Apologies to David Cockburn for stealing his title. I’ve been reading journals again this afternoon and David does a page of mini abstracts in our journal. He’s a whizz at finding interesting stuff.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v495/n7441/full/nature11972.html

That is the link to the paper. You have to pay for the full paper, but there is quite a bit of stuff there. David summarized it:

“Soon you may have three-dimensional images on your mobile phone or tablet. The technique requires no special glasses and is based on multidirectional diffraction back-light technology that provides viewable images up to a distance of one metre and over a viewing zone of 180 degrees. The system involves guided wave illumination using light-emitting diodes that provide colour images from a planar light guide consisting of three layers of differing dialectric constants. The development has potential to be very useful in telemedicine.”

I reckon PM might be interested in that, if he doesn’t already know about it. It was published in March.

Thanks, Buffy.

Although I can’t access the full paper, I found a promotional video for the display.

I guess the directional display technique is essentially a refinement of the old lenticular method.

I used to wonder if it was possible for 3D holograms to be created by having a very large amount of lights intersecting. Like if a light were to be pointed upwards, and another one was pointed sideways, there would be a ‘sparkle’ or something of light at that intersecting point.

And using lots of light emitters along a lower base and also up a vertical panel, any hologram could be created by the lights intersecting at each point.

If that makes sense…. I used to wonder about that. But now I don’t really care anymore lol :)