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Sharp Announces 3D Laptop

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the laptops-of-the-future dept.

wembley writes "The Associated Press is running a story about a forthcoming Sharp laptop with a 3D screen. I can't find any pictures, but it requires no glasses, so you don't have to walk around looking like Biff's sidekick in Back to the Future. It comes with WinXP, but it's only a matter of time before we're arguing here about what looks better in 3D, Gnome or KDE."

9 of 266 comments (clear)

  1. Details by BJH · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you can read Japanese, here's Sharp's explanation of how it works.

    If you can't, look at the pretty diagrams and the stupid faked 3D photo.

  2. Re:Only slightly 3D by Mwongozi · · Score: 3, Informative
    Okay, this isn't the same laptop I was thinking of. It actually works by sending a different image to the left and right of the screen. Mod parent down please. :P

    This can't be very good for the viewing angle though, can it? You'd have to be sitting right in front of it.

  3. I already have my KDE desktop in 3D by borgdows · · Score: 4, Informative

    I use 3D-Desktop.

    It's is an OpenGL program for switching virtual desktops in a seamless 3-dimensional manner on Linux. With this program your desktop looks futuristiiiic and you can impress your friends!

  4. Picture of Mebius by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Found it here:
    http://www.mobilemag.com/content/100/336/C2 020/

  5. Only an animated switch between desktops by Frans+Faase · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is really lame. It is only giving you an animation of switching between desktops, not a real 3D desktop. This has been done (much better) a long time ago by SGI, where they would have such an animation everytime you opened a folder. Makes your eyes dizzy after a while. These kind of animations don't add anything useful, just a gadget to show of to your friend. I bet that you could do the same in Windows.

  6. Pics here!!!! by geektux · · Score: 4, Informative

    Some pics can be found here.........

    http://www.sharp.co.jp/mebius/index.html

  7. Some links by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    Just finished a writeup on this, so here are some links:

    my humble piece in norwegian

    some pictures down the page

    English explaination of the "parallax" technology

    Sharps own specification page

    It's only supprted by Windows XP sp1a, by the way.

    penhead

  8. no they don't by RMH101 · · Score: 3, Informative

    the 3d information's all contained within the opengl layer, you just need to write appropriate video drivers.

  9. I saw a demo recently by chrispl · · Score: 5, Informative

    I saw the Sharp 3D laptop on display at the 2003 IFA in Berlin. It works on the same principle, lenticular imaging, that has been used for years for 3D collectors cards and posters etc. The screen is covered with thin vertical stripes that redirect light coming off the screen, showing each eye a different image.
    The 3D effect is quite convincing however it has a few drawbacks. The biggest problem is you have to look at it from precice angles for the effect to work i.e. if you move your head from side to side you will see the screen go from real 3D to a blur, then inverted 3D, blur... This is especially troublesome if more than one person is trying to look at it at once. The second problem is that to show two images at once each image has only half the resolution of the entire display, making it look fuzzy compared to regular 2D displays.
    For some reason the demo they had running only cycled through still pictures of 3D rendered scenes, no video or UI shots which makes me suspicious that these problems are even worse in those applications. It is cool technology no doubt, but it still has some problems to work out.

    --
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