For many years, you've been able to adorn the inside of your PC with RGB or even with screens that go on your cooling pump or RAM. But adding a holographic display is something new . . . sortof.
At last year's CES, a company called Showcase PC demonstrated holographic PC cases that projected images from within their side panel or top panel. The cases never made it to market, but the company has changed its name to Showcase Hologram and is planning to release holographic side panel kits you can install on your existing PC chassis.
The company is offering two versions of what it is officially calling its Hologram Side Panel: a large unit that take the place of or sits in front of your PC's side window and a small kit that attaches to the inside of your PC window. The small kit is pictured in image at the top of this article.
Senior Editor Sarah Jacobsson Purewal had a chance to see the Showcase Hologram Side Panels in action at the company's CES booth. She found the images attractive, colorful and very solid (as in not too translucent). She saw images of a dancing cat, Mario and some other characters.
A Showcase rep showed Sarah how the different kits attach. The large kit, requires you to place a magnetic stand on the outside of your PC chassis and then put the clear acrylic hologram box, which contains the spinning hologram lights and electronics, on top of the stand.
The company said that the large Hologram Side Panel could take the place of your PC's existing side window if you can take the window out of your chassis. However, since it's not built into the case and is just meant to cover over the spot where your side panel would be, we might try to put this in front of our existing window instead.
The small kit sticks to the inside of your computer and can sit in a corner (they showed it in the lower left corner). The boxes are sealed and get power over USB so theoretically one could use them independently of a PC. Showcase said that that the images and animations will be uploadable via a mobile app. Any black pixels in the image will be interpreted as transparent, they said.
Making the holographic panels independent of the case seems like a much more feasible idea than last year's product with them built into a chassis. This way, you can use the holograms with a chassis you already own and the company doesn't have to get into the business of designing a case that might not appeal to everyone.
Showcase Hologram also told us that it plans to sell a variety of non-PC-related hologram kits, including frames and even wearable holograms. The small and large Hologram Sidepanel Kits will be available for $149 and $199 when they launch in Q2 or Q3 of this year.
