“America’s First modern-technology 3-D newspaper section” proclaimed the Inquirer yesterday. Since I haven’t seen any 3D since I was about 5 years old and had a ViewMaster­­, I made a trip to the closest Wawa and picked up a copy.
The paper included cardboard glasses, an 8 page section of 3D content, and a small poster of Roy Halladay, the latter all neon-ed out.
How did it look?
Well, the most 3D looking thing of the content was the full page Macy’s ad. The rest was hardly 3D at all. Even the special Roy poster gave little if any 3D effect.
It could be an issue of color separation, since newspaper is notoriously known for poor color registration. Maybe in a magazine this would work, but it’s gonna be a long time before 3D newspaper makes a dent in anything (except my nose from wearing those annoying glasses.
Even when the effect worked, it was very very faint. 3D was much better with the old red-blue glasses! (for what that’s worth)
Imagine, if you will, a busy morning subway commute. Everyone is wearing cardboard 3D glasses with BestBuy emblazoned on the sides, and then opens up their “inq3D” newspaper. That’s a real hoot.

By the time you’re done with one page you’ll already have a migraine.