When people fantasize about technology advances they would love to own, flying cars, Jet-packs and hassle-free 3D devices just might top the lineup. Every year aren't we all assured at least two out of three of those will arrive next year, or at least soon?

Autostereo, meaning glasses-free displays, are in fact starting to make an appearance. Such displays are also know by the terms "stereoscopic", or "lenticular". By far, the majority of 3D displays are still hampered by bulky special equipment and items such as powered glasses. Autostereo displays have their own impediments, but tend to be more user friendly than those requiring glasses. Those glasses-free displays typically require single user head-tracking, or have a sweet-spot for a single user.

LG Electronics' DX2500 3D Monitor is glasses-free, utilizing parallax barrier technology. LG is attempting to make lenticular glasses-free monitors mainstream, and bulky glasses obsolete with this new panel. Better yet, LG claims the DX2500 does not confine viewers to a tight viewing angle as a result of its head-tracking technologies. It incorporates a camera to follow changes in the viewer's head and eye positions, on-the-fly. That makes it a single-user screen when used in 3D mode.

If you are willing to wear glasses, Sony has upped the ante a bit with a PlayStation 3D Display. With its SimulView Technology two players see the same game from different points of view, delivered in full HD from a single display.

A Japanese display company, Burton, is working on a projector which focuses a laser to display moving 3-D shapes by exciting atoms in either air or water. Think of that as your future flying-car. It will be here soon, "we promise". Some day that promise will probably come true.

So what's available right now? Here is a list of what MAY be the Top Four 3D Formats:

Blu-ray 3D Format - This one is attractive because of its excellent resolution. It uses two 1920x1080p images, providing double the resolution. The drawback is that it requires greater bandwidth than broadcasters can currently provide, but they are moving in that direction.

Top-and-Bottom 3D Format - In this scenario left and right eye data occupy the same video frame, one on top of the other. That somewhat decreases the vertical resolution, but leaves horizontal resolution intact.

Side-by-Side 3D Format - Again, two images squeezed into one frame, but this time horizontal resolution is cut in half, and then converted back to sequential full frames of right and left eye video.

SENSIO Hi-Fi 3D Format - The claim is "Content encoded in the SENSIO® Hi-Fi 3D format delivers final images indistinguishable from the originals". Both horizontal and vertical resolution are preserved by reconstructing the original image with a decoder in the 3DTV.

Assessment:

3-D is coming to a home near you. Right now most implementations are cumbersome, complex, gimmicky, costly, and not quite ready for prime-time. Initial useful inroads are being made in Medical, Dental, Engineering, Professional, and Design industries.

So where can you get some real products right now? (None of the lists below are exhaustive.)

3D Laptop Companies Top Ten List - Acer, Asus, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Lenovo, Origin, Samsung, Sony, and Toshiba.

3D Tablet Companies - Archos, & LG Electronics.

3D Mobile Devices - HTC, LG.

3D HDTVs Top Ten List - Bang & Olfusen, Coby, LG, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, Toshiba, and Vizio.