Android 3.0 or Honeycomb from Google (News - Alert) is the next version of the Android platform designed especially for devices with large screen sizes like that of tablets. The new platform is comprised of a new truly virtual and holographic user interface for such activities such as Web meetings.

The present features of Android will be further enhanced in Honeycomb. Features like multi-tasking, elegant notifications, access to over 100,000 apps on Android Market, home screen customization with a new 3D experience and redesigned widgets will be more interactive, said company sources.

Company sources further added that Honeycomb will feature Google Mobile innovations such as Google Maps 5 with 3D interactions and offline reliability besides providing access to over three million Google eBooks.

Commenting on the vector format used in Google Maps 5 instead of tiles, Jeff Orr, a principal analyst at ABI Research (News - Alert), told TechNewsWorld, “Where you may have had only top-down displays of roads and local features and landmarks, you can now see the elevations of buildings and wireframe drawings.”

The Google Talk feature will allow the user to conduct video and voice chat for Web meetings with any other Google Talk enabled device like a PC or tablet.

Also, communicating with 3D holograms in real time during Web meetings is set to be a reality soon. According to IBM (News - Alert) officials, improvements in 3D technology and holographic cameras and their miniaturization to fit into cell phones will help achieve this maybe in the next five years.

Although such technology is available in its primitive form, true holographic communications and Web meetings will be possible only when all associated problems are first dealt with.

Ways to minimize power usage and increase compute power in a device have to be devised first. A very small pico projector will be needed besides finding ways to incorporate it into a hand-held device that works, said Stofega, a program director at IDC (News - Alert).

Some advancement in the field of Pico projectors is being made by Texas Instruments. Qualcomm is working on augmented reality and 3D in a small compute flow factor. The company has joined hands with Georgia Institute of Technology to put in place a research and development center called Qualcomm (News - Alert) Augmented Reality Game Studio.