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Lenovo is testing glasses-free 2D / 3D computers with a ring controller.
www.theverge.comLenovo’s new ThinkBook 3D Laptop Concept and Hybrid Dimensional 34-inch Curved Monitor, announced at MWC 2025, use directional backlighting and head tracking to simultaneously show 2D and 3D content without glasses. And an accompanying AI Ring concept can be worn to control them with gesture-based spatial controls.
It sounds like Leia’s tech, but in my short demo Lenovo reps would not confirm.
Maybe 3D is coming back? (I doubt it.)
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[Image: https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/03/7-ThinkBook-3D-Laptop-Concept.jpg?quality=90&strip=all]
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[Image: https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/03/5-AI-Ring.jpg?quality=90&strip=all]
The only thing I’ve seen mentioned is the bad stability of the stereoscopy and the narrow viewing angle of the original model, which was solved with the same eye tracking solution we see here. The entire conversation is spawning from my surprise at people seemingly being unaware that happened or assuming it hadn’t worked.
There was legitimate criticism at launch about the initial library, but obviously we’re not arguing about that here (and it definitely got corrected over time).
Yes, and I’ve explained to you that many people probably never tried the fixed version. So why say “people are just repeating what they’re heard about 3D TVs”? You’re attributing an infantilizing explanation to all those who disagree, when a more logical and direct explanation was already given.
Was it?
Look, you seem very keen on having an argument about this, but this conversation so far boils down to:
-3DS did this well. -No, it didn’t. -Oh, I meant the New 3DS that made it better. I didn’t realize people didn’t know about that one. -People probably didn’t know about that one.
While we’re at it, the 3DS sold 75 million units. There are probably way more people out there who tested a New 3DS than a Dreamcast.
EDIT: Made me check. 10 million units, as per Wikipedia. I would have guessed higher, but hey, I was still right, it’s more than the Dreamcast.
I’d be fine if you didn’t tell people they only dislike the 3DS because they are repeating what others are saying about 3D TVs.
Nintendo 3DS: 25.96 million
Nintendo 3DS XL: 19.64 million
Nintendo 2DS: 10.29 million
New Nintendo 3DS XL: 12.25 million
New Nintendo 3DS: 2.49 million
New Nintendo 2DS XL: 4.41 million
These are the sales numbers I was able to quickly find. Roughly 15 million “New 3DS (XL)” vs 75 million total devices, or ~60 million 3D devices. So for every person that tried a New 3DS, 3 people only tried the old one.
And you’re surprised, even “shocked”, that most people still think about the old 3DS when talking about the 3DS 3D effect? Shocked enough to attribute it to people just repeating what other people said about 3D TVs?
The 3D display on the 3DS was absolutely treated way more harshly than it deserved because it landed smack in the middle of the hipstery meme of claiming 3D cinemas were a scam and 3D TVs sucked. Both of those things had different degrees of grains of truth at the core, but none of them really applied to the 3DS.
If that’s your hangup, I guess we’re going to have to agree to disagree, because I WILL hold to that. It happened and it was absolutely the children who were wrong. You know because they weren’t even done being unreasonably mad at 3D displays for sheer mob dopamine when they started getting hyped about putting the same 3D displays on their face, which had most of the same issues plus made everybody puke in the crappy early iterations. I’ve kept a mental naughty list of all the games journalists that were super snarky about 3D monitors and the 3DS but immediately fawned over Palmer Luckey because, man, did that bit of flip-flopping not age well.
Anyway, that’s neither here nor there, because the point I’ve been making all along is that I am surprised at people not realizing that the New 3DS fixed the shortcomings of the original when it came to stability and viewing angles. For the umpteenth time.
I also sniped your googling, but hey, the count you found gives it a few extra million over the one I found, so that’s neat. Again, that puts it ahead of the Dreamcast, the Game Gear and the Saturn and just behind the PS Vita in terms of units moved. I think you’d be surprised if somebody showed up not realizing that one of those existed. That seems reasonable. More relevantly to the point, you don’t need to have owned one to be aware of this. Not only were these on display kiosks all over the planet (because 3D was and remains hard to market otherwise), but this was the big selling point. It was all over reviews of the new models.
And again, I’m not saying people do remember and are lying, I’m surprised at the fact that they don’t remember. Or at least that they don’t remember so hard they’re willing to be confidently wrong about it online. Which seems both reasonable and entirely up to me, to be honest.