Ostendo Develops Smartphone Chip for 3D Images

Believe what you want about the death—or lack thereof—of rapper Tupac Shakur, but when he appeared on stage at the Coachella music festival in 2012, he wasn’t really there. Instead, his likeness was the result of a Star Wars-esque hologram projected for the audience, using a machine with video graphic technology. That machine is no longer only the stuff of science fiction, but rather might be available for consumers in the near future.

Ostendo Technologies Inc., based out of Carlsbad, Calif., has been working for about nine years on miniature 3D image projectors for smartphones, roughly the size of a Tic-Tac. The device is powered by a computer chip that controls light across a million pixels, capable of projecting an image across a surface with a 48-inch diagonal. The first release is expected to work only in two dimensions, but the next update would have 3D holographic capabilities. The building process is carried out via capital from the government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the futurist sector that worked on the predecessor to the Internet and self-driving cars. The larger vision for the purpose of this chip is its incorporation into any device by which 3D data might be required or enhancing, while keeping costs low for consumers (now projected to be around $30 per chip).

With widespread incorporation, the public reception of all sorts of data may be completely changed. Indeed, changes are already in the works by companies like Microsoft, working on advanced reality rooms, and Hewlett-Packard, also looking to bring holographs to smartphones with their new Leia system. The advantage to Ostendo in this expanding field will be its commitment to image clarity. Ostendo expects its image resolution abilities to surpass anything else available today—compared to Apple’s newest retina display of 300 “dots per inch,” Ostendo’s 3D imaging would have 5000 “dots per inch.”

Hussein El-Ghoroury, chief executive and founder of Ostendo, said in a statement, “Display is the last frontier…Over the years, processing power has improved and networks have more bandwidth, but what is missing is comparable advancement in display.”

Maybe with image technology like Ostendo’s, we can give the public reason to believe Tupac is still among us—and if not, at least the reception of data can be brought to life in brand-new ways.