Sony will be unveiling a prototype of a tabletop 360-degree 3-D display, they announced in a Japanese press release on October 19th. The prototype will be shown off from October 22nd to the 25th at the Digital Content Expo 2009 in Tokyo.
According to Sony, the small 360° 3-D display can be seen from all directions by multiple people – no special glasses are required either! The display itself is 96 pixels wide by 128 pixels tall, supports 24-bit full color, and emits the 3-D pictures using LEDs. The whole unit is 13 cm (5.1 in.) in diameter and stands 27 cm (10.6 in.) tall.
Sony says that beyond being used as a digital sign and event display, the device could potentially have a number of practical applications, such as a 3-D digital photo frame, 3-D videophone, or even as a 3-D virtual pet. Other uses Sony has imagined are as a 3-D medical display, a 3-D map, or a creative artist tool.
As research on the system continues, Sony says they will consider development of a variety of such applications.
If you had such a 360°3-D display, what would you use it for?
Updated information (October 22nd): See the product video for the prototype display
Read more news from Japan by the Japan Headlines Examiner
Comments
The internet is for PR0N
damn, you "beat" me to it ;-)
Help me, Obiwan. You're my only hope.
Can anyone say, 360camera?
Any display with moving parts is a 'born-obsolete' technology. Please, keep your rotating disks. Give us a solid state display then you'll have something.
3d dongs
PRON, all angles, need to make display human size
I can see Polycom using this technology with the CX5000 (MS Roundtable)..
* Paired with a robotic web cam, a mini-me 3d avatar for tele-presence.
* Deskmates 3d ;)
* tease my cat with a virtual mouse
* mounted to a mobile platform robotic bar tender
* lava lamp revisited
Conferences
Connected to an MRI or PET scanner, and we would be able to display 3d images of internal organs and do "virtual" surgeries using robots (which we already do, but this would give us the opportunity to see better).
A librarian program. Many possibilities but at this size I'd say a toy.
Fortunately, other folks have spent a whole bunch of time figuring out what to do with this type of technology. Go to 'YouTube' and search for 'Volumetric Displays'. The work out of University of Toronto is particularly thought-through (Sorry, can't post links here for some stupid reason).
Cool, eh?
3D Titays!
If only we could connect it to a 3D Virtual World like SecondLife ! Then the border between the real world and the virtual world would get increasingly blurred. See the YouTube video "Are You Real"
Definately a 3D stripper
Checking the preleminary results of an 3d-artist.
Or display a hypercube.
All new technology is used for porn, surveillance, or corporate exploitation.
This is old news repackages. My mental breakdown: they are using LEDs, so this is probably a persistence of vision spinning frame. That's a 1990's idea ('92 when I first saw it). Texas Instrument called theirs "Omniview Volume Display"
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