Also your generic SciFi floating holo-touchscreens are here

Jul 4, 2015 15:38 GMT  ·  By

And here you were thinking that there are no such things as fairies and ghosts! Ha, how wrong you were!

The Japanese scientists and University of Tsukuba, Utsunomiya University, Nagoya Institute of Technology and the University of Tokyo used a toned version of the floating display technology in order not to provoke damage every time someone touches a “voxel” (3D pixel in space). Voxels are usually made by heating molecules with nanosecond lasers.

The toning down research meant using lasers that fire bursts of plasma every few femtoseconds. A femtosecond is one milionth of a second, while a nanosecond is one billionth of a second. As burst are extremely fragmented, hence the bursts, they won’t be damaging the human skin and, in addition, makes the final product touchable.

Researchers managed to implement all sorts of animations in response to the user’s touch, having them respond in real time. Some objects will dissipate, will break in half and will give off haptic feedback.

Development is unfortunately limited for the moment, as the femtosecond lasers can render images only up to eight cubic millimeters in size, and having 200,000 voxels transmitted per second resolution.

Plans to scale-up the technology are under way, in order to make the technology useful to clients and potential customers who will, no doubt try to use the new tech as interactive holograms, mid-air billboards and even as your generic run-of-the-mill Sci-Fi floating touchscreens.