Sharp Corp said it plans to start making this year advanced 3D displays for cellphones and other mobile devices that don’t require special viewing glasses, betting that demand for 3D images will grow beyond movie theatres and living rooms to portable machines.

Stirring demand for small-sized displays is important for Japanese LCD panel suppliers after they suffered sluggish demand for panels designed for portable electronics due to a sharp slide in mobile phone sales in the domestic market.

Sharp launched mobile phones and PCs equipped with a display that enables users to watch 3D images without glasses in the early 2000s.

But they have not really caught on because of such factors as bulkiness, insufficient brightness and the lack of 3D contents.

Sharp since then has developed brighter and thinner 3D displays with higher resolution and a touch panel function.

“In the 2D era, contents and infrastructure have spread from movies to homes, and from homes to mobile devices,” Sharp Executive Managing Officer Yoshisuke Hasegawa told a news conference on Friday.

“We believe the same thing will happen with 3D. Three-dimensional images that mostly inhabit big screens now are about to hit mobile terminals.”

Hasegawa, head of Sharp’s LCD business, did not disclose a sales target for the new 3D display.

Consumer electronics makers are scrambling to launch 3D TVs this year, hoping the technology will be as big a boost for the industry as the transition to color TVs from black and white.

Panasonic Corp and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd have already released 3D models, while Sony Corp is planning to start offering 3D TVs in June.

But analysts have said the need for special 3D glasses may keep consumers from adopting the technology quickly.

Mobile electronics that let users enjoy 3D images without special glasses have been around for some time, since people tend to watch the display from a fixed distance and with a fixed angle on personal devices such as mobile phones, making it technologically less challenging to offer a 3D function.

Japanese game maker Nintendo Co said last month it planned to launch a new model of its DS handheld game console that allows users to play 3D games without using special glasses.

Hasegawa said the company has already received inquiries on the new product from mobile phone makers and other potential customers, but declined to say if Nintendo is one of them.

Shares of Sharp, the world’s fourth-largest LCD TV maker behind Samsung, Sony and LG Electronics Inc, closed 2.7 percent higher at 1,209 yen on Friday, outperforming the Tokyo stock market’s electrical machinery index, which gained 0.8 percent.

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TOKYO–In the exhibition halls of a gadget trade show, the things that normally jump out are the wacky outfits the female booth attendants are forced to wear, the mammoth wall installations of TVs, and long lines for booth swag.

For better or worse, the enduring image of Ceatec 2009 has been the sight of suit-clad men waiting in twisting queues for the chance to don a pair of plastic 3D glasses for a five-minute TV demonstration. There are two reasons for that: because the major TV makers here couldn’t miss out on the chance to show their prototype models of this trendy technology, and because there wasn’t really much else going on this year.

There isn’t yet a final, official count, but this year’s show, which started Tuesday and runs through the weekend, so far seems far less crowded than in years past. Attendees could have been kept away by the sluggish economy, or the inclement weather, including a tropical storm that hit Tokyo midweek. Either way, the general vibe at the Makuhari Messe has been much more subdued.

In the past Ceatec has been known as the event where gadgets destined for store shelves showed up en masse, the last stop on the trade show circuit before they’re packaged and ready for consumers during the yearly holiday sales period. However, the 2009 edition was shorter on practical products and very low on new stuff.

As at IFA in Berlin last month and at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, 3D was the dominant theme. Panasonic showed its very-close-to-being-ready 3D plasma TV here this week–this time, though, on a 50-inch set, a size that’s far more practical than the 103-inch behemoth used at expos earlier this year. The 50-inch model, plus some sizes larger than that, will be unveiled along with pricing and shipping information at CES in January 2010. Sony is also readying its first 3D TV for the home, which is set to ship sometime next year, though the company wasn’t specific about exactly when.

Fellow Japanese TV manufacturers Hitachi, Sharp, and Toshiba also hauled in their own 3D TV demos to the floor of Makuhari Messe, and attendees dutifully lined up to see them, but none of those electronics makers are committing to shipping 3D TVs yet, which is very telling.

Panasonic acknowledged that the standards for releasing 3D movies on Blu-ray are not yet complete, but said they will be soon, and that the company is committed to the standards. But some of Panasonic’s competitors are not completely convinced 3D at home is a sure bet. A Toshiba representative here said the company is “still waiting to see if there is demand” for 3D in the home. And with good reason–it’s still not clear that consumers are going to go for 3D at home just yet, both because it would mean likely buying yet another new TV and because watching those TVs requires wearing very silly-looking plastic glasses with active-shutter lenses.

3D and the floating mirror
Besides TVs, Ceatec also featured other cool applications using 3D outside of the home and movie theater.

The Japanese government’s National Institute of Information and Communication Technology, or NICT, was running a demonstration called Multisensory Interaction System (MSens), which had a line almost as long as many of the TV demos. In this, 3D was used to enhance reality for specific tasks. It worked like this: An image of an ancient mirror with an ornate design on one side was displayed in a monitor. The image was reflected onto a piece of glass in front of a user standing at the monitor so that the mirror appeared to float in front of him. But the user could then take a stylus that would allow him to “feel” the surface of the mirror. As the tip moved across the bumpy surface (which in reality is being held in midair and not touching a solid surface), the stylus would rise and fall with the peaks and valleys on the mirror’s surface.

The idea would be to use MSens for product testing, design, and possibly even learning things like surgery. NICT also brought a separate demonstration that showed surgery in 3D, making observers feel as if they were right in the middle of an operation. It was fascinating, but also something you’d need a medical degree to use–and probably a strong stomach too.

While those have practical purposes outside of pure entertainment, it’s still 3D TVs that are getting all the attention here. Sometimes, as at Sony’s booth, that attention is even coming at the expense of other products. When asked why there were no organic light-emitting diode (OLED) TVs at its booth this year as in years past, a Sony representative said simply, “because we’re focusing on 3D.”

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Oracle is adding to its retail software lineup by acquiring Advanced Visual Technology, a maker of 3D space planning software for retailers.

AVT, based in Hertfordshire, England, sells a product called Retail Focus, which lets retailers plan store floors and shelf space. An add-on product, called Retail Focus Merchandiser, gives retail planners a three-dimensional view of retail space that they can “walk” through virtually.

No terms were disclosed. Oracle said the transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2008.

Oracle plans to add AVT’s employees and management to its Retail Global business unit. AVT’s products will be combined with Oracle Retail’s application suite. The company said it expects the combination will help retailers to increase their profits through better space allocation and monitoring of sales.

Source: CNET