Holograms that you can feel

Hologram technology has been making progress by leaps and bounds lately.

Not so long ago, during a presentation at InfoComm09 in Orlando (June 15-19, 2009), a transatlantic duet was sung using 3D holographic technology (see for more information this article on the Reuters web site and this video).

More recently, last week at the SIGGRAPH conference in New Orleans, a solution for holograms with tactile feedback was presented. A team of researchers at the University of Tokyo has developed a display that lets users "touch" objects that appear to float in front of them.

The display uses low-energy ultrasound to create "pressure fields". The advantage of the ultrasound waves over pressurized air is that they can take on closed, localized shapes. In this way, even the shape of a 3D objects can be simulated. The video above shows how is works. More background information can befound in this paper.

Source: Fastcompany.com