Looking Glass starts shipping its 8K holographic display

When Looking Glass Factory showed of its first holographic display way back on August 2018, it felt more like a proof of concept than anything - though it was immediately an impressive concept. In November of last year, the Brooklyn-based startup showed off an 8K display that used its holographic tech.

The feeling wasn't quite as immersive, but the form factor certainly made more sense. The system has 33.2 million pixels and relies on a 45-element light field to provide a 3D effect. I saw it at some hotel meeting room at CES. It's really neat. And now it can be yours for some unspecified price.

Looking Glass is targeting enterprises and eventually gamers with 8K holographic display

The system is shipping now, when ordered through Looking Glass's site. The target markets here are medical imaging, mapping, automotive, architecture and engineering. A press release tied to the announcement features a handful of folks in these categories who are excited at what such a technology could mean, going forward. Here's Epic Games CTO Kim Libreri,

Having access to a glasses-free holographic display is a massive breakthrough, and presents an exciting prospect for teams working in immersive computer graphics, visualization and content creation. The Looking Glass holographic display provides a stunning level of realism, and we look forward to seeing the innovations that emerge with the support of Unreal Engine generated content.

Hands-on with the bizarrely fascinating Looking Glass volumetric display

The company is only offering pricing quotes by request through its site - which means it's pretty likely to be cost prohibitive for those just looking to augment our remote working set up. As noted in the earlier piece, the company is targeting enterprise users with early applications - organizations that generally have money to spend on state of the art harder. More consumer-focused applications, including gaming, could be coming a ways down the road.