Is this 3-D workspace the future of collaboration?

Each week, we spotlight a cool innovation recommended by some of the industry's top tech writers. This week's pick is a futuristic conference tool.

New York startup Spatial debuted an augmented-reality conferencing system that puts collaborators in a setting that's "part video conference, part futuristic 3-D white board," said Janko Roettgers at Variety. The technology was inspired by movies with sci-fi interfaces, such as Minority Report. "We wondered," said co-founder Anand Agarawala, "How can we bring this to normal people?"

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The "3-D workspace" uses augmented-reality headsets such as Microsoft's HoloLens. Spatial builds 3-D avatars of participants from two-dimensional photos. The avatars share virtual spaces, with walls where documents or images can be placed for discussions. Key customers such as Microsoft are getting Spatial's software first, ahead of a broader release.