Water screens are very simple (and old) tech. It's just a perforated tube and a projector. This is much more interesting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gusJeslMbLc, but still a weekend project, not billion-dollar research :)

There was the bit.fall project (ca. 2005) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AICq53U3dl8 by Julius Popp

and before that Stephen Pevnick's Graphical Waterfalls® (1977) http://www.pevnickdesign.com/gwhtml/history.html