Sharp Announces 3D Laptop

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."

Comments

Ducking and Dodging

[mholt108]

Can you imagine how sick you would get playing the original DOOM onthis??

Re:Ducking and Dodging

[neil_rickards]

My final year project was an AWT modeled on a 3D graphics card. The theory was you can use this second processor, the GPU (that's doing nothing normally) to move windows, render fonts and images, etc. You'd get alpha blending and all sorts of cool effects for practically free. Windows were hanging in 3D space and could cast shadows, even button shading was done properly using camera angles and lights.

It occurs to me that, with this technology I could dig out that old executable and find it actually in 3D!

Re:Ducking and Dodging

[FelixCat]

Note that the 3d effect requires that your head is positioned properly with respect to the screen. Hence, if you really do "duck and dodge" while playing some game, you will loose the 3d effect everytime your head moves too far to the left or right of the center-line.

On a related note, you can buy Stereo LCD projectors, but most require special glasses that alternate between the left and right eye. On the normal LCD flatpanel display the light is polarized, so you can't use the polarized glasses trick.

The nice thing about having glasses is that it doesn't restrict the viewing angle. Although maybe this is a good thing if you don't want the person next to you looking at the screen.

OperatingSystem Question

[jlemmerer]

Does the OS have to support this screen? I cant't imagine current operating systems of being able to handle this 3D effect native. Of course, they will supply windows drivers, but to really decide if gnome or kde look better you will propably need a linux driver. i just hope that they will release the architecture and drivers so that also the linux community can participate in the glorious 3D features. furthermore it would be of interest if (provided no drivers are present) the image looks blurry or if it just looks flat 2D.

I mysql would appreciate a laptop featuring this "smoke screen" that was posted here in /. a few weeks ago, imagine, no display you have to flap open, a REALLY slim notebook and the geek factor to have a image to come out of virtually nothing..

So how does it know .....

[peterpi]

.... what do display at what depth? Do windowing systems use the Z-buffer?

Maybe I should just RTFA.

3D desktops are new

[AlecC]

Lots of people still think that there is nothing you can do on 2d Desktops that you cannot do on the command line. The 2D desktop is still settling in, 20 years or so after it ws first invented. I think a 3D desktop could well have a lot to offer.

What you will need is an improvement on the mouse. One of the reasons that my real-world desktop is easier to use than my GUI desktop is that I can move my head to see how thinkgs are stacked. For example, I have a couple of MySQL manuals stacked; the upper is larger, so on a 2D desktop I couldn't see the lower. But a tiny move of my head shows me the spint of the lower. We will need to replicate that functionality before a 3D desktop really works.

Actually, that functionality could be replicated on a 2D desktop - redraw a pseudo-3D desktop as move my viewpoint (Doom engin inside Windows?). So it is the mouse that needs improvement, not the screen.

Now I can start on my 3D clutterspace

[heironymouscoward]

I have this secret design (oops, posted it to Slashdot, now it can't be patented anymore) for a new workspace design, which depends on a 3D display.

Basically you throw down objects you're working on, into concentric piles. The most important stuff stays 'hot', near you, while stuff you use less often gets gradually pushed further and further back.

To open a document or web site you just click it, and it becomes 'hot' again. There's a little text box I can type keywords in, to find matching documents.

That's about it. Replaces the hierarchical file system with something much closer to the way I work (and AFAIK, many creative people work).

Re:All laptops are in 3D..

[adeyadey]

Well its a bugger trying to get the phase/spin direction of all the protons and electrons lined up, but apparently it is possible..

Why a laptop

[L-s-L69]

Why has this been implemented in a laptop? If its as good as it seems I'd much rather see it been used in tv's/flat screen moniters first and surely this would be a far larger market than laptop users alone? Maybe im missing the point but a huge, 3d widescreen tv sounds pretty good to me!

Re:Only slightly 3D

[RockBob]

I imagine it would probably be more a textured surface that split the image up (much like those old 3D stickers that gave the impression of depth by showing the image at an angle relative to the angle you looked at it). It would be thinner but I don't know if that's actually how it works.

This has been around in print for years now; I guess it was only a matter of time before some bright spark applied it to screens.

I always thought that it would be particularly good for 3D Games.

Reduced resolution in 3D

[Frans Faase]

I understand that the resolution will be halved in one direction when using the 3D display mode. That might make it rather useless for normal use. Or can the 3D-effect also be switched on for certain regions of the display?

Great! Now all we need is a way to control it.

[Gldm]

So what's going to be the breakthrough control interface for 3D like the mouse was for 2D? And don't point at one of those "3D mice" with the little eraser pointer for scroll on them either. Maybe one of the gyroscopic mice but I think I'd get tired of having to hold the damn thing up in the air 8 hours a day. Maybe something like the SpaceOrb 360, but I couldn't get any decent precision with that when I had one.

Maybe someone should dust off the old NES U-force and find a way to integrate it into the laptop.

Impact on eyes?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just curious as to what, if any, impact this would have on your eyes since each one would be seeing a separate image therefore working a bit harder to make sense of it.

I'm remembering the strain of looking at stereoscopic images and this sounds a bit like that.

Any ideas?

Proprietary 3D format?

[zapp]

Mebius now only has a small sample of 3D applications, such as an image of fruit and flowers and an animation of dinosaurs. But Sharp is hoping other companies will design 3D games and videos

So, it uses some proprietary 3D format? It's junk then. Why not have it support OpenGL and DirectX?

I Had a TNT2 when they came out that had 3D glasses and worked perfectly with any OpenGL/DirectX graphics... why should this be different?

Re:All people see in 2D

[ShinmaWa]

No... most people see in 3D. This is a fact I'm keenly aware of since depth perception is something that I lack. I do have both eyes, but my brain is incapable of using them together to form depth-percepted image. The result is that my brain just filters out one of the inputs -- usually my left eye since my right eye is dominant -- otherwise I have double-vision.

The end result is that I can't throw nor catch for the life of me. Doorknobs are often hard for me when I'm tired. Stairs are hazardous to my health. I have to count the steps lest I miss one and I ALWAYS use the handrail. I've almost fallen on stairs twice in the last week alone. Bionoculars, red-blue 3D glasses, and stereograms screw with my brain's filtering ability and causes double-vision, so I can't use them either (unless I close one eye).

I can safely say that this condition is found only in a small minority of population -- or else you'd find piles of bodies crumbled up on the landing of staircases :)