Technologies Advancing Live Stream Capabilities

In the age of technology, live streaming has become a favored tool of broadcasters, entertainers, marketers, and entrepreneurs alike. Live streaming has come a long way since it first hit the internet. Let’s check out just a few technologies that are advancing the capabilities of live streams today. 

Optical Character Recognition (OCR)

Put simply, OCR uses an optical lens to capture an image of text. The characters in the image are extracted and converted into a machine-readable format. This technology can be integrated into a multitude of different software, and is commonly used in logistics, distribution, finance, and HR industries. 

That said, OCR can also be used in live streams to capture the physical environment of the broadcaster. Take online casinos, for example. Many of these platforms provide live casino that are hosted by a real human host or croupier, who deals real cards, spins real wheels, and pulls out real bingo balls. Here, OCR can be used to capture the results of each round in real-time, translating the card, ball, or roulette number into a digital format.

The machine-readable text can then be superimposed onto the live stream for anyone who may have missed the result. In addition to this, the platform can store and analyze the collected data to ensure fairness and compliance throughout the games for a more authentic casino experience.  

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI is seeing a huge boom in popularity worldwide. Over the next decade, it is projected to grow further at a compound annual growth rate of 21.6%, reaching $2,025.12 billion by 2030. As AI is being integrated into a wide range of different technologies, it is perhaps no surprise that live streaming is also having an AI makeover. 

Webinars, for example, can only be held when the expert speaker or salesperson who hosts the event is available. Further to this, one person can only host a set number of webinars every day – they will need to take regular breaks, eat, and sleep, after all. This will ordinarily limit when webinars can be held. To mitigate this, many are turning to AI to make the webinars more accessible to different people in different time zones. 

AI hosts can provide live-stream webinars and e-commerce events 24/7. These hosts can either be programmed to resemble and act like real humans, or they can operate more akin to a traditional chatbot. Nevertheless, AI chatbots can also be used to automatically moderate and promptly answer live chats during the stream. 

Laser Transceiver 

One of the more innovative developments to live streaming in recent years is thanks to NASA. In December 2023, NASA demonstrated its Deep Space Optical Communications technology by streaming a video in ultra-high definition from 19 million miles away. 

The 15-second video was transmitted using a flight laser transceiver, and it reached the Earth in under two minutes. The system itself can send and receive lasers that have near-infrared signals at a maximum speed of 267 megabits per second. 

Though this test did use a pre-recorded video, the feed was played in real-time as it was received. The hope is that this could one day allow NASA to send and receive live video through the system. This is just one breakthrough in their research into laser communications, which one day could allow NASA to live stream with astronauts from deep space, supporting manned missions beyond the orbit of the Earth. 

And there you have it – just a few technologies that are advancing the capabilities of live streams, making them more interactive, user-friendly, efficient, productive, accessible, and fast, even from outer space.