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Since it debuted half a century ago, 3D cinema has mainly been a gimmick. To date, perhaps my favorite of the all these movies is a short horror film farce by the Three Stooges, because it fully embraces the silliness of 3D, using every gag imaginable, with no pretensions of it being an art form.

3-D started its comeback at CES about two years ago when Samsung first showed capable rear projection TVs. At the time, 3D was just for video games, with only the vague promise that movies would be coming. On Wednesday in Vegas, Panasonic announced plans to push for technical standards that could show up in TVs and Blu-ray discs and players in less than two years.