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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.
...with an LCD-suit, where would you put which app?
Well, Windows XP could go on my wife's butt. They're both unnecessarily big and bloated, and despite what some people say, they can be trimmed down with some work.
daed si luap
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?"
Lets see...
Front of pants, PKUnZip
Back of pants, DownloadAccelerator
options are endless....
sig--we don't need no goddamn sig
You could use this stuff on fabric along with tiny video cameras to create predator-style invisibility.
Roadkill is yummy.
Imagine walking down a supermarket lane with your cart, with all of the cans and boxes waving at you, with their tiny voices in chorus saying "Buy Me!", "Don't listen to that brand, Buy me instead!".
just the pressure from the kids would be enough to be insane. "Can we get this one mom?"
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
A new application for the "paintable LCD" is to make it the new Body Paint.
Yes, paint your whole body with that stuffs, turn on the switch, and turn off the lights, and you got a walking, dancing, talking advertising board !
What a great boom for the ad industry, donjatink?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
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
Great, now I'm going to have nightmares about being chased down supermarket aisles by a box of Cherrios shrieking "Buyyyy Meeeee!"
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 $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
Slim, plastic LCDs sewn into fabric could display e-mail or text messages on your sleeve.' Yeah, just what I've always wanted... now those dumb t-shirts that advertise for everything will be animated... Seriously, will this technology end up being better and brighter than organic LEDs? Just a thought... Justin
Just a general rule, I would recommend not placing any M$ product near your anus.
Acknowledgements to Larry Niven for coming up with this idea ("It's a Bulova Dali") in one of his tales of Known Space.
We'll see in 6 months if this is all it's cracked up to be :)
I saw this toted as news six months ago in a dead tree tech paper.
I'm not holding my breath for practical application within another six months...
It would be immensly cool though.
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
Isn't that more of a Gabe line?
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
I *want* a Panther Modern suit...
I'm looking forward to painting cars with this...then EVERYONE can have flames on their SUV.
Moving flames too!
Now, the only problem is how the hell to afford a SUV...
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
Now imagine a paint-on wall-size screen.
Imagine you had the money to pay for the research into rapid deployment of high-tech command centers to remote locations. Get the picture?
Who needs CRTs when you have tent walls.
The only hard part of LCDs these days is getting the line resolution and registration down to 1/100 of an inch. Its not the material. If you don't need wires 1/200th of an inch thin every 1/100th of an inch, it a LOT easier and cheaper.
If you can weave the support and control lines into cloth and slather on the LCD goo in a controlled thickness, seal it all in clear, weather-proof plastic with good UV reactant properties, its gets a lot cheaper.
The only hard parts are seperating pixels (weave in regularly spaced thick insulating/isolating thread,) and getting the signal to the LCD material (which requires regularly-spaced "fuzzy" knots in the metalic "signal carrier" thread.
The technology has been around for a while.
Anybody remember pictures of women slipping magnetic doughnuts onto wires and threading a third wire into 'em to make "core" memory?
These are refinements and cost-cutting.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
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.
Slim, plastic LCDs sewn into fabric could display e-mail or text messages on your sleeve.'
:(
Just great, the next MS email virus is going to spam my shirt sleeve with "--> IDIOT HERE -->" text to let everyone know I'm not using a secure email client
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"
Embed this into skin, you could have targeted ads on your forehead. Your coworker needs a shower; your forehead displays 'Speedstick. By Mennen.'
C'mon Madison Ave! This is needed!
Better yet, think of military appilcations. Chameleon-like camouflage possiblities for troops, tanks, ships, airplanes...
Remember the inviso suit the alien had in Predator? With this stuff, and some tiny CCD cameras, it could be nearly a reality.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
...to install blackbox on my pants.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
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.
My dream is to have 1 large wall in my living room function as my TV and computer desktop. I can picture a super large desktop, perhaps 4000x3000, with tons of apps up and running spanning the wall in front of me! Browser over there, spreadsheet up there, mp3 player down there, and Quake3 directly in front. I guess it would kinda be like Marty's future house from Back to the Future 2.
(Yeah its already possible with LCD projectors, but an LCD wall is much cooler!)
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
What if you could hack somebody's suit. You could way beyond puting a "Kick Me" sign on their back, you could make it display the image of a naked body, sorta making them look like they are naked at first glance (just wait till they stand up to give their speach first hehehe) or put a scrolling marquee on their back saying anything you want. Put "Kiss it" on their butt. You could put a woman's bra size on boobs, or target circles, or "Silicon inside" or "They ARE real, and they're spectacular"
Oh the endless possibilities.
I'm sure they are working on something for this, but most LCDs do not primarily work by reflection, they work by filtering out the parts of white light that you don't want in the image. So, how do you backlight cloth? or a little rollup screen?
Has anyone has seen the iPaq without the backlight on (which is by far the best non-backlit LCD I've seen)? It is still unusable in non-office lighting conditions. And that is a best case scenario.
I had a dream last year that this article loosely relates to.
/. article about some kind of printable display from IBM.)
Not only does some type of display technology become printable, but so do the circuits. (I think I had this dream soon after the
In short, it becomes possible to "print" an entire PDA onto your wrist. Sort of like a tatoo wristwatch. In fact, in the dream, they become so useful that everyone must have one. The printable display can even fashion various barcodes on the display briefly for scanning.
Only problem is that the PDA wears off after about a month and you've got to get another one printed on. They are fairly cheap to re-print each month. About $30 or so. But some people cannot afford this.
For those who can't afford one, corporate sponsorship can be obtained. As payment for a basic PDA on your wrist, you let them print a color animated advertising banner onto your forehead.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
You could paint all the walls, then use cameras to display on the wall what you would see if the wall wasn't there -- it would give the effect of having see-through walls (one-way).
Robotiq.com is heavily tested on animals
Remember Mood Rings?
You could have a mood car. One that changes color depending on how aggressive driver you are. Your car computer could detect your mood from your driving style.
Red for 'Get Outta my way.',
Blue for 'I'm driving the speed limit.'
Green for 'I'm on vacation.'
Flashing Yellow/Red for 'I'm driving erratically.'
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."
Well, I know where the e-mail SPAM would appear... :-)
"I told you never to call me on this wall! This is an unlisted wall!"
"I'll be staying on Mars, two weeks... two weeks... two weeks..."
Here.
-><- no
There was a big hoopla about Electronic Ink developed at MIT about five years ago. Outside of an occasional demo at a trade show, I haven't seen much use of this product.
Whats the difference techincally and commercially between this new product and e-ink?
As legal counsel for Cafe Press, I object to this blatant disregard for the rights of business owners. Your idea is obviously a circumvention device designed to destroy free-market capitalism and encourage piracy of Cafe Press' intellectual property.
All of these Bradbury allusions got me thinking.
Combine the suit(or the bodypaint version), a very fast wireless connection, solar power, a P2P app and no off switch and you get the Illustrated man.
Hook him into a survilence network and watch the fun.
SD
âoeWho knew something as harmless as willful ignorance could end up having real consequences?â
I'd be slighly more concerned with my pants suddenly turning transparent...
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
What happens when people look at you from a 60 degree angle? They see a smeared version of the straight on image. So, unless you stay face on to all the enemy, all the time, you're going to be visible.
My Journal
yes, yes, no, sorta, and yes. I don't know who typed in all the text for the archives, but they're my hero.
This would be soooo cool.. punching in an RGB code and changing the color of your car.. I don't think cops would like it too much.. "I'm pulling over a red.. no black.. no green.. no blue, mustang.. "
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
... Does this outfit make my App look big?
Have none of you read "The Light of Other Days"? by Clarke (Yes that Clarke) and Baxter? They have these things all over the place. Roll it up take it with you, browse from anywhere. And yes they even have the 'smart shrouds' you're talking about. Check it out it's only $6 on Amazon.
What if it is just turtles all the way down?
Bumper Stickers! Set it up with a depth-measurement tool and have your back bumper switch from "My child is a Superkid" to "Back Off, Ass-hole!" whenever someone gets a little too close. Clever sayings from banner ads! Hippy, swirly colorful things!
what the hell is a 'junk character', anyway?
Except you'd keep getting hacked by people from countries with border disputes -
Seriously, though, I once saw a spherical jigsaw puzzle globe from a company that would send you updated pieces when borders changed.
You've motivated me to go and see what the latest Xearth programs are like - RedHat used to include it years ago and it was a cool program - lots of configurable options beyond the defaults. I wonder if it's been updated with those great satellite images I saw here a month or so ago...
Off to google...
Jim in Tokyo
-- My Weblog.
I caught some virus that changed my suit to plaid, and it won't let me change it back!
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!
Be sure to check out xplanet (xplanet.sourceforge.net) - it is basically XEarth++, and it is awesome. Works in *nix and windoze, and with simple scripts it will download near-live satellite cloud imagery (updated every ~6 hrs, I think) for rendering the earth. It also supports loading and displaying weather data from the net (like XEarth displays city names), which in combination with the live clouds makes for a fun way to get an intuitive grasp of weather and weather forecasting by watching the whole world over time.
Slick stuff.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Blond joke
Q: How do you tell if a blonde is using a computer:
A: There's white-out on the screen
Geek joke
Q:How do you tell if a geek is writing on a piece of paper.
A:There's screen on his white-out.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
I painted the baby room 7 goddam times to get the right shade of yellow.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!