Holographic projection

The famous scene where Princess Leia in holographic form begs Obi-Wan Kenobi to help deliver R2-D2 to her home planet of Alderaan was the stuff of cinema magic in 1977's "Star Wars." George Lucas and the Industrial Light & Magic team revisited the trick numerous times in the original trilogy.

Australian phone company Telstra made use of similarly minded technology in 2008 to beam its chief technology officer into a meeting some 460 miles away, in part to show off the strength of its networking technologies.

Skip to election night for the U.S. presidency later that year and you have CNN making use of a complex camera system to bring guests into its studio virtually. That included CNN correspondent Jessica Yellin, as well as Will.i.am of Black Eyed Peas fame. The technology itself, which CNN had claimed was a hologram, made use of some 35 high-definition cameras set up in a ring to present a 3D image.