Handheld holograms aren't here yet, but these little prototypes offer glimpse of what that future might look like. Researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs have made prototypes of screens that could display 3D images and videos in smartphones, smart watches, tablets and other mobile devices, they say.

 

In a conference call with reporters, Hewlett-Packard physicist David Fattal described what the tech looked like. "You actually see the object extruded one centimeter either in front of or underneath the display," he said. You can even tilt the display to any degree you like and see the displayed object from different angles.

 

As for what these "objects" are, Fattal and his colleagues published a paper today in the journal Nature with some photos of the images they made: An animated HP logo, some rainbow-colored little flowers and stars, and a psychedelically rainbow-colored turtle. The animations work at 30 frames a second, a standard TV rate.