Sharp shows off glasses-free 3D tablet, phone and camera tech

A prototype 3D camera that does still and moving image
A prototype 3D camera that does still and moving image

Sharp is no stranger to glasses-less 3D technology. It was the company which gave Nintendo its screens for the 3DS and the company has also hinted that more handheld consoles are on the way with this 3D technology.

Although Sharp did not actually announce any glasses-less 3D gadgets, it did show of a few prototypes which looked more than a little intriguing,

To view the parallex barrier tech properly, you need to be round 30cm away from the screen – so this is great technology for the likes of phones and cameras.

Sharp 3d tech

The screens contain 800 x RGB x 480, when seen in 2D and 400 x RGB x 480 when viewed in 3D.

The prototypes we saw were impressive. There was a tablet-sized screen, around 7-inches, shown off with some animated 3D, and also a smaller 3.5-inch screen which could easily be ported to a mobile phone.

Sharp 3d

Seeing both these in action was great, although it is all about the sweet spot when viewing this content. A few times we were too far away, too close and moved our head the wrong way and the illusion of 3D was shattered. It is great to see 3D work without glasses, though.

Sharp 3d

The most intriguing non-glasses 3D tech, though, was the prototype camera on show. The camera had the parallex barrier panel on the back and images looked crisper than you would expect.

It could also shoot moving images and still video.

Sharp are in no rush to bring this technology to the masses but as we have seen with the 3DS, the panel tech is around and it is being picked up by the big boys of the technology world.

Sharp 3

Sharp did also hint that screens as big as 9.7 inches will be in the market before long as well – which is the same size as an iPad.

Not that we are reading in to this at all...

Marc Chacksfield

Marc Chacksfield is the Editor In Chief, Shortlist.com at DC Thomson. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.