Glasses-Less 3D En Route from Hitachi

There isn't much that one can say about 3D except that it looks great and makes one look proportionally non-great, obviously because it implies the use of bulky, more or less square 3D glasses. Still, seeing how 3D films are coming into their own, and that even 3D TV channels have started cropping up around the world, it was really just a matter of time before one company or another came up with a working technology capable of rendering 3D images without relying on glasses.

In this particular universe, the display developer that came up with one such solution is Sharp. Known as the parallax barrier technology and supposedly going to be used in Nintendo's upcoming 3DS handheld gaming gizmo, this solution somehow projects the two sets of images that make up the 3D feed in such a way so as to enable each eye to pick up only the set of images meant for it.

This method is relatively new, however, which means it hasn't had the opportunity to really be implemented in an actual full-sized TV or LCD monitor. Fortunately, though, the long wait may finally be nearing its end now that Hitachi is reportedly intent on delivering a 3DTV of its own.

Granted, thinking that the no-glasses 3D dream would come true such a short time after the first 3D titles came out might seems like wishful thinking, but it might not necessarily be so. In fact, last year at CEATEC, Hitachi actually demoed a 10-inch VGA screen prototype that used 16 projectors to create the same effect, only it was not visible from all the angles. As such, the technology itself might even be farther along than most might think.

Unfortunately, at this point, there is no way of knowing how long it will take for an actual working model to make it to the market, nor is there any way of knowing how much it would cost.