The monitor / display has rapidly become the most expensive part of the computer – when it comes to the low-end PCs. I have always dreamt of a mechanism where one can project on an image on a wall, doing away with the monitor – a solution which should cost no more than USD 25 for the display electronics. While I don’t expect something like to happen any time soon, wasn’t I pleasantly surprised to read this CNN story:
In a museum in Tampere, Finland, Ismo Rakkolainen’s fog machine conjures up the Mona Lisa on an invisible sheet of water particles.
Thousands of miles away in Hermosa Beach, California, a graduate student passes his hand through an image of a DNA strand produced — apparently out of thin air — by a modified video projector.
The two inventions represent the latest front in advanced computer displays — eliminating the screen altogether.
While unlikely to replace the desktop computer monitor, so-called walk-through displays could eventually be put to use in product showrooms, museums, and military training facilities.
