3D

You may have gone to the movie theater in the last two years to watch Avatar in 3-D, or perhaps you waited until it came out in Blu-ray to watch it at home in front of your TV lift cabinet. Regardless, you likely think that 3-D technologies are cool and will clearly be part of the entertainment industry’s future. But have you ever wondered how 3-D works? We uncovered some of the secrets of 3-D technology and we would like to share them.

Have you ever held up a pencil or finger and looked at it with one eye closed, then the other one closed? You’ll see that the image is the same, but it has a different perspective. This is “stereoscopy,” and it’s how the eyes and brain work together to create an impression of a third dimension. Our eyes are roughly 50 mm to 75 mm apart, and each eye takes in a different perspective, triggering the brain to do some crazy geometry to make up for the disparity between both images. It is this disparity that creates “3-D”.

So when we use technology to replicate

At the 2011 CES, Mashable, a top source for news in social and digital media, took a moment to highlight where Panasonic’s 3-D future might be headed. As shown in the video above, Panasonic isn’t announcing when their new interactive 3-D TV will be available to mass consumers, but it is nice to see a fine 3-D flat-screen that will easily work in our TV lift cabinets. According to Mashable, Panasonic hasn’t traditionally been known for their software development or user interface, but staff at Mashable are excited about the way users can manipulate icons in 3-D space, and everyone else should be too.

Much like the Wii remote (and the upcoming Magic Wand for Apple TVs), Panasonic uses a special remote that controls on-screen elements and makes it faster and easier to access the content for which they’re really looking.

Since this 3-D TV debuted at the 2011 CES, it is likely that it will be hitting some stores’ shelves this year, but there are no guarantees. If you do find one, though,