Jun 20
Jun 20
Princess Leia must have had too much cake and sent this to me as a gift. Nice! Now shut off that hologram and get in my belly, little droid! This awesome R2-D2 cake actually projects Leia’s holographic message.
Marc Freilich is a great father. He gave his 6-year-old son a birthday cake that he will never forget. It’s a cake shaped like our favorite droid, with a little bonus inside. Inside, there is a PVC pipe holding a projector. Marc set it up to display Princess Leia’s hidden message from Episode IV.
I would eat this thing until I found the Death Star plans. Then I would be too sick and fat to rush off and help the Princess. Hey, she shouldn’t have sent cake if she expected help to arrive quickly.
[via Hack A Day]
May 09
3D/4D ultrasound hologram printing service using Pioneer’s compact holographic printer
Posted in: Today's ChiliPioneer has announced a service that prints the expressions of unborn babies as 3D holograms, using a compact full-color hologram printer developed by the company last year.
“When an expecting mother has a check-up, a 3D/4D echogram is made, and that contains 3D data. So, we suggest taking pre-birth photos of the baby, by skillfully processing that data.”
This device can record full color card-sized Lippmann hologram in 120 minutes with one color holograms taking 90 minutes.
“Previously, holograms were produced by making a model of the subject, shining two lights on the model, and photographing it. That method involved a lot of work, because it required a darkroom, knowledge of techniques, and specialized equipment. But with the device we’ve developed, even if you don’t have the actual object, as long as you have a CG design, then that can be used to record a hologram easily.”
The recording medium is a high-performance film specifically for holograms, called Bayfol HX, from Bayer Material Science. The hologram is visible within a 23 degree viewing angle, and is 200 components high and 300 wide, with each component containing 60 points of view vertically and horizontally.
“This method works by shining light containing information about the object from one side of the recording material, and reference light from the other side, and recording the state of interference between the two light sources in the material. A hologram is created by regularly arranging the recordings on the medium.”
As these holograms can be used to commemorate births, and Lippmann holograms can be viewed clearly in white light, Pioneer is exhibiting holograms in card-case holders and jewel-boxes with white LEDs.
Related: OPTICS & PHOTONICS International Exhibition 2013 (OPIE ’13)
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Apr 16
Artist and fashion designer Hussein Chalayan should not be a strange name to anyone, as he has not lost the ability to surprise and enthrall the audience with different experiences when it comes to the world of haute couture. The thing is, in order to be on the bleeding edge of technology, it can get more and more challenging as time progresses since the next breakthrough could very well be more difficult to surpass than before. Earlier this year, the two-in-one dresses from his F/W 2013 collection managed to create their fair share of waves on the runway, not to mention his collaboration with Puma a couple of years back. How then, has he progressed for this year?
His most recent project comprises of a collection of skinny pants and dresses that were done in collaboration with a denim company known as Mavi. In order to spruce things up a whole lot more, Chalayan and Mavi decided to present the entire collection with the help of a holographic catwalk., and you can then imagine just how the entire fashion show would have been. Cool is the least that one can describe it as.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Google Glass Specs Reveal 5MP Camera, 25-Inch Display, All-Day Battery Life, Tetris Clone Makes Its Way Onto The Pebble Smart Watch, 
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Apr 11
You do not rise to the very top of the industry by remaining a follower, only leaders are able to be right up ahead of the rest of the pack. Nike has for some years now, proved itself to be a bastion in creativity where sports advertising is concerned, as they have also churned out their fair share of innovative shoes where sports and fitness are concerned. Well, their latest advertisement was recently spotted in Amsterdam, where it came in the form of holographic promotions.
The hologram advertisement that was shown off in Amsterdam pushed the new Nike Free 5.0 running shoes, where it was facilitated by Holocube, a European company whose specialty lies in holographic displays. The Nike Free 5.0 is shown rotating in virtual space, where it will twist and roll with realistic effect to entertain the multitude of pedestrians who walk by every single day. Courtesy of the transparent cube display, the hologram’s motion can be regardless of which side you are on.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Software Programmers Can Now Have Agents Represent Them And Find Them Work, Apple Job Listing Pulled, Possible Flexible Display Down The Road, 
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Apr 04
That’s right X! It’s a 16″ x 6″ replica of a light capsule from the Mega Man X series, featuring a looping animation of the one and only Dr. Light. The replica was made by artistman Andrewman Butterman Andrew Butterworth. He showed off the replica at the recently concluded Mega Man Boss Battle art show.
Andrew created the hologram effect by reflecting the image onto an angled sheet of glass in the middle using a screen set into the base.
As of this writing, you can still buy this unique mega merch from the Gauntlet Gallery for $3,000 (USD). Easter Egg included. Check out more pictures of the light capsule on Imgur.
[via Sprite Stitch]
Mar 20
HP Labs builds a glasses-free, portable 3D display with wide viewing angles (video)
Posted in: Today's Chili 
Typical attempts at a glasses-free 3D display have trouble with viewing angles; we’re all too familiar with having to sit in a sweet spot to get the effect. HP Labs might have just solved this last problem with a prototype 3D LCD that would better accommodate the real world. The display’s backlight has nanopatterned grooves that send blue, green and red in multiple directions, letting the LCD show only the light that would be seen from a given viewpoint. Those positions are set in stone, but they’re both abundant (200 for photos, 64 for video) and can spread across a wide 180-degree viewing arc. At a thickness of as little as half a millimeter, a production LCD could easily be thin enough for a mobile device, too. The catch isn’t so much the screen as the content. Producers need an image for every possible viewpoint, which could create a fair share of logistical problems: even though footage wouldn’t necessarily require 200 cameras, it could limit fully immersive 3D to computer-generated visuals or else consume a massive amount of bandwidth. If those are the biggest barriers, though, we’re still that much closer to the holographic smartphone we’ve always wanted.
Filed under: Cellphones, Displays, Science, HP
Source: Nature
Feb 12
The Holocaust is one of the most well-known events in history, and while there are still a handful of survivors out there, that number is quickly dipping. So, in order to preserve stories from survivors of the Holocaust, USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies and the USC Shoah Foundation Institute have begun working on full-body interactive holograms that feature the survivors themselves.
The man featured in the image above and in the video down below is 80-year-old Pinchas Gutter, who spent his childhood in a Naxi concentration camp in Poland, and was about to turn 14 years old when World War II ended in 1945. Gutter was interviewed and recorded in 3D inside a 26-foot-wide dome lit by 6,000 LEDs with a green screen backdrop.
The recordings from the interview were then converted into a hologram that is meant to be shown in museums and other exhibits. The team behind the project are definitely on a time crunch, and are trying to get as many Holocaust survivors interviewed and recorded before most of them pass away. It’s an undertaking that involves a lot of fast acting.
Of course, holograms aren’t anything new. Last year, the late Tupac Shakur was turned into a hologram and performed live at the Coachella music festival back in April. However, the team putting together the Holocaust holograms say that the process is a bit different. Whereas holographic Tupac used stacked 2D images projected onto a nearly-invisible screen, holographic Gutter are projected onto open space to make it look more accurate.
[via CNET]
Holograms to preserve Holocaust survivor stories is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
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Jan 24
People love their smartphones, and it’s hard to remember how we actually managed to get anything done in the past with only our dumbphones. Check out this interesting digital art installation from Japan that highlights smartphones.
Japanese designer Yuri Endo developed Luminogeist as the final phase in his thesis project at IDAS. The installation uses glass prisms which reassemble 3D image components from the mobile displays below. The prisms allow the extraction what’s being shown on the smartphone’s screen, making them look almost like floating holograms. Check it out, it’s pretty cool:
I wonder if this technique could be used with tablets or flat panel TVs to display floating images inside of even larger prisms.
[via designboom]
Oct 29
A couple of years back, a cool device came out called the Holocube. This unique display creates the illusion of a 3-dimensional moving image with a tremendous sense of depth. Now, an updated version of the Holocube has been released with improves brightness and a new trick up its sleeve.
The 2012 Holocube is illuminated by a bright 1600 cd/m² LED backlight, which allows the display to be used in just about any lighting conditions. It’s also been redesigned in a way that renders the bottom projection source invisible when you walk by the display, improving the holographic illusion greatly when compared to the original.
Photos and video don’t really do the illusion justice though, and you need to see the display in person to really appreciate it. Expect to see these turn up in retail and trade show exhibits in the near future. You can find more information on the 2012 Holocube over on their website.
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