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Design

Become A Hologram Just Like Princess Leia

All you need is an R2-D2 to project it.

Whether you’re a fan of Star Wars or cult comedy Red Dwarf, holograms have always been present in the sci-fi universe; the former featuring a stricken, flickering Leia asking for help, the latter a cock-sure “smeg-head” aka Arnold Judas Rimmer. But where are our real world, real-time 3D holographics? Well, they’re finally here according a paper published yesterday in Nature science journal. Scientists at the University of Arizona, report on how they’ve created moveable 3D holograms that are able to transport images from one location to another in almost real-time — meaning you’ll be able to enjoy a beer with your buddy on the other side of the world, or even eventually have an annoying snob of a hologram follow you around belittling your every move.

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The report says:

Here we use a holographic stereographic technique and a photorefractive polymer material as the recording medium to demonstrate a holographic display that can refresh images every two seconds. A 50 Hz nanosecond pulsed laser is used to write the holographic pixels. Multicolored holographic 3D images are produced by using angular multiplexing, and the full parallax display employs spatial multiplexing. 3D telepresence is demonstrated by taking multiple images from one location and transmitting the information via Ethernet to another location where the hologram is printed with the quasi-real-time dynamic 3D display. Further improvements could bring applications in telemedicine, prototyping, advertising, updatable 3D maps, and entertainment.

They’ve already created holograms about the size of Leia’s in Star Wars and are now working on human-sized versions. So if the Rebel Alliance needs help, instead of IMing or emailing you, they can beam down a personal plea via hologram while you’re relaxing on your home planet.