When you need to send in deadly robots, holograms might be the answer. As it is right now, authorizing and targeting air strikes is a process that can be bureaucratic. Sometimes it takes lawyers, intelligence analysts, air controllers, and commanders at multiple layers to get it done.

Well DARPA has a new idea. Give the job to one guy on the ground who can control a drone or manned plane that’s circling above. A single man is low profile enough to slip into areas that need slipping into without alarming the locals and giving away his position. The soldier would use the goggles to view markers and call in airstrikes.

I see the future of the crystal ball…It is hazy…No wait. Here it is. This 3.9″ crystal ball displays a hologram type of image inside, so it would be perfect to display a company’s advertisement, but pricey.

We’re talking over the $4,000 mark. Just connect it to a DVD or video player to project footage into a new magical dimension. It can also be enjoyed at home if you are wealthy enough. Wow your friends with films, music videos and games in a whole new way. Or heck, just use it in your palm reading business.

The Trou Hologram cellphone has no screen, instead relying on 3D holograms projected onto the vacant area to display what you are looking at. Small projectors are lined up on the inner surface in order to bring the most lifelike images to life before your eyes.

They will have to figure out how to solve the power issues, since projectors suck a lot of energy. But one day we may just have this device in our hands fully working. That day is a long way away, but if we can envision it, we can eventually do it.

General Electric says it has achieved a breakthrough in digital storage technology that will allow standard-size discs to hold the equivalent of 100 DVDs. I had to read that twice myself. It’s just a laboratory success for now, until it can be made to work in products that can be mass-produced and affordable.

“This could be the next generation of low-cost storage,” said Richard Doherty, an analyst at Envisioneering, a technology research firm.

If you’ve been following the election coverage, you know by now that CNN played their hologram card. Jessica Yellin appeared Live from Chicago via hologram and talked with Wolf Blitzer. She shimmered slightly around the edges, and I can’t even tell you what she was saying because my nerd brain just kept repeating, “Help me Wolf Blitzer, you are my only hope.”

The technology was as creepy as we’ve always imagined and happening in the middle of vote counts, seemed totally weird and un-necessary. I believe they said that they used something like 44 HD cameras in a ring to get her every movement, all communicating with the studio cameras as well. Hey, if we’re gonna have holograms on election night, it’s better her then a grinning Emperor Palpatine.

The ICT Graphics Lab at USC has created a low-cost volumetric 3-D display that brings Princess Leia one step closer to begging Obi-Wan for help. The system projects high-speed video onto a rapidly spinning mirror. As the mirror turns, it reflects a different and accurate image to each potential viewer.

The rendering algorithm can recreate virtual and real scenes with correct occlusion, horizontal and vertical perspective, and shading. Close to 5,000 individual images are reflected every second within the surface area and create a real-space three-dimensional object. Video below.