he next generation of Nintendo handheld has been revealed. Last night, the company announced the development of the 3DS, a handheld platform that aims to give users a "glasses-free" 3D experience. The 3DS will go on sale between April 2010 and March 2011.
Little info was revealed about how the system will work or what it will look like, but it will be backwards compatible with previous DS and DSi games. Nintendo promises to reveal more information at this year's E3 convention.
Now for speculation time! Unless there's some radical, heretofore unknown technology in the device, it will, presumably, work with an overlay of some kind that provides the 3D effect. Think of those novelty postcards and whatnot that give a 3D look. The problem with that kind of 3D, of course, is that you have to look at images from a very specific angle, or the 3D doesn't work -- this isn't good for a handheld game system when you're riding a bus, say, unless it does something to track the position of the users eyes. Coincidentally (?), there is just such a technology already working for the DSi. Check out in the video below.

We'll be able to give you more "hard" information at E3 this June, but it would surprise me if 3D-plus eye-tracking wasn't the way the thing will work.
What do you guys think? Cool? Gimmick?

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