Can you imagine watching Harry Potter or Jenna Jameson on a 200-million pixel, 23-by-9-foot monitor wall? Personally I’d rather watch Jenna, but then again, at that resolution, maybe I’d spend too much time looking at her moles and other imperfections and it wouldn’t be so much fun anymore.

The screen consists of rows of monitors linked together with some very sophisticated software and provides a picture that is about 100 times more detailed than the best high-definition television you can buy. The HiPerWall, as it’s been dubbed, was designed and developed by Stephen F. Jenks and Joerg Meyer, and built at UC Irvine at a cost of $300,000.

Currently the screen is used for medical purposes, such as observing changes in brain cells of schizophrenics, predicting climate changes, and studying ovarian cancer cells.

Professors and students do use the monitor for fun on occasion and among other things, it’s been used to spot trapped cars in ariel photographs after Hurricane Katrina, viewing mountain vistas and one student even used it to play a Play Station game.

Until the cost comes down, I don’t think many of us will be watching the Super Bowl on one in our living rooms any time soon, but one day I’m sure we’ll all have a wall in our home that will display an image so realistic that we’ll actually feel like we’re there. Just think, with one of these screens, a good ambient sound recording and a fan, and you can be at the beach. Turn off the fan, change the sound to bubbles, sit in your bathtub wearing a mask and snorkel, and you can be diving the Great Barrier Reef.

Source: LA Times

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