A Taiwanese firm has said that by 2015 the use of polarising or active shutter 3D glasses in home cinema systems will be a thing of the past as technology evolves to make them unnecessary and obsolete.
The first crop of 3D TVs are all going to use the slightly wacky glasses to provide the 3D effect in the home and at the moment this is being seen as an added expense that increases the price of the already expensive 3D equipment.
The Industrial Technology Research Institute is developing parallax barrier technology which will provide native support for 3D without the need for any eyewear and it showcased its potential in a 42 inch display which it thinks will be market-ready in five years.
The biggest problem with parallax barrier in its current form is that the effects are only visible to people sitting in a particular spot in front of the screen. Hopefully this obstacle will be overcome before we start getting glasses-free 3D TV at home, otherwise fighting over sofa space will become even more of a battle.
The first products to use the parallax barrier technology being developed in Taiwan will be digital photo viewers and signs for advertising. Rumours also suggest that the next handheld console from Nintendo, tentatively titled the 3DS, is going to use similar technology. Clearly, with a handheld, getting the user to view the display from a set angle is a far easier proposition.
