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Just imagine watching Monday Night Football with the players looking like they are running right at you.  Talk about experiencing the excitement of the game without actually being there.  Or fighting the bad guys in your favorite video game (and you thought the Wii made the fighting seem realistic).

Scientists have finally broken the barrier that had prevented this type of technology by creating the first updatable three-dimensional displays with memory.  Dr Nasser Peyghambarian, chair of photonics and lasers at the University’s of Arizona’s Optical Sciences department, said, “This is a prerequisite for any type of moving holographic technology.”  Although there is still work to be done, scientists are still very optimistic they are getting much closer to this becoming a reality in the next five to ten years.

How it would work

In order for the technology to work, they would need images to be changing many times each second.  They aren’t there quite yet.  But they did show displays that could be written and re-written in a matter of minutes, which was never accomplished before.  The Arizona team has been working on furthering hologram technology since 1990 and this a is huge step forward. 

Peyghambarian believes that one of the biggest difficulties in creating holographic sets has now been beaten.  “It took us a while to make that first breakthrough, but as soon as you have the first element of it working the rest often comes more rapidly,” he said.  “What we are doing now is trying to make the model better . . . There are no more great barriers to overcome now.”

What would a holographic TV look like?

There are two mentioned possible constructions of the holographic televisions.  One is a screen on the wall like a flat panel display TV, where all the image writing lasers would be behind the wall.  The other is a horizontal panel on a table with the holographic writing materials underneath.  So, just imagine you could really have your live sports action leaping out of your wall or a car race on your coffee table.

The scientific community has mixed reactions

This has convinced some other long-time researchers of the technology that it could happen as well.  Retired physics professor at Lake Forest College, Tung H. Jeong, has studied holography since the 1960s.  He told NJ.com that “When we start talking about erasable and rewritable holograms, we are moving toward the possibility of holographic TV . . . It has now been shown that physically, it’s possible.”

Not everyone is as optimistic about the time frame for the technology however.  Justin Lawrence, a lecturer in Electronic Engineering at Bangor University says that although steps are being made, he can’t see it it being ready for market in ten years.  “It’s one thing to demonstrate something in a lab but it’s another thing to be able to produce it cheaply and efficiently enough to distribute it to the mass market.”

Pick up your TV by 2020?

Peyghambarian hopes that more sponsors of the technology come forward as the breakthroughs continue.  The Japanese Government is pushing enormous financial and technical weight into the development of three-dimensional, virtual reality TV, and the country’s ministry is shooting to have the technology available by 2020.  Peyhambarian says that he is hoping backers could even come from outside the consumer electronics industry if no major electronics company commit themselves.

Well, I hope someone does, because I think that TV in holographic 3D would be pretty darn cool and I’d rather not have to wait twenty years or so to see it.  Then again, just imagine the price tag on this puppy when it first comes out!

via [techmeme] and [cnn]