Tired of seeing 3-D renderings of objects on your screen and being unable to grab and fondle them? Just slip your fingers into the firm grip of Japanese haptics robot HIRO III. Driven by 15 independent motors, its black phalanges provide real-time force feedback to your hand, precisely simulating the weight and contour of virtual 3-D objects — a pretty wild paradigmatic leap forward in interface technology!

In this video, a woman watches a 3-D shape on a screen, then gropes and explores it with the help of HIRO III. As the screen displays a virtual hand gripping the spinning polyhedron, the woman’s fingertips, each clipped to one of the robot’s fingers, vibrate with the movement of the virtual object.

HIRO III was developed at Japan’s Gifu University, where the laboratory is currently working towards putting the haptic technology to work in manual screenings for breast cancer. While the system obviously has great potential for use in telemedicine, myriads of other uses — gaming, for instance — come to mind as well.

Today Sharp announced plans that could turn your cellphone into a 3-D-shooting mini film studio as early as next year. The company today unveiled a mobile-phone 3-D camera capable of shooting in high def.

The module captures 720p stereoscopic (two-eyed) video and is only about two inches wide. To put that in perspective: Fuji’s 3-D camera uses much larger, heavier sensors and only records standard-def video.

The camera on its own, though, needs help to produce a 3-D image. As with a 3-D TV or Blu-ray player, there needs to be an integrated circuit capable of decoding the stereoscopic signal, converting file formats, and then sending the information to a 3-D-ready display. Oh, yeah, Sharp has one of those, too: the glasses-less kind. In March, the company announced a small-format screen consisting of two stacked LCD screens; the screen on top only displays thin vertical black lines, which block half of the image at a time, so that your right and left eyes only see their own angles. The meshing of the two images is your brain’s job.

It’s been rumored for a while now that Sharp’s screen will be what makes Mario pop on the forthcoming 3-D Nintendo DS, so it’s only natural to intuit that maybe (just maybe) the DS will both display and capture in three dimensions. For the time being, though, it’s all just conjecture — especially considering that these camera modules won’t go into production for several more months, and Nintendo’s still mum on when the 3DS rollout might start.

We’ll be keeping our eyes peeled.

Who decided that 3D glasses had to look supremely ugly? If Hollywood really wants 3D to become mainstream, then someone better make us all look like Hollywood stars in our 3D shades.

Look3D has come out with a line of "designer" 3D glasses, including a few that are RealD-certified. They’re available in a variety of frame styles, colors and prescriptions to suit a variety of styles. Take a look at the gallery and tell us what you think. Personally, I don’t think 3D will catch on until I see Angelina Jolie donning a pair of 3D glasses on the red carpet.