Smartphones would be able to project 3D holographic images by next year
Mumbai: Imagine walking into an empty room and suddenly people and furniture popup in front of you. Or simply imagine you looking up to your wrist watch to see a floating image of your friends, family or boss and having a video conversation or virtual meeting. Yes, holographic projections, which used to be part of science fiction movies and episodes, are now soon a reality.
According to the Wall Street Journal, a tech company Ostendo Technologies Inc., based in Carlsbad, California, has the answer to the secret, which they have been researching for the last decade.
The tech company has been developing miniature projectors designed to emit crisp videos and glasses-free 3D images for smartphones and giant screens.
Many companies have, in fact, demonstrating the 3D holographic videos for a while now. However, their technology involves using large machines and employs mirrors reflecting light from different angles to form the image.
Take for instance, Tupac Shakur, a rapper who graced the Coachella music festival stage in 2012, was a combination of computer graphics and video projection that relied on visual effects first designed in the 19th century.
Ostendo’s projectors, on the contrary, are smaller, roughly the size of small Tic Tacs. They are powered by a computer chip, which can control the color, brightness and angle of each beam of light across one million pixels. These chipsets are small enough and can fit into smartphones and handhelds, and project a 48-inch video on any surface. A group of these chips can be interlaced together to form larger and more complex projections. The first iteration of this chip is scheduled to be chipped by end of next year and can project 2D videos for now. But according to Ostendo’s chief executive and founder, the next version will feature 3D holographic images.
"Display is the last frontier," said Dr. El-Ghoroury, who in 1998 sold CommQuest Technologies, a mobile chipset company, to International Business Machines Corp. for about $250 million in cash and stock. "Over the years, processing power has improved and networks have more bandwidth, but what is missing is comparable advancement in display."
The race to evolve the screen is intensifying as both upstarts and technology giants try to find new ways to bring content to life.
During a recent test reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, Ostendo showed a working prototype: a set of six chips laid together that beamed a 3-D image of green dice spinning in the air. The image and motion appeared consistent, irrespective of the position of the viewer.
According to Ramesh Raskar, an associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who is working on 3-D displays for MIT's Media Lab, Ostendo's advantage and the key to its 3-D capability is its resolution. The Retina display on Apple Inc.'s iPhone, for example, has about 300 dots per inch, Ostendo's chips are at about 5,000 dots per inch.
