Guided by the lofty goal of “democratizing the metaverse,” Leia, which was founded in 2014, wants to give users the ability to switch the screens on any of their favorite devices from 2D to 3D. The idea for the company was born from founder David Fattal’s experience doing quantum teleportation during his PhD program at Stanford where he learned the intricacies behind manipulating light at a nanoscale.
In a YouTube video published by the company, David Fattal says that the nanoscale, “is a scale where light operates with uncanny properties. A light particle can go through walls, it can teleport. What we are doing at Leia is essentially harnessing that magic to create a new type of immersive display.”
The result of this experience is a technology called lightfield display, which adds an intermediate DBL Nanolayer between the backlighting and the display panel of a device to create a 3D lightscale. The democratizing aspect of the technology is that it can turn screens of any size into 3D, ranging from as small as a watch to as large as a home theatre display.
One of the major challenges that start-ups face is scalability. It’s an issue that separates an innovative venture from a multi-million dollar company. On the concept of scalability, David Fattal said in a YouTube video: “The nanotechnology that is powering our screens was developed at HP Labs over the course of 10 years – both the fundamental design of that nanotechnology and perhaps, more importantly, the means of mass manufacturing those nanostructures.” He went on to say, “I think it’s very important to understand why a start-up can have the capabilities that other big companies might not have. We are really built on the shoulder of giants, which is HP and HP Labs.”
The company has two products currently on the market: the 10.8-inch Lume Pad and the 15.6-inch monitor. The Lume pad and the monitor utilize 10 different applications to create an interactive 3D ecosystem. The applications allow users to experience everything from blockbuster movies to social media in 3D. The company is also scheduled to release a stereo head-tracking 12.4-inch tablet in Q3 2022 and a 27-inch MiniLed hybrid 2D/3DL monitor in Q4 2022.
