HP Cracks Smartphone Hologram Technology [Video]

It seems flexible smartphones and gadgets are about to make their entry into the consumer market this year, but there is one more advancement in technology that we’re all waiting for. It’s of course the arrival of smartphone hologram technology. It has been a mirage for so long that most of us have started to think it can’t be done. But innovation has a way of finding ways to create even the most impossible things. This time around, it seems HP has brilliant enough minds to solve the problem.

Their solution requires no 3D-glasses and no funky hardware that the viewer has to wear. Instead, the feature utilizes nanopatterned grooves, called “directional pixels,” that transmit the light in different directions to create the 3D holographic effect. To simplify the explanation for how it works would be to say that each set of directional pixels has three sets of grooves that direct red, green and blue light. This basically means that the viewer can be positioned anywhere around or above the hologram for a unique view of the picture or video. This hologram technology is of course a whole lot more advanced than that, but it gets the job done and could potentially make smartphone holograms possible in the near future.

Some people say though that producing content for this kind of hologram technology could become problematic. The thing is, video only has 64 viewpoints with a maximum of 30 frames per second. That is far less than what game and app developers are used to working with. Not only that, but the development time to create content for such a hologram technology is ultimately time consuming. But as always, problems are made to be solved. Since we have come this far, there should be no reason to stop now, right?

I think it is in everyone’s interest that this hologram technology will keep evolving and allow us to change the way we view things on our screens forever. We’ll just have to see whether HP or someone else will be able to crack the final piece of the puzzle. I think we all agree that having hologram technology incorporated into our smartphones could potentially raise the quality and experience of smartphones forever.

HP’s Nanopatterned Grooves Hologram Technology

Via: [MIT Technology Review]