Triple vision

The basic technology for 3-dimensional displays seems to be there, but it remains an open question whether the general public will spend the sort of money necessary to move 3D into the consumer mainstream. Examples of the latest use of 3D displays are described: the Sharp Actius RD3D laptop with a 15in LCD display that provides 3D images without the use of special glasses (the technical term is autostereoscopic); Philips research into 3D displays including real-time 2D-to-3D video conversion on a dual Pentium PC and the company's work on 3D mobile phones and TVs; the work of Los Angeles firm DDD on converting a 3D demo movie "Encounters in the Third Dimension" to demonstrate the capabilities of the RD3D; and Ocuity's work on realistic autostereoscopic games.