Coming to iPad: Glasses-Free 3D

It seems the French have carefully observed the hacking achievements of one super clever Carnegie Mellon grad, turning his hack into a modern iPad application-to-be.

A couple years back, we told you about the fantastic Johnnie Chung Lee who used headtracking to create a three-dimensional virtual reality. He cleverly placed the Wii Remote facing the user and sensor bar (with two infrared sensors) on the user's head. This was an exact reversal of the traditional usage of the Wii hardware, causing the Wiimote to track the user's head movement, automatically detecting movement in spacial perspective.

So simple. So satisfying. So very 3D.

Flash forward to today. This time, the same principle is being used to create an app for mobile devices. They've used a different name, calling it the Head-Coupled Perspective, and instead of Johnnie Lee's head-mounted sensors facing towards a Wii Remote, they're using the head-tracking abilities of the iPad's front-facing camera. 

There's no official word on when the app breaks, but it will be interesting to see if it can achieve a real utility that transcends the (very cool) novelty value.