Japanese technology firm Sharp reckons its has 3D screens, especially for phones and other handheld devices, which will be out in devices this year, and there is no need for anyone to wear the cumbersome 3D glasses that are being issued with new 3D TV sets. It will work with screens up to 3.4 inches across and is available now to put into devices. A non-touchscreen version will come out this Summer.
Interestingly this technology was once thought of as a blind alley for Sharp, and it has been working on it for at least the past 10 years to our knowledge. It is called a parallax barrier system, and the two eye images are both issued from the screen, but each image goes through tiny vertical slits in front of the screen, separating them for each eye. The big problem here is that there is virtually no wide viewing angle, so you can’t have five people watching the same TV and all getting 3D effects. It’s a one person system, so although this is not good for TV design, it is perfect for mobile phones.
There are rumors that it will also be incorporated into handheld gaming systems such as the Nintendo 3DS
Sharp will use a technique which it pioneered to make the new screens, which it calls CG-Silicon, which is an LCD process which allows the screen to refresh far faster than conventional silicon. The result, says Sharp, is a screen which is larger, and has more brightness and better definition than any other 3D technology on a mobile phone. It also allows for the screens to be Touchscreen, which it says is something not yet cracked on other 3D phone designs. Sharp will also target the screen technology at digital cameras, gaming devices and smartphones.
The thickness of the new LCD module is about the same as conventional 2D displays, even though it is a touchscreen. The 3D images can be displayed in both portrait and landscape screen orientations, says Sharp.