Skip to content
Surprising Science

3-D Fever

Despite the TV industry’s efforts to push 3-D televisions, the technology may be best suited to cinemas where people can devote their full attention to the screen, writes the Economist.
Sign up for the Smarter Faster newsletter
A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

Despite the TV industry’s efforts to push 3-D televisions, the technology may be best suited to cinemas where people can devote their full attention to the screen, writes the Economist. “Three-dimensional television is coming whether you want it or not. But after the novelty has worn off, it is likely to have only limited appeal — serving mainly viewers interested in sports, movies and video games. The problem is that couch potatoes watching television at home, rather than a film in the cinema, rarely devote themselves entirely to the visual experience.”

Sign up for the Smarter Faster newsletter
A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

Related
On February 8, 1915, at Clune’s Auditorium in Los Angeles, California, D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation premiered. The fledgling art form of film would never be the same, especially in America, which even half a century after the end of the Civil War struggled to come to terms with race. Now, a century after Birth of a Nation’s premier, America still struggles not only with race, but also with how race plays out on the silver screen. For good and ill, Birth of a Nation marks the beginning of the first 100 years of the American Cinema—epically beautiful, yet often racially ugly.

Up Next