Leia Display System creates interactive holograms using water vapor

Futuristic tech is on a roll this week. First we caught word that NASA is experimenting with suspended animation to send astronauts to Mars, and now we’ve got reason to believe that Star Wars-style hologram tech might soon be in our living rooms. Science fiction is becoming science fact at an alarming rate these days The Leia Display System is capable of projecting images into midair, and also allows the user to interact with these images via gesture controls.

It’s 2014 and while we don’t have flying cars just yet it looks like interactive holographic displays could be a reality rather soon. The not-so-cleverly-named Leia Display System (LDS) uses a combination of light, water-vapor and air to provide a transparent canvas for projected images while sensors track movement and touch inputs from users. The videos we’ve embedded below show all manner of poking and prodding by users, a bit of Minority Report-style pinching and zooming things in mid-air and even using gestures to rotate and flick stuff out of the way. There’s even a sample with a Mercedes sedan driving through the curtain and it “shattering” around the vehicle as it passes through.