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Paintable LCDs
frambooz writes "Nature Magazine has an article about a team from the Eindhoven University of Technology and Philips Research Laboratories in the Netherlands, who discovered a way to create 1 layer paintable LCD-screens. It can be used on glass and plastic already, and fabric in the near future. 'Homes of the future could change their wallpaper from cream to cornflower blue at the touch of a button, says Dirk Broer. His team has developed paint-on liquid crystal displays (LCDs) that offer the technology. (...) The technique could create giant TV screens, digital billboards and walls that change colour. Slim, plastic LCDs sewn into fabric could display e-mail or text messages on your sleeve.' Which leads to another problem: with an LCD-suit, where would you put which app?" There's also an AP article.
You could use this stuff on fabric along with tiny video cameras to create predator-style invisibility.
Roadkill is yummy.
An LCD outfit would be a hit at raves and clubs. Your gear would become the ultimate glowstick. Set your clothes to change colour with the beat of the music and set up some cool visulizations and your away.
Now, it would be really cool if this stuff got cheap and bio-friendly. Meaning you could paint your entire body in it. Imagine being a chameleon! You could turn red when your mad. You could be African American today and Albino tomorrow. You could radiate shimmering rainbow colors at will. The next step would be to interface these LCD's with your brain, so you wouldn't have to mess with a controller device. Alas, too good to be true.
Hacking the Network
At the very least, you could have a suit that would blend into the background or color scheme for a theatre of conflict.
;)
Modify a guille suit to have a coat of color changing needles and a soldier could be undetectable - even at very close distances.
Now the real trick - how to have the suit be aware of its surroundings and blend into them. Octopi and other animals seem to have mastered this trick - how hard could it be?
"First you get the Linux, then you get the power, THEN you get the women"
I would put small cameras in front and behind me which displayed their images on the opposite side of the suite.
:-) are dense enough to reflect light realistically then perhaps that isn't a problem for some applicaitons: the invisibility application, however, presents a problem.
It may not be invisibility but it's damned close.
The problem I see is: what about backlighting? LCD required backlighting to work doesn't it? If the colors (colours for you brits
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
There are military contractor already on this one, but they're using flat panels. A camera could capture the image behind you and project that image on the front part of your 'suit'. Doesn't need to be a sharp, perfectly aligned image either. Just get the color and intensity right. The US Army already wants this one...--> http://www.aro.army.mil/phys/Nanoscience/sec4nano. htm
Holy buh-jeezus! Did anyone else read Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury?
It was scary enough when they brought out those flat-panel plasma screens (not that I'm complaining), but now that you could paint all 4 walls w/ television screens...
This combined with the advent of Aibo (remeber the mechanical dog in the firehouse?), seems to me Bradbury was dead on.
and it gets worse.
Since this stuff can be embedded into fabric, obviously you can have T-shirts, etc. Obviously, You know someone will add wireless capability for continous updates, etc.
The free car program where you get a free car because it has Advertising on it can now have cars that are updated monthly.
The visual equivalent of pop-up ads everywhere, as you drive or walk down the street.
Then add in your occasional prankster. Your room mate configures the back of your jacket to display pr0n as you walk down the street.
And we call this progress. just a simple extrapolation of the spammer mentality to the use of the new media forms
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I've always wanted a video wall at home. That way I'm really using the available "real estate" to it's maximum capability. It would be great to have video on my cubicle walls at work. No monitor... a little to my right is my e-mail, touch the app window in front of me to bring my word processor into focus. It would be cool to have touch-support on video walls at work, along with a keyboard. Drag documents around... no more white board with smelly markers, just open a blank "window" and draw, no scanning needed to save it... have the video phone display to my left... drag a doc onto the other person's face to let them see it...
/. for building my dreams while I still have to suffer in this world! ;-)
Damn, now I'm just staring at my boring cube walls and monitor for the rest of the day. Thanks
Developers: We can use your help.
Tried to design one a few years ago, but this might make it possible. Imagine a globe that could be updated via the web or disc, could illustrate the route of a voyabe or flight paths or tectonic drift, or weather, satellite orbits....
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts."
Hm.. there's a business opportunity here. Place cameras around the world and then deliver the feed using a high-speed connection. Subscription service, of course. That way, you could look out your 'window' and see a beautiful mountain scene. Or a market in Thailand, whatever cranks your turn.
Feel the fear and do it anyway.
OLED (Organic LED) would be much better. LED requires battery power to maintain the refresh, while OLED only requires battery power to delta the image. OLEDs are currently in manufacturing (some Pioneer stereos and JCPenny signs). They are cheaper to produce, and more usable.
http://www.google.com/profiles/malachid
Makes me think that people (I am sure the military have that in mind already) will use it to try to create the "predator" suit ... which shows to your eyes the surrounding view ... may be rather interesting ...
... better make sure to have enough batteries on hand (which makes you wonder where to hide it now) ;)
Of course since it will have to be skin tight to work efficiently that means running naked under that transparent film
-- Martial MICHEL
The only other improvement I would want, is an LCD liscense plate...
Xaotik Designs
If you could paint a flexible piece of plastic with this you could make a dome shaped screen, like at the planetarium, or a cube shaped, or a digital crystal-ball.
Not sure if this is useful for anything ( a globe maybe?) but it sure is cool.
Ooh, terra-form maps! that would be useful.
piece!