Glasses-free 3D for phones revealed A 3D image of the Hewlett
Packard logo in RGB, from a completely transparent substrate.
Photo: AFP Fancy watching a movie on your mobile phone, where
figures leap out from the screen in 3D, rather as Princess Leia
did in that scene from Star Wars? That's the claim made by US
researchers, who reported they had made a display that gives a
three-dimensional image that can be viewed without special
glasses and is intended for smartphones, tablets and watches.
Unlike the holographic projection used in George Lucas' movie
fantasy, their small prototype display is flat and backlit. It
uses a technology called diffractive optics to give 3D images
that can be viewed from multiple angles, even if the device is
tilted. "Unlike a lot of technology out there that only does so-
called horizontal parallax, which means that you only see 3D
when you move your head left and right, we actually are talking
about a technology that gives 3D for full parallax," said David
Fattal, who led a team at