Awesome: 3D TV. No Joke.

We don't have flying cars. I cannot use a teleporter to get to work on time. Robots haven't conquered the Earth. And when I come in from the rain, there is no automated voice telling me, "Your jacket is now dry."

The future is largely a disappointment.

Or at least, it was largely a disappointment until I read this: Philips has built and is selling 3D televisions.

You say, "Dude! I'm not wearing some ridiculous glasses so I can watch 3D TV in my living room. That's late 70's-style, nerd."

And I say, "Keep your glasses in your time capsule, doubting Thomas. This TV doesn't need glasses. It relies on being able to trick your brain and your eyes at the same time to make you think those snakes are jumping off the plane right into your living room."

Seriously.

Check this out from Wired:

A new line of 3-D televisions by Philips uses the familiar trick of sending slightly different images to the left and right eyes -- mimicking our stereoscopic view of the real world. But where old-fashioned 3-D movies rely on the special glasses to block images meant for the other eye, Philips' WOWvx technology places tiny lenses over each of the millions of red, green and blue sub pixels that make up an LCD or plasma screen. The lenses cause each sub pixel to project light at one of nine angles fanning out in front of the display.

A processor in the TV generates nine slightly different views corresponding to the different angles. From almost any location, a viewer catches a different image in each eye.

Providing so many views is key to the dramatic results. Sharp Electronics makes an LCD display that projects just two views, requiring an audience to sit perfectly still in front of the screen. With the Philips technology, viewers can move around without losing much of the effect -- one set of left/right views slips into another, with just a slight double-vision effect in the transitions.

The TV can also display standard two-dimensional images, close to HD quality.

See. I told you so.

Read the whole article here. And get ready to buy your flying car.