BABBAGE had a chance to play with the new Nintendo 3DS games
console yesterday, a hand-held device with a 3D display that
does not require the user to wear glasses. Yes, really. The 3DS
can perform this "autostereoscopic" miracle because it can be
pretty sure where the screen is relative to your head: it will
be about 30 centimetres in front of your face, and your nose
will be aligned with the screen's centre. Using a filter called
a parallax barrier, the display can then direct two slightly
different images, in different directions, towards your left and
right eyes to create the 3D effect. There's quite a lot of
wiggle room: you have to move the device quite far away, or move
quite far off the central axis, before the 3D effect is lost.
It is hard to describe how impressive this is; it just works.
You turn on the device and the menus and logos pop out of the
screen in bright, vivid 3D. Apple likes to talk about the iPad
as a magical product, and there are very few other companies
capable of devising gadgets