With a Floating Bead, This Device Makes Truly 3D Holographs

A floating butterfly created by the Multimodal Acoustic Trap Display. (Credit: Eimontas Jankauskis)With the help of sound waves and a small plastic ball, researchers in the U.K. have designed a machine that generates truly 3D holographs.The whole system is slightly smaller than a shoebox and makes simple images, like a butterfly or smiley face, that are less than an inch tall. Described in Nature, the device is one of the first 3D-image generators that also responds to touch and produce