Harrods Sells Holographic TV

beuh_dave writes "Harrods is selling a holographic TV, CLARO, for £15,000. The Holoscreen is a revolutionary holographic film which displays any image fed through a projector at a specific angle on to a transparent display. All other light is ignored. The result is a remarkably bright and sharp image quality - even in brightly lit environments."

Comments

This isn't really "holographic"

[rebeka thomas]

This isn't really "holographic" in the sense of a 3D image in space, or a perception of a 3D image.

All it is is a screen that hangs in space (or supported by glass as in the site) and only shows images directed on it from a certain angle - from a projector sitting conspicuously on the floor behind it.

It's pretty, but hardly world shattering.

Re:This isn't really "holographic"

[arodland]

Maybe it's not really "holographic", whatever the quotes mean, but it is really holographic. It's not a sci-fi holoscreen, but it still uses holography to project a picture.

Had to be said:

[Laurentiu]

Carry on. If you need me, I'll be in the holodeck.

Harods [sic]

[Ford Prefect]

I like how 'Harrods' in the summary's URL is misspelt, but that it's a redirect to the real 'harrods.com'. Pre-emptive Slashdot Editor protection! :-)

Re:Harods [sic]

[Deekin_Scalesinger]

As an unwashed Yank, I gotta tell my fellow compatriots who don't know (of which there are more than I imagined) that Harrod's is a large department store in London, in the Knightsbridge section of town. Now, that is also like saying that Microsoft is a profitable company.

Harrod's is an amazing store, 8 stories high if I remember correctly, owned by an Arab oil family who's son died in the car crash with Princess Diana. The first floor houses a food court the like of which you have never seen, with every food imaginable. The next couple of floors is devoted to clothing, which is someone boring, although Mrs. Scalesinger got herself a fine looking hat in their haberdashery. Then the floors start to get interesting again, with a large section devoted to true antiques for purchase, going all the way back to the stone age. That depaertment made me somewhat nervous, as it is museum quality with the added spice of "you break, you buy" hanging over the department. Oh yeah, a pub in the basement of the store wheeeee!

If they have an electronics department (which I guess they have to, from TFA) I don't recall it, as I was so overwhelmed from the rest of the store. Highly pricey and eminently touristy, it is stil a can't miss experience that I enjoy every time I am fortunate enough to be on that side of the big drink.

dictionary?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone want to bother looking up the term hologram in the dictionary....when I think of a holographic TV I don't think of a flat surface displayed onto a tangable object you could easily break if you breath on it the wrong way when it falls over.

When I think of a hologram I think of being able to throw my beer through my TV next time I see a horrible excuse of a football game...

Harrods?

[panurge]

I'll believe in it when I see it in John Lewis.

Layers

[EdZ]

If it could me modified to only accept projected light from a given angle (grating or a very highly polarised filter perhaps?), sevaral projectors could be used to 'layer' screens into a 3d block display. Expensive, but for people who NEED high quality 3d displays then money is most likely not an object.

Re:Layers

[JohnFluxx]

A grating was my first thought. It only needs to be very very thin. Basically the idea is to have a micrometer thick layer that looks like this:

\ \ \ \ \ \

You can image the \ is a gap, and the white space is some material. Only light with the correct angle will fit perfectly into the gap and be bounced back.

This is roughly how holograms work, and is called a diffraction grating. (A grating produced from the diffraction between the object light and some reference light)

Another thought is that they use the brusters angle somehow. If the light is polarised, it would appear brightest (or dimmest, depending on which way is polarised) at exactly 34 degrees to the plate. (For glass that is anyway).

I've seen it

[djkitsch]

I was down there last week, and despite the fact that it's not actually 3D, as the "holographic" would suggest, it does look pretty cool. It basically looks like a sheet of glass with a TV picture hanging in the middle of it - it's bright enough to look good and sharp under showroom lighting, too.

Not sure it's worth the extortionate price tag for what's essentially a novelty toy, though.

Diffractive optical element?

[Hal-9001]

From the article (which is rather lacking in technical details), the display sounds like a holographically-recorded diffractive optical element on a glass substrate. If so, I'm curious how they compensate for the dispersion intrinsic to the diffraction phenomenon (since selling a 15,000 quid monochrome display is probably not a commercially-viable option :-p). Also, since the display claims to be angularly selective (it has to be if it only accepts a specific projection direction), I wonder if it has a similarly selective viewing angle (like early LCD displays, which were only bright and clear at normal incidence).

Re:Diffractive optical element?

[stoborrobots]

It's actually much cheaper... you can get them from around 2.5 thousand pounds...

Re:Diffractive optical element?

[billh]

Wow. Do we really talk like this? No wonder my wife never understands what I'm saying.

Re:astonishing

[LiquidCoooled]

Pledge polish: £0.89
Duster cloth: £0.25
Squeegy mop accessory: £175.00

explaining to your parents how their new toy got smeared, priceless.

Tech info...

[stoborrobots]

It has been around for a while...

http://www.exn.ca/Stories/2003/03/18/56.cfm
http://www.anders-kern.de/presse/pr_holoscreen_en. html
http://www.innovations-vcs.co.uk/main/holoscreen.h tm

You can buy your own one cheap here:
http://www.av-sales.com/html/svs_holoscreen.html

Gone for the ride

[Blitzenn]

"hey Fred, if we get rid of the big box surrounding these old rear projection tv's, Jack the price way up and call em something fancy, I'll bet we can finally sell these things off"

"Great Idea Barney! Let's call 'em 'Hollow Graphic'. No! No! Wait! I got it Holographic! No one will know the difference!"

"Yea Fred there's a sucker born every minute."

"You got that right Barney. Now lets see what we can think up for all these foam tiles these old tv's came packed in."

"Wait a minute Fred! I already sold those to NASA as shuttle repair kits. You won't believe what they paid me for them!", Fred gives Barney a big High Five.

Harrods is expensive

[Gax]

I'd like to know how much these devices will cost elsewhere. Harrods have a reputation for inflating prices above and beyond high street level. For example, a toy that costs £10 in every other shop is selling for £25 in Harrods. You are paying for the experience of shopping in the store.

Seen it, appreciated it, eh.

[maggard]

Last year a shop in downtown Montreal had this in their window. It was interesting for novelty value, mebbe designers would go gaga over it. I could imagine some uses for it.

The hook was it being video, apparently floating in the shop window. No wires, no frame, in was creepily like Picture-In-Picture for the real world.

In the brightly lit shop window the image was equally bright, whatever in the ceiling driving it was pretty powerful. The only evidence there was anything 'going on' at all, beyond a block of video floating in space, was two, nearly invisible, mono-filament lines holding up the sheet of plastic. Also from the sides of the shop window one could spot the edges of the plastic if one looked carefully at the edge of the bright moving distracting video (in short - not obvious at all.)

Uses aside from novelty value?

Well as many folks have noted this is just an improvement on the old frosted-sheet-of-plastic trick so anywhere that goes this can can too. Places where you want a display with the only accessible part being a bit of plastic, like in public venues. Also spots where you don't want a lot of hardware 'hanging around' but want a cleaner look.

I could see this being popular for indoor stadiums, hanging off the edge of the deck above. Those fans are woefully under-served with TV during games (sarcasm).

Airports are gonna love this. Many have gone from banks of big CRTs squatting over folks to frames of flat panels, this will be the next step in their search for sleek 22nd century tax-paid coolness.

Designers, heck yeah! The mantra has been "thin is in", but they've still been vexed by cables and how to handle that awkward screen when it's not in use. Here is something that can mounted in the ceiling ($$$), the screen put in a convenient corner, and (with the house cleaner dusting it regularly) won't spoil the elegant lines of the room with evidence of proletarian TV tastes. I bet HGTV just ordered a shipping container of 'em.

For the rest of us? Unless you've got a real desire for 'floating TV' I bet most /.'ers would rather spend their money on more features & toys then just 'look it *floats*!'.

YMMV.