Philips and several other companies are working on new 3-D technologies that will make objects appear to be surrounding the viewer, the newspaper reports.
Viewers will not need special goggles to view the images, as they did with past 3-D TV and movie presentations.
The Guardian reports that a prototype Philips 3-D HDTV would now cost $20,500 because of the complexity of the set. But the price is expected to fall sharply before it actually reaches market.
A Guardian reporter recently witnessed a demonstration of the Philips set in Paris and came away stunned.
"I'm sitting in Paris and some butterflies are fluttering towards me. Loads of them, perfectly clearly. I could allow one to land on my hand, or catch one of the rose petals being blown towards me - except I can't, because they're not real. They're images on a TV in high definition - and in perfect 3D. They look life-sized and real, and I'm not wearing any silly spectacles other than the ones I wear all the time," the reporter wrote.
The company Orange, which is also working on 3-D, tells the Guardian that the technology works by sending different images to each eye so one eye receives one while the other gets one. The result is to create a 3-dimensional appearance.
The newspaper reports that while the technology is advancing rapidly, there are only two 3-D films in production -- one by James Cameron and the other by Steven Spielberg. (Both are expected to be released in 2009.)
"It will be a long process to
have enough content," Laurence Meyer, an analyst for Jupiter
Research, tells the Guardian.
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