff. For they will be holograms of the real staff, presumably created to reflect their brightest, most cheerful selves.… Read more