IBM, Intel and Nokia gear up for 3D Hologram Technology on mobile phone in five years

Hologram or Holography is a technique that allows the light scattered from an object to be recorded and later reconstructed. The image changes as the position and orientation of the viewing system changes, thus making the recorded image (hologram) appear three dimensional. While this technique is able to create 3D holographic picture of a static object since the 1960s, Research and Development at Intel, IBM, ARM and Nokia promises that in five years, it will be available on Mobile Phones to produce holograms of friends and colleagues talking and moving in real time.


With a cell phone hologram, a user would be able to walk next to a hologram of a friend, or a worker could project an enlarged 3D image of a product needing repair to walk inside it and detect problems. The repair person could go inside the device instead of looking it up in a manual, iit has lots of applications and implications.

The cell phone hologram concept is one technology listed on the fifth annual "IBM Next Five in Five" list, which highlights five innovations that the company predicts will change people's lives over the next five years. IBM has featured its latest forecast list, including the cell phone holograms, in a YouTube video. The others are lithium batteries that breathe air to power devices; computers that help share energy resources over entire cities; personalized GPS navigation derived from inputs from many devices; and cell phones used as sensors to track seismic events or other Earth-based phenomena.

Based on how much 3D video has caught on in recent months in gaming and other areas, IBM expects people will want holograms on their cell phones. "I definitely want a hologram on my cell phone, to be able to say, 'Beam me up, Scotty,' even though it would be a virtual and not a real person," said Paul Bloom, CTO, Telecommunications Research, IBM.

Speaking of people, Bloom predicted that someday scientists will be able to transmit human cells over the Internet. "I think that can happen," he said.

Like IBM, chip maker Intel and phone leader Nokia also met to create the first joint laboratory for research focused on futuristic technologies for mobile devices, such as 3D holographic displays of mobile phones. Intel and Nokia Joint Innovation Center works in collaboration with University of Oulu in Finland.

Intel spent $4100000000 on R & D in the first nine months of last year. The fact that the two industry heavyweights have joined forces for not doing research, AOT means the new Nokia sports holographic 3D display, but it certainly helps to move the technology forward.