Over the years, you’ve been able to decorate the inside of your PC with RGB, or with screens that connect to cooling pumps and RAM. But adding a holographic display is new. . . a kind of.
At last year’s CES, a company called Showcase PC demonstrated a holographic PC case that projected images from within the side or top panel. The case never hit the market, but the company plans to change its name to Showcase Hologram and release a holographic side panel kit that can be installed into existing PC chassis.
The company offers two versions of what it officially calls the Hologram Side Panel. A large unit that replaces or sits in front of your PC’s side window, and a smaller kit that attaches to the inside of your PC window. A small kit is pictured in the image at the top of this article.
Senior Editor Sarah Jacobsson Purewal had the chance to see the Showcase Hologram Side Panel in action at the company’s CES booth. She found the images to be attractive, colorful, and very solid (not too translucent, etc.). She saw images of dancing cats, Mario and other characters.
A showcase representative showed Sarah how to install the various kits. Larger kits require a magnetic stand placed outside the PC chassis and a clear acrylic hologram box containing a rotating hologram light and electronics placed on the stand.
The company says a large hologram side panel could replace the PC’s existing side window if it can be removed from the chassis. However, since this is not built into the case and is intended to cover where the side panels are, you may try to place this in front of the existing window instead.
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A small kit sticks inside the computer and can be placed in the corner (they showed it in the bottom left corner). The box is sealed and powered via USB, so in theory it can be used independently of a PC. Showcase says images and animations can be uploaded via the mobile app. Any black pixels in the image are interpreted as transparent, they said.
Having the holographic panel independent of the case seems like a much more feasible idea than last year’s built into chassis. A company need not get into the business of designing cases that do not appeal to everyone.
Showcase Hologram also revealed that it plans to sell a variety of non-PC hologram kits, including frames and wearable holograms. The large and small hologram side panel kits will be available in the second or third quarter of this year, priced at $149 and $199.
