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"If you turn away from the natural gifts that God has given you, or the universe has given you, you're going to grow old too soon."
- Ray Bradbury
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| Stereovision Tank | ||
| Three dimensional mass media (the grandson of television). |
In the novel, Heinlein presents an interesting solution to the problem of presenting three-dimensional views without using special glasses. Note that this was written before anyone knew what a hologram was.
| They went to the living room; Jill sat at his feet and they applied themselves to martinis. Opposite his chair was a stereovision tank disguised as an aquarium; he switched it on, guppies and tetras gave way to the face of the well-known winchell Augustus Greaves. |
| Technovelgy from Stranger in a Strange Land,
by Robert Heinlein. Published by Putnam in 1961 Additional resources -
|
As an aside, this is also probably the first reference for the idea of a screen saver. One of the earliest implemented screen savers was an aquarium scene.
There is an earlier mention of stereovision in The Star Beast, published in 1954; this quote is more interesting.
It is important to note that a sterovision tank is different from a "3D" movie or flatscreen projection. The first 3D movie is probably Power of Love, released in 1922. It used the anaglyph process, which involved shooting two views of a scene (each in its own color) and then combining them. The familiar red and green lensed glasses were used to create a stereoscopic effect. The famous movie House of Wax really kicked off the 3D movie craze in the early 1950's.
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from Stranger in a Strange Land
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Tech news articles related to works by Robert Heinlein
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- Processing Three-Dimensional Video In Real Time
- 3D Holographic Images And Heinlein's Stereovision Tank
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| CD, DVD Bit Rot And PKD's Civic Notification Distorter |
| Zoom Education Idea Is 100 Years Old |
| 'A Sign in Space' Gives Practice In Decoding ET Messages |
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