For Star Trek fans, Framery’s new Contact virtual office might evoke the Holodeck—and the exciting prospect of virtual communication in life-sized, living color.

Contact proposes the next generation in the burgeoning technology of the video call, which, in most incarnations, is at best convenient and at worst downright disorienting.

Framery characterizes the typical video call as “contact without communication”—just so many talking heads (often within a somewhat absurd fabricated background) that feel as disembodied as they are, “concealing non-verbal cues, such as eye contact, direct gaze, and body language—thereby limiting personable social dynamics, and even idea generation.”

Contact, to the contrary, uses advanced projection technology and basic ingenuity to recreate the feeling of an actual face-to-face meeting. The pod itself is an acoustically and visually isolated enclosure with strategically placed mirrors that help capture and display direct eye contact. High-performance cardioid microphones and audio monitors effectively duplicate the radiation pattern and frequency response of an actual present human.

The advantages here not only accrue to the average hybrid worker, but also to companies, especially their bottom line: the closer this technology comes to replicating in-person meetings, the less businesses will have to rely on costly airline travel. Framery also points out that this “cost” is far-reaching: “While a single return flight between London and New York emits 1.7 tons of carbon dioxide, the combined manufacturing, use of five years, and recycling of a Framery Contact pod emits only 1.4 tons.”

Contact has been made available to an initial round of pilot customers; broader commercial access will follow shortly. In the meantime, if you happen to be in Chicago, you can visit a demo pod at the Framery showroom on the 3rd. floor of the Merchandise Mart.