INTO THIN AIR

Large screen, flat screen, backlit screen, CRT, LCD, OLED…. Just when you thought you had heard them all, in comes yet another claim. Project images into thin air without a screen! A screen that you will be able to control with just your fingers. No mice, keyboard or special glove! And this from no hype-vending Fortune 500 company, but from Chad Dyner, a 29-year old MIT graduate, garage-room inventor and CEO of the fledgling IO2 Technology.

If reel blockbusters Star Wars and more recently, Minority Report popularized the idea of a holographic display system, IO2 technology’s Heliodisplay might turn out to be its real life avatar. Only slightly larger than the breadbox in your kitchen, the Heliodisplay is a video-projection system that is able to project images onto an invisible screen made up of water vapor. The display is not as sharp as your PC monitor. But then this technology is not yet meant to sit on your desktop. Dyner says that it could be used initially for corporate presentations and huge walkthrough advertisements at shopping malls. The prototype can project images at 1024x768 resolution, in 16-bit color, and on a 27”screening system. Dyner is now negotiating with display manufacturers to commercialize the system. 

Benoy George Thomas