A startup uses an old parlor trick and smartphone sensing to let you control virtual objects in a see-through box.
H+’s chief technology officer, Dhruv Adhia, says Holus combines elements of 3-D projection with an old optical trick called “Pepper’s Ghost,” wherein a hidden object is reflected on a glass panel to make it appear to be in the room with you. (More recent applications of Pepper’s Ghost use digital images rather than real objects, such as a projected performance by deceased rapper Tupac at the Coachella music festival in 2012).+
A projector inside the lid of Holus beams four images of the same object onto the walls of the prism, and to the user they appear to form a single image. Users can control the images with a smartphone connected via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. A tablet computer or laptop attached to the box runs an app that feeds images to the projector, and adjusts what you see based on input from the controller. At this year’s International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, H+ used Holus to let visitors play a multiplayer dice game controlled with an iPod Touch.
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