Looking Glass Factory Unveils a Portable Holographic Display Via Kickstarter

In 2020, the Looking Glass Factory introduced personal holographic imagery to desktops with the Portrait. Now, the company is returning to Kickstarter with the Looking Glass Go, touted as the “world’s first portable holographic display.”

“Two significant trends are coming together: the emergence of 3D spatial platforms and the advancements in generative AI,” stated Shawn Frayne, the CEO of the company. “With Apple’s unveiling of the Vision Pro and the spatial photo capabilities in the iPhone 15, along with the widespread use of 3D game engines and more potent GPUs, spatial platforms are gaining momentum. Concurrently, generative AI is injecting vitality into the creation of 3D content.”

Introducing Looking Glass Go – Bridging Two Innovations for Versatile Utilization Anywhere

“Looking Glass Go combines these two advancements into an incredibly compact system that can be utilized anywhere. This represents the future I envisioned during my upbringing, and I am thrilled for everyone to embark on this journey into the future together.”

Similar to the company’s other offerings, such as the Pro workstation and the Looking Glass 65, the Go is crafted to provide users with the chance to enjoy immersive 3D visuals without the necessity of wearing special glasses or headsets.

However, the device will include an AI-powered software suite that can convert ordinary two-dimensional photos into three-dimensional holograms by “envisioning dozens of perspectives of that same photo.” Individuals with smartphones equipped with spatial photography capabilities can also generate 3D holograms. These holograms are then presented on a 6-inch diagonal viewing area using high-precision light-field optics, which can be adjusted to the desired angle.

According to Looking Glass, the Go can load 3D creations, holographic art, and images scanned with Luma AI. With built-in Wi-Fi connectivity, new creations can be seamlessly added to the Go, and the device has the capacity to store over a thousand holograms in local memory.

Unleashing Creativity

The Liteforms app, combined with the capabilities of ChatGPT, enables the generation of holographic characters based on text prompts. These characters can then be personalized with voice and personality, initially available in English or Japanese, with plans for additional languages in the future, allowing users to craft their own desktop companion.

The bundled software suite also includes an app for experiencing experimental spatial video and grants premium access to the hologram-sharing platform Looking Glass Blocks. While the package caters to users without programming skills, 3D modelers or coders can leverage plugins and libraries for Unity, Unreal, Blender, and WebXR for more advanced app creation.

The Go is reported to have twice the pixel density of previous Looking Glass displays, and is nearly 10x thinner. Input resolution is 1,440 x 2,560 pixels at 9:16 aspect, and the setup allows for a number of people to simultaneously view onscreen content.

Sleek and Portable

The device is fashioned using ABS, steel and glass, measures 16 x 8 x 1.9 cm (6.3 x 3.2 x 0.76 in), and weighs in at a portable 235 g (8.3 oz). It folds flat for between-use transport, features USB-C for data from a PC or Mac system, as well as power. And the pocket-friendly Go can also wow friends on the move by cabling it to an optional powerbank.

Launched today on Kickstarter, early bird pledges currently start at US$199 – the expected retail price is $300. If all goes to plan, shipping is estimated to start from June 2024.

Looking Glass plans to showcase the Go at CES 2024 in Las Vegas in January. Additional details can be found in the video below.

Read the original article on: New Atlas

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