A TV with no screen? Sounds crazy, but Chad Dyner at MIT's MediaLab thought of it and created the Heliodisplay a couple of years back. Made by IO2 Technology, the Heliodisplay actually forms floating 2D images in midair from regular video inputs — essentially a virtual 30-inch video screen. It's not holography; it works by affecting the properties of the ambient air above the "projector" (about the size of a desktop PC turned on its side). While the images can't actually be touched, the display can respond to the movement of your hand, making it a virtual touchscreen.
Now the technology's getting an upgrade. The new version, called the Heliodisplay H3, can display video with 1,024 x 768 "pixels" (good enough for your basic HD signals) and uses an improved system to make the image more stable, uniform, and bright. The tech has a long way to go before it can really compete with the flat panel in your living room, but progress is progress. And, yeah, the $18,400 starting price is mighty steep, though it wasn't too long ago that plasma sets cost about the same.
Check out some video and a couple more pics of the new Heliodisplay H3 in action after the jump. If, in fact, you have a Heliodisplay, let us know how watching a video of a virtual TV on a virtual TV looks.
IO2 Technology, via Ministry of Tech
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By SkagenGirl at 11:25 AM ON 03/08/07
I suppose the next bit of progress they need to make is getting rid of those vertical lines. They're really distracting.
By VALQUIST at 1:08 PM ON 03/08/07
I'd like an hd tv,but CONGRESS and the PRESIDENT is still taking 50% of my retired pay in ALIMONY and giving it to an exspouse who is " REMARRIED ".So getting an hd tv is very difficult.
By toolslave at 7:12 PM ON 03/08/07
This is awesome! It does look kinda like the matrix with those lines but it's cool.
By paladianheart at 10:33 PM ON 03/09/07
This is the same kind of display that they used for the "Conscience" of Capt Bridger on the Seaquest. LOL... FINALLY life is imitating ART?
By wildember at 3:29 PM ON 08/05/08
Wasn't Captain Bridger's display on Seaquest using moving air (fog) or moving water to project the image against? That's the way it used to look to me. Either way, if they can make this thing display 3-D it might make a way more realistic hologram than the 3-D movies we got today
By Cereal Killer at 3:26 PM ON 08/06/08
Wow, so Valquist, you poor guy. You failed to understand the legal enormity of the words you spoke so arbitrarily, and now you can't get an overpriced excessively minor improvement over a non-HD television and you go on the internet to whine about it?
Your poor life.
By pandy at 5:39 PM ON 10/06/08
so how old was the hussy u left your wife for? or did u just beat her? i dont know about where u are, but here you dont get alimony with out being married a signifigant number of years, and without the payee of the monies doing serious physical or psychological injury. so um, ya... go moan and groan to someone who cares....