Toshiba to Launch Glasses-Free 3D TVs Later this Year

It's hard to spit game to your date when you're sporting a pair of dorky looking 3D glasses, unless you happen to look like a dork even without them. But don't despair, if you've bought into the 3D hype and can't wait to bring the extra dimension into your home, glasses-free 3D displays are on the way, perhaps sooner than you think. Toshiba, for example, is readying two 3D TVs that produce the same groovy effect, sans glasses, and will ship them in Japan in December, the company announced today.

That was the good news. Ready for the bad? Penny pinchers need not apply, nor should anyone who thinks watching flicks on a 20-inch and smaller screen is lame. Toshiba plans to sell a 12-inch model that, after the exchange rate, comes out to around $1,430, which breaks down to just over $119 per inch. For that kind of loot, you can snag yourself a 55-inch 2D TV set. Toshiba will also sell a 20-inch model for exactly twice as much, and if our fuzzy math isn't so fuzzy, that breaks down to $143 per inch.


But forget about the pricing, that will work itself out over time. The important thing to note here is that TV makers are starting to address one of the primary roadblocks in mainstream adoption of 3D in the living room, and that's the need to wear goofy glasses. The way Toshiba's technology works is that a thin sheet of small lenses sitting in front of the display splits light from the screen and sends it to nine points in front of the TV. So long as you're sitting in one of these spots -- basically, in front of or slightly to the side of the TV -- you'll see the 3D effect.

Check out the YouTube video below.