Ostendo's chip is going to move the hologram to the smartphone.

Whether augmented reality or virtual reality equipment, most of them are not enough to support the universal consumption of space and time constraints, but also difficult to break away from 3D glasses. It's not just the Giants who care about similar technologies, but startups are also targeting this opportunity. Both Microsoft and AMD are developing their own virtual reality houses, and Hewlett-Packard recently spun off a company called Leia, hoping to move 3D imaging to smartphones, where Facebook spent 2 billion in March buying Oculus VR, and Amazon is about to launch its naked 3D handsets.

According to WSJ, Ostendo, a start-up company based in Southern California, spent 9 years developing a smartphone-enabled projector, the Tic Tac size, which controls the color and brightness of each beam (in 1 million pixels) with the support of a computer chip. The chip set can be plugged into smartphones, enabling the projection of video on a flat diagonal of 48 inches (about 1.2 meters), while more chips consonant together to render larger and more complex images. Hussein El-ghoroury, its founder and CEO, said the first generation of Ostendo chips supported only 2D shows, but the next version would support holographic images.

Ostendo to the WSJ demo of his prototype products, with 6 chip support in the air to display a 3D dice image (here for video), whether the image or movement are very smooth, and the viewer perspective is unrestricted. Many other products are not only complex, but also have limited viewing angles.

Ostendo said that the 2D projector is expected to be shipped in the summer of 2015, plus lenses it estimates less than 0.5 cubic centimeters, probably quite the size of the iphone lens. The 3D chip is expected to be put into production in the second half of 15, Ostendo estimated at a price of about 30 dollars. Ostendo's long-term vision is to hope that its chips will be used in a variety of screen-equipped devices.

Although the company is unknown, but now has been VC investment 90 million U.S. dollars, including Facebook's first external investors have participated, in addition, including DARPA, the Government's Research and development department for it has invested 38 million of dollars. Ostendo currently has 115 employees, including a number of scientists who need to stay in the semiconductor laboratory to operate nano-technology equipment.