Glassless 3-D TVs

Founded on an idea Reiko Fukushima had nine years ago, coming back to work after maternity leave, Toshiba is now leading the charge on supplying the world’s first “naked-eye” 3-D TV. Recently covered in an interview with Fukushima in The New York Times, the progress of these developing technologies has done two things in Japan – sparked new heights for high-tech women researchers in that country and given confidence to all who were skeptical that a “naked-eye” technology could ever be developed.

Toshiba itself was skeptical when Fukushima first presented them the idea, but now last October at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the prototype of the 3-D TV was unveiled. It was always clear to Fukushima that 3-D glasses would have to go in order for the technology to truly take off, and her approach to the problem was to develop an algorithm that drew on a Toshiba imaging processor, named the “Cell,” to display nine different images for each frame. A sheet on the TV screen, called