16-09-2003 00:59									#1
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Making a video screen out of thin air

Monday, September 15, 2003 Posted: 11:10 AM EDT (1510 GMT)


SAN FRANCISCO, California (Reuters) -- In a museum in Tampere, Finland, Ismo Rakkolainen's fog machine conjures up the Mona Lisa on an invisible sheet of water particles.

Thousands of miles away in Hermosa Beach, California, a graduate student passes his hand through an image of a DNA strand produced -- apparently out of thin air -- by a modified video projector.

The two inventions represent the latest front in advanced computer displays -- eliminating the screen altogether.

While unlikely to replace the desktop computer monitor, so-called walk-through displays could eventually be put to use in product showrooms, museums, and military training facilities.

"This is something that people have been dreaming about for a long time," said Chad Dyner, 29, a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and inventor of Heliodisplay, one of the prototype display systems. "Ever since the movie 'Star Wars' came out and there was a distress call from Princess Leia," -- generated in thin air by the robot R2D2 -- "people all over the world have been wanting one of these."
...


read full article here,
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/...reut/index.html

	16-09-2003 01:09									#2
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Cool

I want one

Asmodean

	16-09-2003 01:12									#3
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quote: Originally posted by Asmodean Cool I want one Asmodean

yeah, except it probably costs way too much.

	16-09-2003 01:13									#4
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I read the article... forgive me, but how exactly does it differ from a hologram? It's still a machine that conjures a picture in air above it, isn't it?

	16-09-2003 01:16									#5
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quote: Originally posted by Solver forgive me, but how exactly does it differ from a hologram?

It doesn't

Asmodean

	16-09-2003 02:52									#6
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Cool.

	16-09-2003 02:57									#7
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Cool.



Are lightsabers on their way?

	16-09-2003 03:25									#8
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but you still can't have sex with the projections.

Now when the day you can have sex with these projections and feel like the real thing. Well then you can kiss reality goodbye.

	16-09-2003 03:55									#9
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Wow, so you can use a screen of fog instead of a projection sheet. Amazing!.

How exactly does this change anything, except by lowering the image quality and making the process more complicated?

	16-09-2003 03:59									#10
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well teachers won't have to pull that screen down when showing a movie to their students .

And then the schools can say they need billions of dollars to educate their students properly.

	16-09-2003 11:58									#11
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When are they going to give us polarised photons? Or what do they use in those holo-decks in ST?

	16-09-2003 15:24									#12
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Damn! 3D porn!

	16-09-2003 16:42									#13
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quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger Damn! 3D porn!

	16-09-2003 16:55									#14
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

It's not 3 dimensional. That would be impossible using this method... it would require synchronized projectors all around the fog, and the fog would have to be in a very exact form for it to represent a 3D image.

	16-09-2003 17:05									#15
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I can hardly wait to see 20 mile advertisements for Preperation H stretched accross the sky.

	17-09-2003 05:05									#16
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quote: Originally posted by Dissident Now when the day you can have sex with these projections and feel like the real thing. Well then you can kiss reality goodbye.

This is why we have to get crackin' on AI - we need to create Ian M. Banks, "Culture" to take care of all us hedonists.

	17-09-2003 07:08									#17
	Inflate your Upload Space

quote: Originally posted by Osweld It's not 3 dimensional. That would be impossible using this method... it would require synchronized projectors all around the fog, and the fog would have to be in a very exact form for it to represent a 3D image.

No, why? You don't need a ring of lasers for holography either.

	17-09-2003 17:12									#18
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Well, this isn't holography, is it?


EDIT: And holograms aren't three dimensional, anyways. They're illusions.