Holographic Mobile Devices by 2010 (or sooner!)

I think we’ve all allowed ourselves a moment or two to imagine what the future is going to look like. And unlike our parents and grandparents, it isn’t all flying cars and moon colonies. They seem rather, quaint, nowadays, in the face of the International Space Station and little robots on Mars. People want to see colonies on Mars, and teleportation devices.

And who knows, maybe when our children and children’s children look to the future, maybe they will see our imaginings as “quaint”, and look to the moons of Jupiter or the newly restated planet Pluto as possible colonies, from their high-rise apartment on Mars.

But for the moment, I think I’ll settle for the possibility of holographic mobile handsets by the time 2010 swings around.

According to the Indian technology giant Infosys, with a $4 billion annual revenue and their pyramid shaped HQ in Bangalore, by 2010, mobile phones with holographic projection will be common place. This after the firm announced they had developed the technology for mobile handsets to project, capture and transmit 3D images.

They note that such an advance will help accident investigators, teachers and doctors, work remotely, by providing realistic and 3D depictions of vehicle damage, injuries, medical scans or even educational aids.

Of course, in reality, all I’m really worried about is having a phone that puts me a step closer towards my dream of being a Clone Trooper from Star Wars.

The predicted device will harbor a powerful onboard processor, capable of much more than even our mobiles today, and will take a series of 2D shots to build a 3D hologram. The patent for this device, which was granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office recently, says that this format of holographic technology will allow for the unprocessed data to be transmitted and rebuilt on the other end of the line.

Infosys’s device provides 3D images by using a projector with a laser source, and micro holographic optical elements lenses to project the display up above the phone.

You would be forgiven for thinking though that 2010 is going to be the introduction of such technology. According to statistics though, by 2010 the market is going to reach 8.1 million units sold, rather than just beginning. We could be seeing this technology a lot sooner than we thought.

The future in your hand: sounds a bit like a commercial doesn’t it.

Posted by Josh Hill.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/emergingtech/0,1000000183,39437065,00.htm?r=6

Comments

[justanotherguy]

And the first thing it will be used for is porn - after all, a phone is just another one-handed device........

[Howie]

I'm not complaining, bring in the porn.

[Greg]

Believe me, I would love it if this were true, but I am 90% sure these guys are full of shit. Nobody has developed a means of projecting a mid-air hologram, because there is no medium to project on! The closest advance I've ever seen is this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeqIZyUMDP4
And it takes a lot of power and only generates light by creating little flashes of plasma using intersecting lasers. Now these people expect us to believe that they've discovered some way of projecting images on nothing, in 3D, within the form factor and power requirements of a cellphone? Bullshit.
This article is about software they've developed to turn a few 2D pictures into a 3D one. That's useless as far as star-wars style holograms are concerned until someone figures out a way to project it. I think that'll take a little longer than two years.

[Enraltay]

Howie: AIR is matter, so why can't we build an image of that? You can shine a flashlight into smoke or fog and see the beam, so why not use what little moisture/air particles there are, and work on using that as a medium? I think we are well on our way to 3D holographic displays!

[Enraltay]

Edit, Greg not Howie.