Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Holographic Videoconferencing
Holographic videoconferencing has been achieved using a new large size material that can be repeatedly written to and erased.
(Holographic Videoconferencing)
The University of Arizona researchers developed a new polymer-based material that encodes information using electric fields. The material contains two components. When light strikes the film, one of these components, a polymer, absorbs photons and generates electrons and their positive counterparts, called holes. The polymer is also a good conductor of holes, but not of electrons. As a result, the holes can easily move away from the illuminated areas where they were generated, whereas the electrons stay put. This separation of charges creates patterns of tiny electric fields within the material. These electric fields change the way that light moves through the different parts of the film.The second component of the material, a dye, responds to the electric fields in two ways. The dye molecules change their polarization and physically rotate depending on the nature of the fields in each part of the film. These changes locally affect the index of refraction, which has to do with how a material bends and reflects light. When the researchers shine a laser through the film, the dye alters the path of the light, projecting a pattern that the eye interprets as a three-dimensional image. "It comes out of thin air--you feel like you could touch it," says Nasser Peyghambarian, a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Arizona, who led the work.
To erase the image, the researchers expose the film to uniform light, which redistributes the electrons and holes, removing the electric fields and the changes in the material that they had produced.
Jan Tor, Captain of Interplanetary Patrol Cruiser 79388 in Edmond Hamilton's 1928 novel Crashing Suns, had holographic videoconferencing (he called it a telestereo):
Abruptly I was aroused from my musings by the sharp ringing of a bell at my elbow. "The telestereo," I said to Hal Kur. "Take the controls."As he did so I stepped over to the telestereo's glass disk, inset in the room's floor, and touched a switch beside it. Instantly there appeared standing upon the disk, the image of a man in the blue and white robe of the Supreme Council, a lifesize and moving and stereoscopically perfect image, flashed across the void of space to my apparatus by means of etheric vibrations. Through the medium of that projected image the man himself could see and hear me as well as I could see and hear him, and at once he spoke directly to me.
Via Technology Review; thanks to Fortigurn for writing in with the tip on this story.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 11/7/2010)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Display ")
Did Frank Herbert Predict Bistable Displays Like E-Ink?
'A broken circle with arrows pointing to a right-hand flow appeared in the chalf.' - Frank Herbert, 1964.
I Need An Outdoor Spherical Display
'Usually a spherical display hovered in the centre...' - Iain M. Banks, 2010.
Outdoor Video Screens Can Be Arbitrarily Large
The Shape of Things To Come, HG Wells, 1936.
iPhone Air Fulfils Jobs' Promise From 2007 - A Giant Screen!
'... oblongs were all over the floor and surfaces.' - Kazuo Ishiguro, 2021.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Warfare Goes Underground In Ukraine
'Once in the very first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface...'
3D Printed Organs From Space
'For a while your colonists will have to come up to the [orbital] Hospital...'
Robot Bees 3D Printed By Festo
'At first I was struck by the large size of these bees..'
DIY Robot Scorpion Crushes It
'...it raised its front end off the ground and waved its antennae at them, then raised one armoured claw as if to snip them out of the sky.'
How To Settle An Argument Between Two Robots
'Henry... assumed the curious absent look of a robot talking on the TBR circuits.'
The Wind Phone Calls Those Who Have Passed On
'Only I heard that!'
Don't Want To Wear A TIght Shiny Bodysuit?
'He looked a good bit like an elderly, fat beetle.'
Light Society: Simulates Earth-Scale Society With A Billion AI Agents
'The king, an old hand in the running of tyrannies, instantly grasped the directions...'
Satyress Centaur Robot Horror Reminds Everyone Of Something
'Fess was very dutiful'
When Colds Threaten You Can't Do This - Or Can You?
'...a hemispherical force field enclosing his head.'
Beautiful Visualization of Dawn Spacecraft
'Then he became aware of a gentle pressure pushing him away from the ship.'
Biological War: A Scenario
'And now they wre busily transforming all their companions, and so on, and so on...'
Pole-Dancing Stripperbot Robot
'Why, a clockwork dancer, or, better still, one that would go by electricity and never run down...'
Collective Superintelligence Is At Hand!
'Maybe the individual intelligence of each Cubic pools into a group intelligence...'
Instant Journalists: Ordinary People With Cell Phones
'We'll show them whose planet this is!'
Health Kiosk Has No Human Doctor
'The electronic body analyzer had been developed...'
