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The HoloFlex is a flexible, glasses-free 3D display
Researchers at the Queen's University Human Media Lab in Ontario have developed what they claim is the "world's first holographic flexible smartphone" display. Dubbed the HoloFlex, the display uses an array of tiny lenses overlaid onto one flexible 1,920 x 1,080 HD OLED screen and allows multiple people to simultaneously view 3D images without the need for clunky glasses, complex projectors or individual head tracking.
Researchers claim they've built the first 3D color hologram
Princess Leia was apparently indisposed, but Korean researchers are laying claim to the world's first 360-degree color hologram -- a floating Rubik's cube. A 16-company consortium called ETRI, led by LG Display division, has created "tabletop holographic display" that can be viewed from all angles. According to ET News, it's a true hologram and not a "pseudo hologram that make[s] 3D effects through 2D images." In other words, it's not a "Pepper's Ghost" illusion famously used for the Tupac hologram. Since the view changes when you move around it -- as if it were a real object -- it also differs from "floating 3D-movie" type holograms.
Tabletop display turns your phone's images into 3D holograms (updated)
If you've ever thought that the apps and videos on your phone were flat and lifeless, H+ might have an answer. It's crowdfunding the Holus, a tabletop display that turns 2D content from phones and PCs into 3D holograms that you can see from any direction. All you do is plug in -- after that, you can play virtual board games, educational titles and any other app with support for the extra immersion. There's even motion tracking that will make sure content follows you when you wander around. H+ hopes that Holus will revive the lost art of real-life get-togethers without making you revert to that Monopoly game gathering dust in your closet. That's a bit optimistic (as are the impossibly high-quality promo shots), but it's hard to deny the allure of a living room holographic display that you don't have to wear.
The secret to this interactive hologram tech is water vapor
It's 2014 and while we don't have flying cars just yet it looks like interactive holographic displays could be a reality rather soon. The not-so-cleverly-named Leia Display System (LDS) uses a combination of light, water-vapor and air to provide a transparent canvas for projected images while sensors track movement and touch inputs from users. The videos we've embedded below show all manner of poking and prodding by users, a bit of Minority Report-style pinching and zooming things in mid-air and even using gestures to rotate and flick stuff out of the way. There's even a sample with a Mercedes sedan driving through the curtain and it "shattering" around the vehicle as it passes through.
New smartphone chip will beam high-definition holograms as early as 2015
Just imagine: a smartphone that projects 3D holograms into thin-air. If you can wait until the end of next year, and if you can believe the claims being made by a well-funded company called Ostendo, then your next handset could be capable of just that. Thanks to breakthroughs by the Californian display startup, 5,000ppi projectors the size of Tic Tacs are now powerful enough to control the color, brightness and angle of individual beams of light across one million pixels. Just one chip is said to deliver a usable image, but adding additional chips provides scope for even more complex and detailed images. The Wall Street Journal was treated to a demo involving six chips which beamed green dice spinning in the air and noted how "consistent" the motion appeared, irrespective of where it was viewed from.
Glasses-free 3D projector offers a cheap alternative to holograms
Holograms are undoubtedly spiffy-looking, but they're not exactly cheap; even a basic holographic projector made from off-the-shelf parts can cost thousands of dollars. MIT researchers may have a budget-friendly alternative in the future, though. They've built a glasses-free 3D projector that uses two liquid crystal modulators to angle outgoing light and present different images (eight in the prototype) depending on your point of view. And unlike some 3D systems, the picture should remain relatively vivid -- the technology uses a graphics card's computational power to preserve as much of an image's original information (and therefore its brightness) as possible.
HP Labs builds a glasses-free, portable 3D display with wide viewing angles (video)
Typical attempts at a glasses-free 3D display have trouble with viewing angles; we're all too familiar with having to sit in a sweet spot to get the effect. HP Labs might have just solved this last problem with a prototype 3D LCD that would better accommodate the real world. The display's backlight has nanopatterned grooves that send blue, green and red in multiple directions, letting the LCD show only the light that would be seen from a given viewpoint. Those positions are set in stone, but they're both abundant (200 for photos, 64 for video) and can spread across a wide 180-degree viewing arc. At a thickness of as little as half a millimeter, a production LCD could easily be thin enough for a mobile device, too. The catch isn't so much the screen as the content. Producers need an image for every possible viewpoint, which could create a fair share of logistical problems: even though footage wouldn't necessarily require 200 cameras, it could limit fully immersive 3D to computer-generated visuals or else consume a massive amount of bandwidth. If those are the biggest barriers, though, we're still that much closer to the holographic smartphone we've always wanted.
'TeleHuman' uses Kinect for 3D holographic chat, bumps up options for contacting Obi-Wan (video)
Looks like virtual Tupac might have some company. With Kinect, you are the hologram. Besides logging in lots of quality time at a South Korean theme park, the Kinect is now doing double duty at the Human Media Lab of Queen's University in Canada thanks to a 3D holographic chat system called "TeleHuman." The setup basically creates a life-size rendering of its subject by using six Kinect sensors, a 3D projector and a cylindrical display. This allows the viewer to walk around the cylinder for a 360-degree view of the subject, giving new meaning to having someone's back during a chat. The director of the Human Media Lab says the TeleHuman could be available for $5,000 within five years. In the meantime, the tech is also being used by the research team to create a 3D anatomical model browser called the "BodiPod." The BodiPod can display various layers of the human body, which can be virtually peeled off as the viewer gets closer to the display. Check out all the 3D action for the TeleHuman and BodiPod in plain, old 2D by viewing the video after the break.
Researchers develop a 360-degree holographic display
Researchers at USC have taken another step towards that holiest of sci-fi dreams: the 3D holographic display. Using a spinning mirror covered with a "holographic diffuser," a special DVI implementation, and a high-speed projector, the team's device can project a three-dimensional image that can be viewed from 360 degrees -- regardless of the viewer's height and distance. That's impressive, but that spinning mirror looks pretty dangerous. Check a video of the system in action after the break. [Via Core77]
