Hello MEMS, Goodbye Monitors

ftantil writes "In this article Bob Cringely says traditional monitors (CRTs *and* LCDs) will eventually go the way of the Underwood. I've always liked the idea of seeing the image equivalent of a 27" monitor by looking into a slot in my cellphone, but it never occurred to me that these things could replace TVs too."

Comments

Monitors Replacements

[Medevo]

If monitors are every replaced with a slot in your cell-phone or funky geek ware glasses, what are we support to hit when something doesn't work.

Besides how many more deaths might this cause then cell-phones, driving down the road typing up a document in one eye and driving with the other.

Medevo

Re:Monitors Replacements

[PeolesDru]

But also consider that the balance to this would be a wearable display with object recognition software that actualy HELPS you identify hazardous objects. Of course, by then our cars might be driving themselves.

Re:Monitors Replacements

[blixel]

Besides how many more deaths might this cause then cell-phones, driving down the road typing up a document in one eye and driving with the other.

Well I don't know about you but I got the feeling this wasn't exactly something that was going to be out "tomorrow". By the time this product is common place enough for people to have a use for it per your example, we wont be driving cars any more. The cars will be flying us to our destination.

Something like this is more likely to be realized in the not-so-distant future.

Re:Monitors Replacements

[zaffir]

Besides how many more deaths might this cause then cell-phones, driving down the road typing up a document in one eye and driving with the other.

Well, assuming nobody else (other drivers, pedestrians) are hurt, this is a GOOD thing - it finally puts Darwin back in the driver's seat (groan...).

Soccer mom is driving giant SUV with 2.5 kids in it. Soccer mom looks into cellphone to see who's calling her. Soccer mom careens off bridge, killing not only herself, but her kids as well. Since there's no offspring left, nobody can pass on the stupidity gene.

Re:Monitors Replacements

[Anonymous Coward]

That's one hell of an assumption. Let's try another one:
War is a good thing, assuming no one gets killed or wounded.

What the parent post is really saying: it's ok for people I don't like to get killed, as long as they don't take someone I do like with them.

Yeah, that's a healthy attitude. (note - that last statement was sarcasm, just in case they don't teach that at your high school).

Re:Monitors Replacements

[martyn s]

What I learned in highschool is that when you say sarcasm in this instance, you most like mean irony. Yeah, you were also kinda being sarcastic, but I bet you meant irony.

Re:Monitors Replacements

[kyras]

Besides how many more deaths might this cause then cell-phones, driving down the road typing up a document in one eye and driving with the other.

F*ck typing a document. Imagine playing GTA3 in the other eye!

Re:Monitors Replacements

[Anonymous Coward]

mine already does. it's called programming. there's a steering wheel in the car though just for looks. nobody knows. i like it that way though.

Re:Monitors Replacements

[Steve Franklin]

"what are we suppo[sed] to hit when something doesn't work"

Yeah, but now you really *can* chuck the whole thing in the river like you've been threatening to do for years.

Re:Monitors Replacements

[Anonymous Coward]

Cars will never ever drive themselves in the Land of Litigation.

Re:Monitors Replacements

[Anonymous Coward]

You sound like you are still in high school.

Re:Monitors Replacements

[mmol_6453]

At that point, there'll be serious lobbying to give legal advantages to a human driver.

You'll see human-driver-only lanes and roads. If it gets bad enough, computer-drivers might have to wait longer at traffic lights, and recieve heavier fines for traffic violations.

That last will only be possible of you roll your own driving AI, which will be outlawed.

Re:Monitors Replacements

[Sunda666]

or better, Carmageddom ;-)

Re:Monitors Replacements

[Anonymous Coward]

Intelligence is defined as the ability to detect irony.

It is, however, ironic that it takes someone to point out that sarcasm is a type of irony.

Re:Monitors Replacements

[PeolesDru]

Who better to sue for an accident than the giant technology conglomerate that PRODUCES the automatic driver hardware and software? Trust me, no lawyers will die out as a result. Whole new practices will be born! ;)

Re:I'm first or close

[Pont-Max]

gOD isn't dead, Cringely IS GOD.

Scary

[bstadil]

If the pirce tag doesn't scare you I am sure the picture of Stephen King on the site will.

Re:Scary

[I.T.R.A.R.K.]

I thought he was dead!
At least, that's what Klerk told me.

Re:Scary

[Anonymous Coward]

An ODD but TRUE fact about Steven King is that he sleeps with a nightlight...

Re:Scary

[MaxVlast]

I hear he brushes his teeth when he gets up, too. Don't tell anyone, though. Don't want juicy stuff like that getting out.

Re:Why do we keep publishing stories by this guy?

[Morphine007]

forty bucks would still be pretty damned sweet for what he's talking about... shit... even an order of magnitude or two higher would still be worth it..... .. . provided you could show me that the laser being used to paint my retina will be suitable for 12-16 hour/day usage... cuz god knows I'd use it that much ;)

like the Sony Glasstron?

[DeafDumbBlind]

http://www.reviewfinder.com/reviews/glasstron/inde x.asp

HDTV DOA???

[Picass0]

This technology sounds better than HDTV. It would be funny if moore's law put this in front of consumers before HDTV could become dominant. Beams an animorphic DVD right to my eyes. cool.

Re:HDTV DOA???

[blablablastuff]

technically it IS correct. the sentence can have both meanings. the fact that it is able to translate correctly to "i am a citizen of berlin" does not expressly preclude it from also being translated as "i am a jelly doughnut"
if you were to dress up as a giant pastry and run down the streets of, say, Stuttgart, screaming "ich bin ein berliner!" people could look at you and see that yes, this is true. the one translation does not eliminate the correctness of the other.

Re:HDTV DOA???

[Anonymous Coward]

Not wrong. At the end of the article it says

In spite of the fact that it's also the correct way to say "I am a jelly doughnut," (emphasis mine)

Re:HDTV DOA???

[-tji]

Huh? This is just another display alternative. HDTV is a digital broadcast format, allowing higher resolution material to be displayed.

In fact, many of the new HDTV displays are using MEMS technology. See http://www.dlp.com/

DLP is used both for front projectors, and reap projection HDTV's.

Re:HDTV DOA???

[MaxVlast]

That's persuasive, but what if I said, "I am a Danish," as opposed to "I am Danish." It seems like that situation. Not a major issue in either direction; just something humorous.

Re:HDTV DOA???

[ahfoo]

Right, MEMS in the form of DLP has been muscling in on the LCD projector market for several years and you can get them on Priceline for a little over a grand which is a lot cheaper than most comparable LCDs.
I think what Cringley sort of glazes over and gets mentioned a few posts down about lasers is a key point.
In a projector system, be it LCD or DLP the light source is just as important as the image device. The bulbs and cooling systems needed for projectors are expensive and power hungry. LED is never going to be the answer and while laser sounds great I agree with the poster below who discusses the power requirements that a scanning laser would have. The only breakthrough I can imagine in this field that might bring it into the price range of consumer electronics would be much much higher power laser diodes which simply aren't here yet although MEMS could be useful in this field as well. It's quite possible that we'll see incredibly crisp projectors cheaper than televisions are today if visible laser diode power specs continue to rise.
Until then, DLP is MEMS and it rocks here and now in terms of both quality and price point. I've seen demos of projectors that only cost a grand and look great, but I wish I could buy the DLP chips themselves with controllers on the cheap and play with different light sources. I'm sure that will be doable in time. Carbon arc would be a cool way to show some DVDs on the big white wall of the building across the street. Video could become the new graffitti.

Re:HDTV DOA???

[roybadami]

technically it IS correct. the sentence can have both meanings. the fact that it is able to translate correctly to "i am a citizen of berlin" does not expressly preclude it from also being translated as "i am a jelly doughnut"

Unfortunately, Ich bin ein Berliner is not how you would say you're from Berlin: that would be Ich bin Berliner. That's why the mistake was funny.

Re:HDTV DOA???

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. The inclusion of the 'ein' made JFK's statement go from "I am a Berlin citizen" to "I am a particular type of jelly doughtnut called the Berliner".

This will never totally replace TVs/Monitors

[Sc00ter]

Okay, so if you're all by yourself 100% of the time, then sure a headset type of thing will work fine. Hell I have a pair of i-glasses, they work great when I want to watch TV in bed while my spouse sleeps, but what about when you have friends over for movies, or you're hanging out and say "hey, come check out this thing I see on slashdot" you're either going to need more pairs of headsets, or share yours.

Re:This will never totally replace TVs/Monitors

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm... read the article?

These can be used as projectors as well.

Re:This will never totally replace TVs/Monitors

[Anonymous Coward]

If you read the article, it's clear that this MEMS technology can be used either to project images directly onto the retina, or to project images into a large screen, which would essentially just be a big empty box with one projection surface. All without the complexity of producing flawless LCD's and without the bulky tube and capacitors of a CRT. As the article points out, price is a limiting factor at the moment, but this could be The Way of the Future.

Re:This will never totally replace TVs/Monitors

[BrookHarty]

Exactly, or try to make diner, do dishs when the game is on. Can I hook up my tivo to it?

Re:This will never totally replace TVs/Monitors

[bleckywelcky]

If it eventually only costed $40 USD for a pair of these, it would come to the point that everyone would wear a set 99.9% of the time. By time they reached $40, a wireless solution for them would be produced very cheaply so that it could trasmit and use extremely high quality inputs. You and your friends would just walk over to an information input, sync yourself with the signal, and then view the source on your own set of... well... eyes, or whatever, heh. By time they reached $40 for a pair, they would also be able to transmit video from your environment right to the displays. Is it your greatest desire to have visual selection similar to the Predator? Well, now you have it. Want to view IR in the middle of the night? You got it.

Now, just invite your friends over, take a minute to download the DVD of the latest action packed or thriller movie to your A/V control center from the internet and broadcast the signal to all your friends. Oh man, I'm starting to drool here.

Re:This will never totally replace TVs/Monitors

[Daemonik]

Don't forget to make sure all your friends submit to the RIAA/MPAA body cavity search and seizure prior to sharing your DVD with them.

In order to display your DVD on their wireless headsets, it would have to be broadcast to them and broadcasting a DVD would be restricted by copyright unless you pay the licensing fee. Don't you read the FBI warnings at the start of the DVDs? (God knows you can't fast forward past them)

Re:This will never totally replace TVs/Monitors

[nelsonal]

Mems is the technology behind DLP the movie theater light projection. The only problems I have heard is that it takes some adjustment a few hours for you eyes to adjust to the rapid flashes, friends will likely get a headache the first time they come over.

Re:This will never totally replace TVs/Monitors

[ncc74656]

Mems is the technology behind DLP the movie theater light projection. The only problems I have heard is that it takes some adjustment a few hours for you eyes to adjust to the rapid flashes, friends will likely get a headache the first time they come over.

If that was the case, I'd think all the people who saw AotC on digital screens would've complained by now.

Re:This will never totally replace TVs/Monitors

[Nihilanth]

You seem to have overlooked the section where they talked about using the MEM as a projector, projecting the image onto a cheap translucent screen.

Re:This will never totally replace TVs/Monitors

[Elledan]

Mems is the technology behind DLP the movie theater light projection. The only problems I have heard is that it takes some adjustment a few hours for you eyes to adjust to the rapid flashes, friends will likely get a headache the first time they come over.

If you had actually read the article, you would have known that MEMS-based TVs/projects are actually superior to CRTs in this regard. The image is in fact much more 'smooth'.

somebody help me!

[idontneedanickname]

somebody help me stop drooling! i'm gonna become dehydrated at this rate!

More details

[Triskaidekaphobia]

Some better descriptions of how MEMS display work here and here (flash based, but very good)

Re:More details

[pgrote]

Thanks! Those two sites have great overviews. I really liked TIs flash on how it works. That was a perfect way to show how flash can be useful.

I would assume that he is partially correct

[drinkypoo]

However, LCDs are getting cheaper, and OLEDs are on the horizon. I don't want an empty box, I don't want a box at all. I want a thin panel which I can put on a wall.

Optimally we would get something that comes in rolls and can be cut to size. Then you just stick a piece of fiber on it anywhere, and have it communicate with you optically. Every pixel should have its own driver circuit, and they should speak to one another with various shortcut buses woven throughout the material. It should also be capable of speaking to other pieces of the material if you make it overlap. This way we could have large (if initially slow) displays. Then you just need a discovery method to determine the properties of the display, and a resolution-independent display method.

In the meantime; I don't want an empty box. If I have a MEMS-based display, it had better be painting the image directly onto my retina, which is much more useful anyway. I'm willing to put on goggles, though that shouldn't be necessary; within a certain (smallish) range of motion it should be able to track me just fine.

If we DO use a MEMS mirror-based display, we should be using a large number of mirrors to minimize the depth of the thing and also to maximize refresh rates.

Re:I would assume that he is partially correct

[ConceptJunkie]

Optimally we would get something that comes in rolls and can be cut to size.

No, optimally we would have a spray can full of self-assembling nano display goo, just lay a template of your choice on the wall, spray away, wait a while, and your terabyte wireless network will instantly recognize the display and start pumping it Bugs Bunny from your satellite feed.

Re:I would assume that he is partially correct

[HorsePunchKid]

I think one long-term problem with relying on panel-like technologies is that the will require a lot more material. Looking around my apartment, I've got a lot of empty walls, which I'd love to have something on (posters and whatnot). It'd be great if I could have some kind of cut-to-size material like you describe that I could simply put anywhere I want and have it display some kind of (presumably non-static) information. But in that scenario, I've got to have maybe four or five square meters of material to cover all the area I'd like.

Now imagine another scenario where I've got something either overlaid on my vision or inserted directly into the optical signal (progress is being made there, too!). Now I've just got a small device coupled to a computer (which I'd also need in the first scenario) that can change what I see based on where I look. If I look at my north wall, I see a Kraftwerk poster; if I look south, I see the news. Significantly less material and less maintenance, I imagine, but at the cost of significantly more advanced technology. I suspect the panel approach will win in the short term, and will certainly face less social or ethical resistance.

Any other thoughts on this?

Re:I would assume that he is partially correct

[PeolesDru]

Keep in mind that a MEMS display device that could track your environment and overlay information on to your view, has even more important applications than simply putting art on surfaces. As wonderful as art is, mind you. This seems to be THE best display technology to use in the burgeoning field of AR (Augmented Reality) that we've heard so much about recently. Here's a decent overview of AR - note how much all of these systems would benefit from both MEMS display and MEMS scanning technology: http://www.augmented-reality.org/

Re:I would assume that he is partially correct

[jci]

Your first paragraph sounds almost like Farenheit 451..

Re:I would assume that he is partially correct

[drinkypoo]

It should be possible to do this either way soon, with recent advances in printed circuits, OLED, and MEMS technology. I'm sure it will continue to be expensive for a while, though. It would be nice to have even if it were extremely slow, though, so maybe someone will come up with a cheap, slow way to do it that requires some kind of computationally intensive encoding process to display graphics... That would be good enough.

But anyway, you are quite right that you could use a series of projectors and head+pupil tracking to just overlay the video on your vision somehow, or yes to insert it directly into the signal. The latter, however, will likely always require hardware actually on your head. The former is not a bad idea, though it is seriously computationally intensive, requires some very good cameras, et cetera. All of it is getting cheaper but I still think a simple display with a simple hardware interface is our first step.

There are also some decent reasons to only use a wallcovering; For one, it doesn't require any special hardware on your head. Two, any number of people who can physically view the surface can view the contents. You could always augment it with a projector or goggle system to add private content. And three, you could also lay the material down on cars and anyone could see them. Four, people whose eyes are not factory equipment but are learning to see via machine assisted devices will probably not be able to use a projector system.

I guess the first step for a system like this is to be able to inexpensively make some kind of MEMS array which can be treated like wallpaper and which can flip over squares for color/no color, or at least black/white to begin with. Maybe you could just do something with an inkjet circuit printing process and little hollow glass beads of liquid crystal. Then you could print to the edges of the paper, and have contact patches which got glued together from page to page for communication.

Re:I would assume that he is partially correct

[Saeger]

Every time this subject comes up I like to list a few killer apps of AR:

• Ad-blocking for the real world! Imagine how much more peaceful the world would be once you have the option of filtering out all that visual noise, especially in cities. e.g. billboards, posters, taxi-ads, jumbotrons, annoying T-shirts.
• A realtime "nude patch" :)
• Face and object recognition which brings up pertinent floating info about the subjects in view.
• Heads-up navigational aid and early warning system. Never get lost again. Be able to see more at night and through smoke.
• Combine with GPS to add/substract objects based on your surroundings. e.g. "Add" virtual Twin Towers back into your view of the world or subtract that annoying tree from your view and extrapolate what should be behind it.
• Fully immersive GAMES and MOVIES! Full FOV, true depth of field, "IMAX-like" entertainment.
• ...insert other non-obvious apps here.

Re:I would assume that he is partially correct

[Saeger]

any number of people who can physically view the surface can view the contents

You don't need a physical surface in order to share it. You could just as well have a group of people sharing a virtual whiteboard.

But you're right that 'normal surface' displays would be more accessable for quite a long time -- at least until virtual retinal scanning displays were so ubiquitous that newborns become cyborgs at the same time they're circumsized. :) --

Re:I would assume that he is partially correct

[Fesh]

"A realtime "nude patch" :)"

Be careful what you wish for. Pr0n stars are not representative of the population at large.

"Aieeeee! My eyes!"

Re:I would assume that he is partially correct

[fferreres]

Well, what we need then (for a cheap solution) are embedded eyeball MEMS with a "sunlight" overlay (or the inverse). That way you can simply put violet posters in your walls and attack a "display" to them.

:) Nice!!

I can imagine the first use for, say, women: buying their boyfriends some violet tshits (and then ereg_replace (violet_tshits, brad_pit) :)

Re:I would assume that he is partially correct

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously did not read or did not understand the article. MEMS do not need to be put in eyepieces, they can also project onto a large translucent screen from the rear. That configuration is what may replace current televisions.

Re:I would assume that he is partially correct

[poot_rootbeer]

Optimally we would get something that comes in rolls and can be cut to size. Then you just stick a piece of fiber on it anywhere, and have it communicate with you optically. Every pixel should have its own driver circuit, and they should speak to one another with various shortcut buses woven throughout the material. It should also be capable of speaking to other pieces of the material if you make it overlap.

Oh, and it should also cost 5 cents per square mile and be capable of traveling through time and it should taste like candy when you lick it.

Re:I would assume that he is partially correct

[drinkypoo]

I normally don't feed anonymous cowards, trolls, or the stupid; I know you're an AC, I don't know which of the other you are.

The problem with projecting onto a large translucent screen is that you still need phosphors to get any kind of image quality, and phosphors suck. They're poisonous, they have persistence... They're lousy in every way.

LCD is difficult to drive and costly to produce, but it's thin. OLED may solve these problems for us in the nearish future, but it probably won't. The problem with MEMS is, either you need phosphors or some other kind of costly screen which is difficult to produce, and projection systems take up space. You will have to have a certain minimum amount of space to have a flat display. Then your driver circuit has to do all the same stupid computation that digitally-operated CRT monitors do today to avoid warping the image, and so on.

So single-mirror scanning systems aren't going to work no matter what kind of screen you use, because it'll be as deep as a normal monitor. We want flat displays! So at least they'll have to have multiple mirrors each handling a certain area, so that they only have to be a couple inches deep instead of as deep as a CRT display. But I'm still pulling for OLED, which has the potential to become very inexpensive, and which has a number of advantages over other current display systems which I need hardly expound upon considering the number of others who have done it for me.

Re:I would assume that he is partially correct

[Lordrashmi]

From the simpsons:
"Quick someone gouge my eyes out"

Selective Moore's Law?

[Anonymous Coward]

The U.S. military buys MEMS-based retinal scan displays for use by combat pilots for around $15,000 each [...] But Moore's Law is our friend, remember, so those prices are going to eventually plummet.

If you assume that Moore's Law holds for what you want to push, and NOT for its competition, you can argue that a slide rule will one day beat all top500 supercomputers.

Re:Selective Moore's Law?

[foonf]

If you assume that Moore's Law holds for what you want to push, and NOT for its competition

Its quite a reasonable inference actually. The reason that Moore's law holds is that smaller and smaller diameter fabrication processes are developed, so that an integrated circuit can be made smaller, and thus also cheaper, and furthermore reduce power consumption, heat production, and speed. Now, the MEMS projection chip does not have to be any particular size, so as process technology becomes more advanced, the cost to produce these will go down with everything else. But a conventional LCD, in order to be useful, has to be a certain size, and, for any given resolution, has to have a certain number of pixels. Of course, technology advances do help LCD's, but its no use to the user if 10 years from now you can get a 5mm desktop LCD display for $10 with the same resolution as the 15" display you want now.

Re:Selective Moore's Law?

[Anonymous Coward]

na sounds like they have a decent lock on the market. sounds like a monopoly to me, or least an ogolopoly. They are just cheering cause they can reduce cost to manufacture and can increase output. They can pretty much put the price point where they get max profit. For right now its a flat demand curve. The goverment will pay price X for something. By god that is what it will cost. Even if it cost 3 cents to make. The goverment is willing to pay 10k each for one. Sounds like they have a decent lobbiest more than anything...

Also the display is 1 color. Its a niche market at best for now. They probley will have tons of fun trying to get more than one color. Convergence and the like. I have no doubt they will make it work. But it will be awhile before I can actually even think about buying one of those.

Re:Selective Moore's Law?

[John Hasler]

"Now, the MEMS projection chip does not have to be any particular size,..."

Yes it does. Go read up on diffraction.

Re:Selective Moore's Law?

[BinxBolling]

But a conventional LCD, in order to be useful, has to be a certain size, and, for any given resolution, has to have a certain number of pixels.

Everything that you (and Cringely) say will hamper reductions in LCD price could also be applied to CRTs. However, as he points out, CRT prices have dropped a great deal over the last several years. "Moore's law" may not apply in its most formal sense (i.e. the sense that deals with chip fabrication), but it's come to take on a more general meaning that the bang/buck of high tech items tends to improve exponentially over time. And this latter meaning is almost certainly applicable to LCDs.

Re:Selective Moore's Law?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you assume that Moore's Law holds for what you want to push, and NOT for its competition, you can argue that a slide rule will one day beat all top500 supercomputers.

You'd have to find a way to make the slide rule use some transistors. Moore's Law is based on transistors.

Monopoly on MEMS

[rleisti]

So one company seems to be holding all the patents. I'm not holding my breath waiting for the prices to 'plummet'.

Re:Monopoly on MEMS

[Cardhore]

Or, being able to profit from their invention instead of going out of business, this company will be able to fund research and devlopment to eventually sell MEMS at $40, and soonafter the patents will expire.

Re:Monopoly on MEMS

[nas]

MEMS stands for Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems. It's a general technology for building small mechanical and electrical devices on wafers (usually silicon but other materials can be used). There's some introductory information at here .

People may have patents on certain MEMS applications or even processes but no one has a patent on the technology. It's too broad.

Maybe you are refering to TI's DLP (Digital Light Projector). They probably have a patent on that device. They probably deserve it though since AFAIK, they spent millions developing it. That patent doesn't stop other people from developing other display devices using MEMS technology. A patent only covers a single embodiment of a design.

Re:Monopoly on MEMS

[rleisti]

Thanks for clearing that up; the original article mislead me into thinking that Microvision had an exclusive hold on the technology, by using words like 'microsoft' and '200 patents' within the same block of text. The site you listed gives a much clearer picture of the industry.

Microvision

[critter_hunter]

If you go take a look at Microvision's website, you'll see that MEMS can be used in everything and are the best thing ever.
Or so they tell you

More than likely they're just trying to get gobs of money from investors... maybe what Cringely's saying is true, but I can't share his enthusiasm

Re:Microvision

[Morphine007]

More than likely they're just trying to get gobs of money from investors... maybe what Cringely's saying is true, but I can't share his enthusiasm

at 15G a pop for DoDs aircraft (fighter and army/army support) I'd say they already have gobs of money, wouldn't you?

Re:Microvision

[Oswald]

At their current burn rate, they seem to have enough on hand for about 10 more quarters of operation, though they say that 2002 should see a shift to higher revenues because they will actually have some product for sale. Their 10-k is remarkably free of smoke-up-your-ass; they state quite clearly that they are not now, never have been, and very possibly may never be profitable. There's nothing illegal or immoral about speculating on a tech stock, as long as there's no blue sky bullshit being put out.

(fingers crossed)

[dynoman7]

Video phones...finally a private viewing conversation.

Re:(fingers crossed)

[Anonymous Coward]

s/Video phones/pr0n and s/conversation/session

Re:(fingers crossed)

[Anonymous Coward]

So let me see if i got this straight. I have to hold the thing up to my eye to see the other person. what are they going to see on my end? my nostral hairs?

Course if the porn industry picks up on it. You could watch for ONLY 4.95 per minute in 1 color hot naked chics! On your 12k phone. They wont be able to make enough phones! :)

And the #1 reason why MEMS will become popular...

[xigxag]

The cable giants and the MPAA will love retinal displays because that means they can finally charge "Pay Per Viewer." No more of those digital pirates bringing 30 friends over to watch the latest boxing match. Now every pair of eyeballs can be individually billed. Of course that would also mean the death of movie theaters because Hollywood will be able to charge you at home for each one of your little urchins when Harry Potter X comes out.

Replacing TVs and projectors?

[MasterOfDisaster]

He says they can be used for an in eye display. Ok, I'll buy that. The mirror and such doesnt need to move THAT fast for an acceptable refresh rate. But how fast does the mirror have to move to replace say...a 40" TV? or bigger? Also, will we be able to see even higher refresh rates with this?

Re:Replacing TVs and projectors?

[Triskaidekaphobia]

There is one mirror per pixel; therefore each one only has to move at 180 Hz or so (3 moves per refresh period - once for Red, Green and Blue.) to get a 60 fps refresh rate.

Re:Replacing TVs and projectors?

[MadWilli]

In addition to maintaining some form of reasonable refresh rate, eye movement must be tracked in order to guarantee that the display is projected correctly onto the retina.

It is hard to keep your eyes consciously still, but your eyes also move constantly unconsciously to keep your retina from becoming desensitived to the visual input. AFAIK this problem hasn't been cleanly solved.

Re:Replacing TVs and projectors?

[nelsonal]

yeah for 3 bit color. The good ones move thousands of times each second. The best ones have 3 arrays one for red, green, and blue.

well...

[idontneedanickname]

if that person's interested in /. they'll very likely have a set of their own :)
i think most people will

Slashboxes

[kubrick]

There's an I, Cringely Slashbox (which I have activated). Doesn't this obviate the need for every column he writes to be submitted as a story to /.?

Re:Slashboxes

[quantaman]

Yeah, but now you can submit it as a story as soon as it comes out :)

Re:Slashboxes

[Colz Grigor]

No, it does't obviate the need for his column to be submitted as a story because unless it's submitted as a story, we don't have a /. forum to discuss the implications.

The solution, I believe, would be to automatically associate a forum to the story, a feature I requested in SourceForge's Slash project in January. It was evaluated as a good idea by CmdrTaco in February, but has apparently sat idle since then.

::Colz Grigor

Re:Slashboxes

[ralian]

Not everybody has an I, Cringely Slashbox (disclaimer: I do), and I don't think it should become a default either (for non-logged-in users) for several reasons: first, because it's fairly large, and people shouldn't have to have a huge chunk of something they don't necessarily want there on their page; second, Cringely is not an OSDN property and as such should not be put as a default top-level link. This is aside from the extremely good point raised by another poster that people such as ourselves get to comment on stories but not on Slashboxes :)

Re:Slashboxes

[kubrick]

That sounds like a good idea -- the best of both worlds, and it means that you're selecting for those people interested in RXC's opinions in the first place. :)

Re:Slashboxes

[kubrick]

it's fairly large

I browse in flat mode -- it's pretty small like that. :)

I think my point is that people interested in reading Cringely's opinions on /. already have a way to do so. (Of course, the idea of associating discussions to the Slashboxes is a good one, although I imagine you'd need to rotate them over time (clear at the start of the month, or something like that).

Well....

[malkman]

While the things he says in this report are possible, I don't think the existing technologies that provide viewable images today are going to be obsolete any time within the next-to-near future.

I can safely say that by the time I die (late 2000's) CRT and LCD displays will still be around.

Re:Well....

[Sc00ter]

"by the time I die (late 2000's)"

Wow, so like 2850 or so? That's a LONG time ;-)

Re:Well....

[malkman]

Suspended animation!

Re:Well....

[Anonymous Coward]

> Suspended animation!

Say hello to Fry for me! ^_~

What's the deal with cellphones

[The Wooden Badger]

I don't see why everything has to run on/off your cell phone. I just don't get it. They bug me enough when they go off in one of my good professor's lectures, but this is going too far. I have to listen to nimrods in when I'm out just about anywhere; now some guy thinks that I would love to ditch my display for something that runs off the cell phone I refuse to buy. Beam me up Scotty; I really want to use your industrial, starfleet issue, bolted to the wall vid displays.

Re:What's the deal with cellphones

[foonf]

I don't see why everything has to run on/off your cell phone.

I find them distasteful also. But I think it does makes sense from a marketing statement. Cell phones are basically commodity items, lots and lots of people buy them, for all I know they're more common than PC's now in rich countries, probably moreso elsewhere. And just to handle with the digital encoding that most of them use right now requires a certain amount of computing power. So, since they're capable of it anyway, these people think, lets tack lots of other applications (which people of course will pay for) onto this commodity item that everyone is buying for unrelated reasons. Mostly, in fact, stuff that has already failed as pay internet services, but surely the convenience of running it on your cell phone while having an insipid conversation (when of course you should be concentrated on the car which, in theory, you are driving, on a congested road at 60 miles per hour) will suddenly justify users actually paying money for it.

Re:What's the deal with cellphones

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see why everything has to run on/off your cell phone.

For the same reason that two years ago everything had to run off the Web, whether it made sense or not. Venture capitalists are fucking lemmings, for the most part.

40 bucks?

[silvaran]

I can see enormously huge advantages to this technology. My eyesight isn't great, and I get headaches (for some reason) when I wear my glasses for extended periods of time in front of the monitor. I don't have the funds to buy a 19" LCD, but recently got a 19" CRT for Christmas.

Have you ever tried to lift one of these things? They're heavily. Not entirely immobile, but I've moved 4 times in the past two years, and it's a real pain to drag around. Add that to the weight of a TV, and you're really starting to bulk up on your electronics. I can't imagine struggle for those with 21" or larger monitors.

Granted, not everyone moves that often, but it seems to me that with the flexibility (variable scan rate, low electronics weight) these things could outsell LCD screens in no time. Imagine hanging _these_ on your wall. Or standing in the hallway playing a quick game of Quake Arena on the 32" screen on the wall while you wait for your coffee to perk.

For the environmentally conscious (we've seen a few lately on /.) there's nothing more easily disposable than a box filled almost entirely with air. I think the test will be when they cost less to replace than they do to repair. Kudos to this technology. I only hope the "straight face" Cringley mentioned was indicative of the truth, and not by an invitation for someone to call their bluff.

Re:40 bucks?

[malkman]

I completely agree with you on the weight issue. I would much rather have a nice portable unit to provide me with pretty colors than the existing CRT monitors. Sometimes I swear my 19" monster is BOLTED to the damn desk.

(I try everything; yelling at it, hitting it, threating it, though nothing seems to work.)

Re:40 bucks?

[alexburke]

I cant wait for the day that I can replace them with cheap, lightweight, easily moved *anythings*.

That day has come. (Okay, not cheap, but the rest fits nicely.)

FWIW, those 20" CRT monitors are probably about 18.5" viewable each. Roughly US$1,800 will give you two of these babies, one of which has just graced my desk. It's 19" of pure viewing pleasure, with multidomain technology for accurate color at any viewing angle up to 170 horizontal and vertical, and it tips the scales at a mere 17.5 pounds. 12080x1024 resolution looks really nice on this panel (which isn't surprising seeing as that's its native resolution.)

Don't throw out your existing speakers if you like bass, though. Hence the old but nice Yamaha YST-M20DSPs next to it. The literature actually mentions "powerful 3-watt speakers", which almost brought tears to my eyes from laughing so hard. They sound quite crisp, but are pitifully lacking in bass. (Yes, even when the bass is cranked in the OSD control.)

Having both HD15 and DVI-D connectors was a requirement for my next monitor, and this fits the bill nicely.

The built-in microphone is a nice touch. I don't recall it being mentioned in the lit; I only discovered it when I saw the MIC OUT connector on the back panel. I believe the opening for the mic itself is right between the top of the N and I in the ViewSonic logo on the front panel. It's very discreet.

Enough rambling -- grab a high-quality LCD today and don't look back.

Re:40 bucks?

[Fatal0E]

I noticed that .25 refresh... how does quake look on it?

does text hold together as you scroll by it?

Re:40 bucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

fatty...

Re:40 bucks?

[alexburke]

Yes, I should have mentioned its 25ms refresh rate. Text is pretty much rock-solid, even if I grab the scroll bar in IE and ram it up and down quickly. I haven't really played Quake III on it, but I have played Dark Age of Camelot (Go Hibernia!), and even if I switch mouselook on and flick my mouse around, the scenery flies around without any noticeable difference in smoothness (and lack of smearing) as on the 17" Sony GDM-200PS (very nice CRT monitor) which the VX900 replaced.

So, all in all, a kick-ass monitor. :)

Re:40 bucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think 19" monitors are that bad, I've carried a lot of 21" monitors, although I'm not very strong.

But I have a 32" wide-screen television and there is no way I'd try to lift that alone...yes, CRTs are big and heavy.

If monitors are among the heaviest stuff you have to drag along when moving, consider yourself lucky.

Vernor Vinge wrote about these,

[Mordant]

or something very much like them, in _A Deepness in the Sky_, available in paperback.

Re:and this is here why?

[Morphine007]

tha's some pretty [i]sweet[/i] aitchtee'emel u gots thar :) .... it's &lt and &gt ... just so you know fo yo nex flame eh?

Re:and this is here why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, thought I was on forum.fuckedcompany.com for a second.

The general level of idiocy on /. these days is comparable, so it's an understandable mistake to make.

bah!

[twitter]

I'm waiting for TFTs or their replacement to be cheap enough to replace my desk surface. It will be nice to go back to just writing on to sheets of paper, even if the sheets are virtual and my writing is captured by some kind of Graphiti translator. Ah yes, three by four foot window maker sessions would be nice.

Who needs LSD?

[heretic108]

"Turn on, JACK IN, drop out!"
-- ghost of Timothy Leary

Re:Who needs LSD?

[Anonymous Coward]

here in oz i can just go to a really good bush doof once a year to satisfy my need to 'clense the doors of perception'.. go to a trance/techno rave. even if you dont like the music you will score. then split and get those 5hta2 receptors switched on.

Re:Who needs LSD?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello Oz doof brother!
One question: only once a year? Man, I have to get back out there every 2 months...

Re:Who needs LSD?

[Angst Badger]

Spoken like someone who's never done LSD. If I had to choose, acid beats Fractint hands down, even if it's Fractint projected onto my retina with anti-aliased subsampling, real-time zoom, and the appearance of an 84-inch display. Until there are some major advances in graphics technology, no PC can produce the impression of a five-dimensional alien entity simultaneous receding into the past and accelerating into the future while interpenetrating all possible points in the universe at the speed of light accompanied by a soundtrack based on the contents of my subconscious mind.

Now, Fractint with acid -- that's the best of both worlds.

Re:Who needs LSD?

[heretic108]

> Spoken like someone who's never done LSD

My friend, I was joking. I actually did acid for 14 years, and took probably 250-400 trips in all.

But there comes a point where acid feels like 'window-shopping' and one starts to seek those transcendental states in real life.

Re:Who needs LSD?

[Tackhead]

> > "Turn on, JACK IN, drop out!"
> > -- ghost of Timothy Lear
>
> Spoken like someone who's never done LSD. [ ... ] Until there are some major advances in graphics technology, no PC can produce the impression of a five-dimensional alien entity simultaneous receding into the past and accelerating into the future while interpenetrating all possible points in the universe at the speed of light accompanied by a soundtrack based on the contents of my subconscious mind.

Spoken like someone who's never played DOOM III :-)

Re:Who needs LSD?

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone whose had a bad trip or two, I'll stay with Fractinit thank you.
It probably won't leave me covered with bits of snack-food, hiding in a dark closet twelve hours after I first use them, saying "I did what!?!"

Re:Who needs LSD?

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone whose had a bad trip or two, I'll stay with Fractinit thank you.
It probably won't leave me covered with bits of snack-food, hiding in a dark closet twelve hours later, saying "I did what!?!"
And that's just the flashbacks!

crazy crazy...

[norweigiantroll]

Stuff is getting so small, not just montiors. Imagine, soon enough they'll have virtual reality games in computers inside sunglasses.

Re:and this is here why?

[Morphine007]

heh ;)

yeah... the signal to noise has been taking quite a beating lately... even that which gets modded up to (+3, congrats-you-can-spell) is starting to have a ... ... 'regurgitated' feel to it

This is an interesting possibility

[cadallin451]

I hope these pan out. There are a couple of difficulties I see though, the retinal scanning aspects of MEMS displays would probably work a lot like a telescope eyepiece. You'd have to hold the device, or your head, at just the right place for the image to be in focus and on the correct part of your retina. That could definately prove cumbersome. The other displays he talks about sound great, but what are you going to use for a white light source that will produce a bright enough image? Can you make led's big enough to supply enough light for a 20-something inch screen? Otherwise they're going to have to use expensive bulbs that will have to be replaced regularly, and that would seem to give CRTs or LCDs the edge.

Re:This is an interesting possibility

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it would be able to track the center of your retina?

Re:This is an interesting possibility

[cadallin451]

it seems like that would be terribly difficult to implement in a sub-$200 device

Now this will really destroy my eyes!

[Dr_Marvin_Monroe]

I thought that I had damaged my eyes enough already, what with the constant focus distance that I get behind the monitor.... Good!.....now I'll have to stare at a 3" slot, keeping my eye movements to an absolute minimum for hour after hour in order to get the "BIG PICTURE"..... No thanks, get me a monitor where I'm exercising my eyes MORE not less......

Re:Now this will really destroy my eyes!

[mikewas]

I suspect there'll be some tracking circuitry involved. Something like what the newest lasik eye surgery units use. They track the retina and use the results to aim the laser.

There's also laser-based diagnostic equipment that uses lasers to sense the correction needed by your eyeballs. This'd be another cool feature to add. Sense your eyes' focus & aberations then adjust the image to correct.

With these features you could move your eyes and change their focus and still see the display!

The next step is to change the display as you move your eyes or change the focus. Move sideways to view different folders then change focus to see the contents of a selected folder. I can see a series of standard eye gestures similar to those used with a stylus on a touchpad.

Re:Now this will really destroy my eyes!

[Anonymous Coward]

People who see the same images everywhere are classified as mentally insane.

But hey, its worth it because I get a great picture!

Re:Now this will really destroy my eyes!

[NETHED]

RSI in my eyes....thanks, just when i thought my hands were going to fall off, i'm going to go blind.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

MEMS or not MEMS is not the solution

[AtomicBomb]

I usually have a bit of reservation for retinal display... If we forget to set the screensaver, the electron beam may burn a few pixels on the monitor... If the MEMS control unit got stuck, guess which part of your eyes will get burned...

For MEMS based projection monitor, it is conceptually similar to an old fashion CRT. Both scan the {laser,electron} beam line-by-line to create image. The 8lb of lead required for CRT is to protect us again the electron beam. The scanning circuit itself is not that bulky.

If we can project colored TV image with laser safely and economically today, we do not really need to have MEMS yet. The problem is whether it is technically feasible. In my country, the allowable power for laser pointer is 1mW. Assume the max intensity of any pixel of the "laser TV" is 0.01 mW, a 800x600 resolution require a 4.8W laser. It is a pretty scary stuff...

Re:MEMS or not MEMS is not the solution

[tfoss]

If we can project colored TV image with laser safely and economically today, we do not really need to have MEMS yet. The problem is whether it is technically feasible. In my country, the allowable power for laser pointer is 1mW. Assume the max intensity of any pixel of the "laser TV" is 0.01 mW, a 800x600 resolution require a 4.8W laser. It is a pretty scary stuff...

Which is exactly why a MEMS system would be great. You don't have a 1 mW laser per pixel, you have one (or three) light source(s) which are scanned across X by Y positions. Low power, very bright display. I just wonder how difficult it will be to scan fast enough & deal with timings.
-Ted

Three quick points

[Kiwi]

1. I can see this kind of technology making laptops smaller; without needing an LCD display, all one has to do is have a keyboard (which can fold up) and a jack for hooking up the glasses with the MEMS display to.
2. Enhanced "security". Useful for such high-security applications such as looking at your p0rn in the same room as your wife without her knowing.
3. 3) Blakes 7 predicted this technology back in 1978 (do a search for "walkman" on that page). Can anyone cite an earlier prediction for this kind of technology in science fiction literature.

- Sam

Re:Three quick points

[ignorant_newbie]

Enhanced "security". Useful for such high-security applications such as looking at your p0rn in the same room as your wife without her knowing.

you don't watch porn _with_ your wife?

Privacy aspect

[Graspee_Leemoor]

How come nobody has stated the obvious yet ?

It's perfect for pr0n!

Now your boss will have to look at your facial expression to see if you're working or not; good poker players need never work again!

graspee

Re:Privacy aspect

[PacoTaco]

Now your boss will have to look at your facial expression to see if you're working or not

Well, your boss could always look elsewhere...

wrong

[blablablastuff]

why on earth would you need a 5 watt laser?
it's being reflected thousands of times across an area, not combining thousands of pizels into one focussed beam and shooting it at you. think before you grab your tin foil hat

Re:wrong

[AtomicBomb]

Are you implying that the light source will become stronger when reflected multiply times???

The number of photon reaches a given area will become less when the laser is being scanned in a fast rate. That's exactly the reason why visual inspection machine operating at high speed usually need very strong light source (eg class 3b laser).

Goodbye MEMS, hello OLEDs

[Snaller]

They are still talking about scanners and beams. Junk that and get with OLEDS - organic light emitting dioeds. Since Kodak discovered this in 1987 they've been working hard to make it a usable technology, and now they claim its here. Lightyears ahead of old LEDS (these a crystal clear and sharp, and need no back projection), as wide as a wall or as small as a screen on a creditcard, these things are slim and cheap.

Though admittedly they will not shine a laser in your eye :)

Wanna bet Bob dropped LSD?

[Anonymous Coward]

He has some wild hallucinations. Remember his bad trip about how Microsoft was going to get everyone to drop TCP/IP or something crazy along those lines..

Re:Wanna bet Bob dropped LSD?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh whatever. Wanna bet people who are so paranoid about their own mental stability that they'd never take LSD are twice as likely to suffer from hallucinations as those who have? See, what your vague generalization in which you suggest that chemistry is influencing those in your immediate environment indicates is that you suffer from a condition called paranoid schizophrenia. Now maybe Bob is a paranoid schizophrenic like yourself, but his MEMs article doesn't support that observation so shut the fuck up.

Little to do with tiny devices.

[Thomas M Hughes]

The article was more about using these devices to display onto a transparent screen of whatever size you want. That is, they're not talking as much about directly sending this information to your eyes (on a cell phone), but instead making a box that looks just like a television, but has greater resolution, is non-toxic to make, and (supposedly) very cheap and light.

However, there's something seriously lacking in this article. They claim the current civilian devices cost upwards of $10,000 dollars. But they also claim that the price will drop to $40 dollars. That sounds wonderful. But I don't see something losing 99.6% of its production cost in a short amount of time. Certainly not if this company is seeking to maintain its profits.

My short summary: sounds interesting, not very probable until there are some economical changes to the devices.

Re:Little to do with tiny devices.

[rtaylor]

With the way chips go thats really only about a decade.

Sure, won't have it next Christmas -- but odds are they'll be cheap enough to be in nearly everything display wise by 2015.

That said, you can probably pick one up today at your local high end home theatre shop.

Re:Little to do with tiny devices.

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Well, if you went back 20 years and told them you could buy a 1.2Ghz chip for $100 bucks. Not only would they say it was impossable to make in the first place, but if they could, it would probably cost $100,000,000.

Hell, they'd probably laugh at the fesibilty of a 486 chip for under $100,000. Now they are so worthless people can hardly sell them.

Re:Little to do with tiny devices.

[Gryftir]

As I remember my economics 101, profit is not directly porportional to price. If I buy a hundred widgets for 1 dollar, that a lot better then buying 1 widget for 50 dollars, profit wise. Of course this depends on demand. But having read over the stuff in detail a while back, I did come to the realization that these appear to be much easier to repair then traditional screens, either CRT or LED. Actually, how often HAVE you seen either of those being repaired? Then there is market share. Anyway I'm babbling, time for my opinion. The price will go down, because competitors to MEMS have significant market share. This means they don't have much elasticity of demand (a mathematical measurement of the ratio between demand and price; Gasoline, for example, in general has a low elasticity, price goes up people will still have roughly the same demand). Plus once economies of scale (it's always cheaper to buy or produce in bulk) get started, they can start dropping the price to attain market share. Right now they aren't shipping so everything they put out is an attempt to get and keep mind share. Anyway I'm starting to babble again. Gryftir Santa Carla By Night

Holography?

[eyepeepackets]

With the projection capabilities of these, they might be useful in many ways. Two parallel lines of these, offset and calibrated, could make a good "in the air" screen. Add multiple rows and you could get a really nice holographic type of display.

I'm looking forward to following this technology, hot stuff!

Re:Holography?

[kevinvee]

I'm not sure what medium you are thinking about using for the light to reflect off of ("in the air screen"), but once thats figured out they could make a circle of these for a 3d holographic display, each generating the image at a different angle.

Vaporware as usual

[Scutter]

Yeah, I'll believe it when I see it. Yes, the technology exists, but it will be twenty years (if ever) that it gets affordably into the hands of consumers. Remember, we were all supposed to be living on the moon or piloting a flying car to work or using jet packs by now. Actually, all that was supposed to happen by the 1980's.

There's a lot of good stuff out there that's permanently in prototype.

Re:Vaporware as usual

[Rhinobird]

Yeah that is so true. You remember teh one about how there was supposed to be a computer in every home. Yeah that didn't happen either. And since these things are made EXACTLY like computer chips, they will NEVER become cheap enough for the average person to afford. Yup, they will always be $15 rand apiece.

Re:Vaporware as usual

[BitGeek]

These aren't made "EXACTLY like computer chips".

There's a massive manufacturing difference between a micro mechanical device and doping a substrate to make a semiconductor. About equal to the difference between painting a robot and building one.

I'm not saying crinkly is right, I'm just saying Moores law applying is not a foregone conclusion. (In fact, it will probably be some multiple of Moores law-- 1/2 or 2X or something.)

This is, however, the first bits of nanotech, and I'm impressed that TI has made as much process as they have. I remember reading about DLP back 5-6 years ago.

just great

[Anonymous Coward]

How long before I am forced by the government to install copy wright protection in my eyes?

Private performance != public performance

[yerricde]

In order to display your DVD on their wireless headsets, it would have to be broadcast to them and broadcasting a DVD would be restricted by copyright

Wrong. In copyright law (Title 17, United States Code), "broadcasting" a movie is called "performance." Performance is not an exclusive right of a copyright holder; you're thinking of public performance and display (17 USC 106). Performance within a household would almost certainly count as fair use (17 USC 107).

EULAs presented after the sale aren't likely to be all that enforceable against an individual citizen acting in a private home viewing environment.

Re:Private performance != public performance

[Anonymous Coward]

Performance within a household would almost certainly count as fair use

1) What you (or I) think is 'Fair Use' is irrelevent.

2) "Almost certainly"? Are you willing to risk jail time for "almost certainly"?

3) What if someone outside your house can pick up the signal? Isn't it then a 'public performance'?

Sheesh.

I think they mean replace in a different way

[superpeach]

...Like the typewriter described in the article. The TV will still be a big box looking like a TV, but the MEMS thingy will be projecting the image onto the screen... so, it will look like a TV, work like a TV, but the insides will be pretty much empty apart from the MEMS and some tuning electrics.

Re:I think they mean replace in a different way

[OutRigged]

Don't worry, they'll still find a way to make it cost $5000+, because it's a new and improved technology!

Doesn't matter that the box is empty, and the actual projector is less then an square inch.

If it's big, and looks expensive, it probably is.

Let's see where Moore's law takes us, shall we?

[Mac Degger]

Some simple arrithmatic:

First, lets assume that this kind of tech would only be interesting for me at a pricepoint of some $300 (maybe that'll change when I get filthy rich, but let's not count our Aibo's before they're hacked).

This takes 5 iterations to get to (assuming Moore's law holds for the price as well as the capabilities):

$10.000->$5.000->$2.500->$1.250->$612. 5->$306.

Five generations means 5x18=90 months

That's 7 years before this tech comes to the marketplace at an affordable price (iow capable of achieving market penentration).

Seems like OLEDS, Smartpaper or E-ink will have won by then :)

Re:Let's see where Moore's law takes us, shall we?

[fluxrad]

What has the number of transistors per square inch on a microchip got to do with the cost of a MEMS box?

At some point, they'll come out with a way to mass produce consumer-type displays at a fairly reasonable cost (say $1000 initially) and they'll just keep coming down from there. Of course, I don't see this happening for at least another couple of years, but I think you're going to see the price drop drastically and then fall slowly from there....you definitely won't see a continual halving for the next seven years.

Re:Let's see where Moore's law takes us, shall we?

[SiMac]

Moore's Law only applies to transistor-based microprocessors, although it can be in most cases successfully applied to processing technology of any kind, but not any other technologies. If it applied for other technologies, Cringely's 19" monitor would cost $100.

LCD projector

[yerricde]

But a conventional LCD, in order to be useful, has to be a certain size

Then make a rear-projection LCD. This way, you can shrink the LCD element and maintain a reasonable sized picture.

Dimmer?

[lostchicken]

LCDs, which, for all their flatness, will always be dimmer, too.

Dimmer? I have a 17" LCD in front of me, and I still would have bought it even if it was bigger than my old CRT. It's actually brighter, because I can crank the brightness all the way up, and black pixels are still pitch black. The digital interface is razer sharp, and the image quality is amazing.

I don't know what he's been looking at, but my LCD is the brightest display I've ever used, or at least it seems that way.

Re:Dimmer?

[rtaylor]

Never used a good CRT huh? Sit a decent 19" Sony flatscreen CRT beside the LCD and I'd be more than willing to bet the colours are richer and brighter with much much higher contrast.

That said, todays LCDs are much better than the original batch of 14" and 15" CRTs. Especially considering CRTs lose their colour over time (phosphors wear out). Any graphics (publishing) guys I know replace their CRTs every 6 months due to that.

Re:Dimmer?

[Anonymous Coward]

but LCDs still suck shit for games. That is until this becomes available around 2003.

Re:Dimmer?

[Anonymous Coward]

there are lots of different lcd types. The one I still can not understand they use (ie nintendo gameboy) is that damn reflective one. Sure its cheap and can do color. Course you dont have to replace a bulb once and ahwile either. But it is damn near imposible to see unless its in sunlight, and not direct sunlight either. Inside its imposible to use unless directly under a decent light source. Forget it under office lights. Other kinds of lcd you look at them and go OH thats what people have been talking about. The only interesting one that is coming up is the organic ones. But those are 2-4 years off before they even get to palm pilot size with a decent resolution.

Re:Dimmer?

[lostchicken]

My father develops medical imaging systems, and the highest end stuff they buy are LCDs.

They remove the color mask, and the things are almost blinding. They are brighter than any CRT is, and they last 10 times as long, and if you replace the bulb, they'll last forever.

Re:Dimmer?

[rtaylor]

Ahh definatly. Without the colour masking (which blocks atleast 50% of the light -- even on white) I could see them being quite bright indeed.

We've seen some of this before

[MagikSlinger]

Sony is pursuing this approach and I believe there were a few other MEMS-based articles posted on Slashdot in recent years.

Magic?

[EdMcMan]

OK, so how does this work? In the beginning of the article, they talk about the MEMS as a kind of laser that will shine something in your eye. Later on, they say that the MEMS can be connected *to* a laser and then project at a screen. So, what is it? And why is this so much better than having tiny LCDs? Is that quality that much better? LCD goggles have astoundingly good quality if you've ever tried them.

Re:Magic?

[Drakin]

MEMS is a chip that does the work. The same chip can be used for differnt aplication, from retina projecting to TV projection.

Re:Magic?

[EdMcMan]

What makes this different from a video card?

Re:Magic?

[anotherone]

You're not grasping the concept here.

MEMS is a chip, but not just a normal chip with transisters and crap on it- it has thousands of tiny mirrors, each attached to a tiny motor. These mirrors flicker back and forth to reflect light onto whatever.

Re:Magic?

[EdMcMan]

Ahh, ok. That seems to make more sense. Still, using a small lcd would seem to be easier if you ask me...

Re:Magic?

[Rhinobird]

Until you want to show fast moving pictures. LCD's have perrenially been plagued with slow response times. These tiny mirrors move MUCH faster. And if you want a brighter screen, just up the brightness of the lightsource. With LCD's if the lightsource gets to bright, they melt. Want a movie screen with MEMs? just get a really bright light source and a screen. Want a tv? Get a dimmer lightsource and a screen? Want a retinal dislpay? get an even dimmer light source and stick it in your eye (dump the screen). Although I think that movie thaters would use high resolution MEMs chips than your tv.

Re:Magic?

[LinuxCumShot]

does this mean we'll get refresh rates again? thats why i went to lcd, no flicker.

bling bling!

-1, Informative

[Anonymous Coward]

How come nobody has stated the obvious yet?

Somebody already has.

Parent comment should be moderated -1, Informative.

Turn it around aim it at a wall.

[crovira]

I want something that I can watch in complete privacy of turn around and aim at a wall covered with "active paint" to amplify the emitted signal and watch with some friends.

HD TV's a crock anyway. It'll never happen. Too much money is already being made off the existing infrastructure and the content doesn't merit any increase in quality. Its all just filler between the ads anyway.

The reruns won't get any better just because you increase the resolution on your set. They were taped with one technology and that where its going to stay.

And reruns are all we're going to get when Valenti finally wins one for the xxAAs.

The death of content.

Re:Turn it around aim it at a wall.

[rtaylor]

Out of curiosity, what does the display device have to do with a broadcast format / standard?

Odds are to get good use out of a MEMs device it will require HDTV type standards or better. If I recall correctly, some of the higher end HDTVs are using MEMs technology today.

Re:Turn it around aim it at a wall.

[Anonymous Coward]

He is just stating that most of the rerun trash that is on tv has been recorded in either pal/ntsc resolution. But I dissagree with him in the fact it will not happen. The FCC said make it so. And by God they will, or they will loose all right to broadcast! They do not want off the gravy train of tv. What gets me about them though is they make you pay for cable so you can get more, and STILL have advertisments on it. Soon my 35 inch tv will be garbage. Then Ill get a decent lcd screen thats huge :)

Re:Turn it around aim it at a wall.

[Webmonger]

Actually, many shows are filmed on film, so it might be possible to remaster them in HDTV. That would require the original film and the will, of course.

Re:Turn it around aim it at a wall.

[Wonko42]

HD TV's a crock anyway. It'll never happen.

Oh, really? Then please explain to me just what the hell that big black thing in my living room is. It's got a screen, speakers, and I'll be damned if it doesn't have "HDTV" in big letters on the front. Golly gee willikers, it's an HDTV. And I bought it almost two years ago.

HDTV has happened already, genius-breath.

Re:Turn it around aim it at a wall.

[Anonymous Coward]

How many channels transmit in HDTV?

Connectors.

[TechyImmigrant]

High resolution with normal refresh rates requires high bandwidth. These tiny little devices are going to look pretty silly with four BNC connectors and and IEC plug hanging out the back.

Oh no, Tom Furness again

[Animats]

This is one of those Tom Furness things from the University of Washington's Human Interface Technology Lab. It's been "Real Soon Now" for the last decade. There's a great book from 1999, "The Visionary Position" about the mess there. Their four startups from the late 1990s all tanked by the time the book came out.

It's not that you can't build wearable displays. Many have been built. It's that wearing a display isn't fun. Wearable displays get tiring fast. Try one some time.

If you really want one of these things, MicroOptical sells a VGA-compatible eyeglass-mounted display for $2500. And here's an article about Linux on a wearable. This guy writes about using EMACS, "awk", and a wrist-mounted keyboard.

Re:Oh no, Tom Furness again

[Wonko42]

Like many readers, you seem to have missed the point completely. MEMS displayed are not limited to being wearable displays. They can project images large enough to fill a TV screen. Hell, with a strong enough light source, you could even use one as a digital movie projector in a theatre.

In addition, MEMS isn't limited to just projecting and capturing optical images. That same MEMS chip can be used as an extremely-fast processor.

And it's not even vaporware. These things are already being made and bought and used. It's just a matter of waiting for the price to drop to a level where consumers can afford the technology.

Re:Oh no, Tom Furness again

[Animats]

MEMS displayed are not limited to being wearable displays. They can project images large enough to fill a TV screen. Hell, with a strong enough light source, you could even use one as a digital movie projector in a theatre.

The "sweep the laser beam spot across the big screen" approach to image projection doesn't work very well. The effect is something like a laser light show; the strobing effects are visible. And if you crank the spot intensity up to a good level for the whole screen, the beam is dangerous. You're really abusing persistence of vision at that point. Nor do you need MEMS for that; just moving mirrors.

Generating a whole line of image at once (not just one pixel), then scanning that across the other axis, does work. The Scophony system did that in the 1930s, using a very neat technology worth looking up. MIT revived it in the 1980s.

MEMS devices are widely used for digital projectors right now, but there's a tiny moving mirror for every pixel, and no scanning at all. That's why those images look so steady. If you saw Star Wars in digital, you probably saw it on a TI projector using an array of MEMS mirrors.

In addition, MEMS isn't limited to just projecting and capturing optical images. That same MEMS chip can be used as an extremely-fast processor.

Huh? No way. Are you mixing up Drexler-type nanotechnology with microelectromechanical systems? MEMS are electromechanical devices fabbed by photolithography, like ICs. There are some useful devices fabbed that way, most of which are accelerometers for airbag deployment. MEMS are way too big and way too slow to be used as computational elements.

Ahhh.. good ole Bob..

[BLiP2]

One week is a thoughtful column about third quarter predictions for the tech sector, the next it's how cybernetic gerbals will be all our masters in only six months...

3D

[jpaz]

From the article:

Scan a different signal into each eye, and you have 3-D

This would be extremely useful. There are many reasons to want to see things in 3D (medical, engineering, design, etc.)

Also it would bring 3D video to the home. 3D is possible at a theater, using glasses, by polarizing light and having different polarized filters on each eye. But this doesn't work on a TV because you can't polarize the light from a TV. But MEMS 3D would allow this.

Then, of course, there's the obligatory 3D pr0n. :)

Re:3D

[Anonymous Coward]

you certainly can polarize the light coming from a TV (in general, any CRT in fact). the problem is synchronizing polarization changes with the picture being displayed. www.stereographics.com.

Re:3D

[guybarr]

Then, of course, there's the obligatory 3D pr0n.

you could try a woman. they're 3D in a deeper way.

Theme day for Slashdot

[Mulletproof]

"Where I live the trash man charges $20 to haul one away. Multiply that by the 310 million monitors that will be trashed by 2004 and getting rid of them is not only a big headache, it is a big business. Building CRTs is toxic, too, which is why it is mainly done these days in Asia"

Was this coincidence or is it the "toxic parts in Asia" theme day? At any rate, this is cool technology, the gateway to true web browsing via cell phone. Look at the lens on the phone, and BAM! Surfin' away in full 27" high resolution glory. Forgive me if I display my pessimism here, but we won't be seeing something this cool for a while. Your friend the LCD will be with us for a while simply because it doesn't cost a fraction of $10,000 a shot.

Re:And the #1 reason why MEMS will become popular.

[Danse]

Nah... someone will just come up with the equivalent of the cable-splitter.

What's the deal with selective technophobes?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just cannot understand why so many people otherwise apparently comfortable with fairly advanced technology - like a web browser - find a telephone that's not attached to wires to be such an intimidating thing.

I mean - it's a telephone! Do you also boycott landlines?

I'm not trolling here, but I have to say that Americans seem more likely to have this bizarre attitude to cell phones than other 1st world countries. What's the deal - they've been comon as dirt around here for at least 10 years... kids have 'em, people on welfare have 'em, practically everyone has one. Are they still some kind of status symbol in the US?

Personally I don't really like any phone all that much. F2F rules for personal contact, and for anything important, put it in an email! The thing is that they're so cheap now that it wouldn't even be worth my while even having a land line, was it not for net access.

Re:What's the deal with selective technophobes?

[MaxVlast]

They're intrusive. They're annoying, and they're distracting. I feel the same way about land lines, but at least they are isolated to the house. No movie theater or playhouse is going to install a land line in the auditorium, so there's little to worry about on that front. It's a lot more likely that some dumbass fifteen year old is going to bring one into the movie that I'm enjoying (like $15 later) and talk to his homies about the bitch he's feeling up in front of me. I, personally, don't want to see that unless it's part of the film.

Re:What's the deal with selective technophobes?

[toast0]

Well at least in the US a lot of the problem with cell phones is people who have them and don't know how to turn them off.

Also, its kind of nice to know that while you're out doing whatever, your boss/significant other/parent/annoying friend can't get in touch with you. With a cell phone, the common behavior is to brinig it with you all the time and have it on as much as possible.

Re:What's the deal with selective technophobes?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a lot more likely that some dumbass fifteen year old is going to bring one into the movie that I'm enjoying (like $15 later) and talk to his homies about the bitch he's feeling up in front of me. I, personally, don't want to see that unless it's part of the film

Heh, yeah I guess I'd have to agree with you there... All the same it still seems odd to avoid a particular technology simply because other people misuse it... I mean you're on the internet, right?

I guess I just remember from a few years back when cell phone were still seen exlusively as a yuppie toy, how many acquaintences declared they'd not be seen dead with one. Now cell phones have lost their magic as mere posessesions they're almost ubiquitous.

Ahh hell, at the end of the day I don't really want a TV in my phone either, but I've got to concede that there will probably be people for whom it's useful...

Re:What's the deal with selective technophobes?

[MaxVlast]

I don't avoid it. I have a phone and make frequent use of it. But I'd never buy a phone that doesn't vibrate, and I only use the ringer on mine when I'm asleep. I don't care if they ring, I just don't want them to ring during a romantic dinner at a restaurant, at the movies, or other places like that. Surely that isn't out of line with the opinions of others, right?

Re:What's the deal with selective technophobes?

[The Wooden Badger]

Being a "selective technophobe" is part of being a consumer. I prefer to call it voting with my wallet. I have no use for cell phones I don't think I will for many years. Besides that they cost too much for what I still consider an infant technology. I never hear people I talk to using cell phones with reasonable clarity. Being common as dirt is part of the problem. By adopting use I become part of the problem. I think that most people on them shouldn't be on them. They are an inconvenience more than the convenience they are intended to be. Running more tech off them is a giant step backwards in my mind. I think a better move would be wireless web enabled PDA's with all the new tech a plug in device. More functional and I still can be unreachable when I leave the house or business. The overriding reason I will not get a cell phone. I value my happy place.

Re:And the #1 reason why MEMS will become popular.

[PacoTaco]

Now every pair of eyeballs can be individually billed.

If that's successful, the MPAA will introduce legislation that requires you to pay per eyeball. "We don't want to overcharge one-eyed consumers," says the press release.

Ahhh, typewriters...

[Pig Hogger]

Quoteth the article:

There was something satisfying about pounding away on an old typewriter, getting so far into the moment that the guy in the next room would sometimes pound on the wall asking me to keep it down.

Reminds me of a hot midsummer night, about 25 years ago. I used to live above a reporter, and late one night, I was trying to sleep, but he was pounding on his typewriters. The sound was bouncing back on the interior court brick walls into my bedroom.

I used to play trumpet at school then, so I just took the trumpet and started playing loudly through the window. Whenever he'd step out on the balcony, I'd stop. After three times, he got the hint, and I got my beauty sleep...

crystal ball, what do you see?

[Anonymous Coward]

-"The Microsoft of the MEMS display business is Microvision"-

someday when we are using our MEM displays...

excuse me, my MEM display isn't working right

yeah, what's wrong

everyonce in a while, the thing misses my retina and hits my sinus area

allright just download SP4

Be careful with my eyeballs

[PacoTaco]

Is it just me, or does this technology seem a little dangerous? What if there's a power surge or something? You could end up with last week's JonKatz article floating in your field of vision for the rest of your life...

Re:Be careful with my eyeballs

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it just me, or does this technology seem a little dangerous? What if there's a power surge or something?

No, it's not just you. There are tons of other people who get their ideas about science from Star Trek.

Not sure if this was what you meant, but...

[Tomble]

There was a weird detective-type TV program about 10 years or so ago, one episode, some VR company were working on A VR system with a display very similar to this (but without the microscopic components).

It soon became apparent that someone in the company had hacked up the code so that they could refocus the lasers and burn out the brains of people using the VR systems. Very odd program. Don't know, but I presume that the sort of lasers they'd be likely to use wouldn't quite have that level of power (but I think the point was the killer also turned up the power or summat)

(In case someone can't tell, yes it was fiction).
OT? Well, not entirely.

Nothing like the Sony Glasstron. Not even close.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Sony Glasstron uses two minature LCDs in goggles. The Microvision devices actually shoot beams of light into your RETINA and the image/video/whatever is basically "implanted" into your sight. You can literally set up a billion by billion pixel screen the size of a football field right into your eye. You can see colors you've never seen in such vibrance. You should really read the article before you guess. The military uses these deivices to directly overlay map and military data directly into the soldiers right eye (You can also make it transparent so it doesn't blank you out from the world) and they can see realtime map overlays of themselves, where they are walking, what the wind speed it, where enemy checkpoints are, and also comlete night vision, and heat vision overlays DIRECTLY INTO THEIR RETINAS. This is the definition of COOL.

Coming in 2014

[Y-Crate]

The GameBoy REALLYAdvance(d)

1mb of RAM (whoohoo! ;) )
200MB ROM carts the size of salt grains "Now even easier to lose!" - Nintendo
and a virtual 20ft screen projected directly into your head.....but no backlight

"You must aim eyes directly at sun or flash of nuclear explosion at a precise angle. Deviation of .95959% will cause failure of display. Tests involving $.20 addition to GBRA proved that added complexity of thing called 'light button' too much for GBRA users." - Crazy Japanese guy claiming to be from Nintendo

And in other news, Nintendo has acquired the rights to the song "Staring At The Sun" by U2 for use in a future ad campaign. ;)

Please, no one take this seriously, I don't want some rabid Nintendo fanboys after me....the Atari ones were bad enough"

Question

[Cardhore]

MEMS retinal displays in use today have such high color saturation that they are capable of displaying colors never before seen on a computer of television screen.

Really?

Re:Question

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Apparetly so...

1024 shades of grey, that's 35 trillion colours. The maths dosn't add up there, but either way, it's a tab more that anything around today.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

RGB isn't capable of accurately representing all colors anyhow, since you only have three wavelengths of light available.

The contrast range is also pretty restrictive on current monitors, in part because white is supposed to be a white you can look at rather than a blinding light.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, they can display octarine.

Inserting images when you may not want them?

[0rganicM0lecules]

Curious.. Some of the comments make mention of glasses that everyone would wear all the time, interface with wireless "kiosks" or whatever while they're out walking the mall. Interesting if images could be created and inserted into someone's glasses which would trick the person into believing that this sent image is a real thing in thier environment... this would probably involve some serious tracking of the eyeballs, tech which probably wouldn't be in this particular incarnation (perhaps version 3.0). Just thought it might be a curiosity to some....

Re:And the #1 reason why MEMS will become popular.

[Jaysyn]

Last time I checked, movie theaters charged you for each one of your "urchins" as well. Not to mention the each ticket usually costs twice the price of a DVD rental. BTW.. In case you didn't notice VCR/DVD rentals didn't exactly kill Hollywood now did they?

Jaysyn

Re: headaches

[guybarr]

" ... I get headaches (for some reason) when I wear my glasses for extended periods of time in front of the monitor"

do you remember to give your eyes a break every 20..30 minutes ?

just remove your eyes from the screen, and look at infinity ( x > 30 meters) for a minute or two.

to remind you, you can use the xwrits program.

-- HTH

Flash based AND very good

[GCP]

It's politically incorrect to say anything good about Flash on Slashdot, so you have to say goofy things like "Flash based, but still very good". Unless of course you don't care about /. political orthodoxy, in which case you are free to call it a very good Flash-based presentation.

Re:Flash based AND very good

[Anonymous Coward]

free to call it a very good Flash-based presentation which not everyone can see; proprietary formats, etc.

No

[GCP]

Then there'd be no discussion, and the ideas are often worth discussing. If you don't think so, propose a Cringely category (if there isn't one already) and unsubscribe instead of trying to unsubscribe all of us.

So how about when you're done?

[Anonymous Coward]

So how about when you're done? Do you Turn off, JACK OFF, and drop in?

Re: energy dissipation.

[guybarr]

diffraction is of course a limit.

IANAOP (optic physicist), but my guess is energy dissipation in your optical/logical circuits (from the projected laser beam ...) should be a worse limitation.

(even if your system's resonances are far from the lasers' frequencies)

Corrections

[Arjuna Theban]

I'm not one to point out minor mistakes but these ones especially annoyed me:

1) It is micro-electro mechanical systems. Anyone who has ever read a single article about MEMS would know what it really stands for. It is annoying that noone seems to get a 4-letter acronym.

2) MEMS is not a product of the "emerging nanotechnology". It is a product of the long-available microtechnology just like its name suggests. We have a Microtechnology laboratory where 0.5um is out minimum feature size and we routinely build/develop MEMS devices.

Anyone who writes an article about advanced material should study a bit.

---

Re:Corrections

[Anonymous Coward]

2) MEMS is not a product of the "emerging nanotechnology". It is a product of the long-available microtechnology just like its

I don't think he was claiming that MEMS stems from nanotech, but rather that it will evolve further due to advances in nanotechnology, allowing the miracle price drops, etc.

Re:Corrections

[Anonymous Coward]

It is annoying that noone seems to get a 4-letter acronym.

Almost as annoying as people who don't know there's no such word as "noone".

"Noone" looks like a Middle English spelling for midday.

No one. Two words. Thank you.

Stupidity

[Taco Cowboy]

I think I read a quote somewhere about stupidity ... something about people can prevent illnesses, disappointments, failures, but there's no way to prevent stupidity.

Guess this is another evidence of how people can use high tech to do stupid things.

wow

[Anonymous Coward]

let me be the first to say(well first because i have read as many of these comments as that author did research) that this is the most poorly written article i have seen on /. in the past 1 and a half years..

Re:And the #1 reason why MEMS will become popular.

[Wonko42]

I think you missed the fact that a MEMS chip with a laser light source could easily be used to power a big-screen television. You'd watch TV just like you do now -- by looking at a big box -- only it would be the MEMS chip powering the display instead of a CRT (or several CRTs, in the case of some big-screen televisions).

MEMS is good for a lot more than just personal retinal-projected video.

What is he babbling about?

[K8Fan]

Coming? It's already here. What he's calling by the generic name MEMS, Texas Insturments calls by their trade name DLP (Digital Light Processing). It's all over the place, expecially the digital presentations of "Star Wars, Part 2: Attack of the Clones". Not mentioning the most successful current MEMS technology really costs him some credibility.

Or one fiberoptic cable.

[Mac Degger]

nuff said....

Vision Problems..

[wd123]

So where does this 'eye projection' leave people with visual problems? I've got a particular form of albinism which deforms my eye in such a way that my vision is basically uncorrectable (retinal problems). I've also got astigmatism. Is this thing going to track my eye movements while projecting into them, or am I basically screwed?

I've got problems enough with having to maintain close proximity with tvs and monitors, I'd hate to see all sorts of display technology move to a form like this which seems to lock me out. If you've got perfect or at elast good vision, sure, you're fine, but some of us don't.

I'd be interested to see if any care will be given for those of us not blessed with perfect vision, although I'd be surprised (and delighted) if that were the case. On the other hand, by the time this is affordable (and popular) I may have new options available to fix my vision with. Here's hoping.

Re:Vision Problems..

[Anonymous Coward]

Potentially a customized pre-distortion of the image might solve this problem. Wait till the optical-doctors get to work on this type of systems and integrate their knowledge into the system.

Apple vs. orange

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Seems like OLEDS, Smartpaper or E-ink will have won by then :)

I don't think they are competing for the same thing really (except for TV's maybe). An OLED, or E-ink will still require the physical size of a panel, even if you can fold it up.

The advantage with this is that the display device can be made smaller without making the actual displayed image smaller.

Don't buy

[dcturner]

AIUI CRTs work by having the phosphor giving out light even while it's not being bombarded with electrons. LCDs and projectors work by shining light through all the pixels at the same time. This idea is just using the moving-average idea that your retina uses, right?

If this thing is intending to shine a light into my eye to match real-world brightnesses over millions of pixels, isn't it going to need a collimated light source millions of times brighter than real-world light? I'm sure that is possible with a laser but do I want something that is only not blinding me because it's moving fast enough? Anybody seen what happens to a film when it gets stuck? Doesn't take long for the frame to burst into flames.

Re:Don't buy

[haggar]

Reminds me of our lab sessions (both in analog electronics and telecommunications) at the uni, where we used analog scopes: There always would be some dumbo who failed to apply any signal to both x and y, focusing the whole energy of the electron beam in the center of the scope (damaging the scope's display).
The lab technicians were going bonkers about this :o)

Re:Don't buy

[absurd_spork]

Read the article. The brightness requirement depends on the size of the projection display. If you want to project the whole thing on a skyscraper wall, well, you need a lot of light. If you want to project it on somebody's retina, you need a lot less light because the retina is so small. To be precise, you need precisely the amount of light that arrives on your retina from a normal monitor, and that's not very much (and not dangerous at all)

Re:Why do we keep publishing stories by this guy?

[Anonymous Coward]

awesome!!!

Re:I wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen to that. If they're going to create stereo 3D, spare a thought (or make an option to disable it) for those of us who can't use the damn things.

Astigmatic Coward

Retinal Scanners=Pain

[rufusdufus]

I have tried out retinal scanners and I say they are not the wave of the future. First off, its like looking through a keyhole, which is fatiguing. Next, its grainy the same way a laser hologram is grainy [so its not just a problem of low resolution]. After using one for only about 5 minutes, I got one of the worst headaches I've ever had. My eyes hurt for hours afterwards, and were photo sensitive. I do not see this technology becoming mainstream for a very long time, but probably relegated to special uses similar to what holography and other 3d tricks are used for today.

Re:And the #1 reason why MEMS will become popular.

[fferreres]

Ok, it's supposed to be funy (and it is :-) but it would be the same. They can charge per eyeball atoms-count if they want. You'll look at the final price.

Anyway (changing subject), maybe they could make an eyeglass version so that we don't need to work all the time at the office. Just imagine a 11:30 am pr0n session with this stuff :-) (ok, it could be a mess!)

Customization for Bad Eyesite???

[GW Hayduke]

I was just wondering how this would affect people with not so normal vision...
One of the first things I realized after having LASIK done a few years back was the enjoyment of watching TV in bed without worrying about glasses/contacts, etc... (previous vision before LASIK was 20/800... corrected to 20/20).
So if the image is being beamed directly to your retina, it should be able to make corrections for astigmitism/myopia, what have you....
Just something to think about..... from the people at Getty :)

Goggle heads abounds!

[Valen Faerlwynd]

I always liked the cyber-punk use of goggle type visulization systems in novels (greats like Snow Crash and Neuromancer come to mind, although Gibson's tech was a bit more invasive). They usually involve small wireless goggle/headphone combos receiving data from another source (triangular box on the floor, pack on the belt, spaceship's main computer, etc.) In fact one of the best fight scenes I ever read involved Hiro Protagonist (For those of you who never read Snow Crash, go out and do so at once! It's worth it for the post-rational and post-superpower America devoid of natural resources.) goggled to an infrared display while listening to his friend's band as he hacks apart some generally un-nice guys. Well, in case I've peaked anyone's interest I won't say anymore.

Love and Peace,
Valen

What about pr0n?

[sharkey]

Now you'll have to hold your cellphone to your eye and use the keyboard/mouse too! You'll need 3 hands.

imagine combining this with

[tsadi]

the virtual keyboard. how small will our PCs now be? :-)

Re:And the #1 reason why MEMS will become popular.

[xigxag]

It's true that VHS didn't kill off the moviehouse. So why do I think MEMS might? Well, the two situations aren't comparable. The VHS/DVD rental window opens months after the theatrical release has ended. How come? Because when you rent a film for $2.99, the rest of your family, your friends, etc., effectively watch it for free. So to allow rentals during the theatrical release would seriously undercut the initial revenue stream. However, a retinal MEMS display would be economically equivalent to a movie ticket. Instead of a family of four paying $32 at the theater, they'd pay $32 to watch four secure personal MEMS displays at home. This could be released simultaneously with the first-run theatrical issue at no loss of revenue to Hollywood. But it would drastically affect the bottom line of the theaters even if only 20% of consumers decided to watch from the comfort of their living rooms.

not another refresh based technology

[dfries]

When I ditch my crt display I want to be able to replace it with something that doesn't have a refresh rate. LCD's are great for this, I don't want another scanning based display that will keep on flickering on me. My display runs at 85Hz and it isn't fast enough.

The other great thing about LCD's is the image isn't distorted. OLED's like LCD's would have both properties, let's not take another step back when we get something new.

Petty Sniping Criticism

[Baldrson]

These displays are based on MEMS -- Micro Electrical Mechanical Systems -- tiny machines. They may well reprsent the first big success for the emerging nanotechnology industry.

Looks to me like Cringley's brain went through a hiccup here:

Nano != Micro with "reprsent" lending additional cheap-shot weight to the conjecture.

Not quite accurate.

[Ma'at]

A DLP system uses three mirrors per pixel of resolution. (Three arrays of mirrors, one each for red, green, and blue.) A MEMS system would use one mirror for the entire image.

-Maat

Re:Not quite accurate.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know whether this is the accepted nomenclature or not, but if it is it's profoundly stupid.

MEMS is the general term for the processing technology for making these micromechanical devices. The DPS system is most certainly a MEMS device, at least in the correct technical sense. If some yahoos are trying to coopt that word for use to describe only a subset of the micromechanical projection technologies, then they're distorting its meaning.

All else being equal, however, I'd just assume that you're full of shit.

Re:Not quite accurate.

[Anonymous Coward]

DLP *is* a MEMS system. A system which controls over a million microscopic mirrors.

Re:Not quite accurate.

[K8Fan]

The large theater systems from Christie and Barco and the very largest home and business DLP projectors use three DLPs. Most home and small business DLP projectors use a single DLP chip and a rotating color wheel. Personally, the technology behind DLP, an array of mirrors, is more impressive than a single moving mirror.

Coincidentially, TI's design is the result of their attempts to create exactly the single-mirror type of system described. They gave up on that approach because of what they learned about physical behavior at the nano-level. The mirrors tended to stick on one position or the other. So they turned that from a liability to a virtue. Instead of trying to directly analog modulate the light, they decided to use time modulation.

DLP is no less cool because it actually exists, and is in use in thousands of projectors.

Enhanced Security

[gnarled]

Perhaps these could provide a security improvement to handheld devices. For instance, it could be that when you first turn it on, it reverses the device and projects a picture of your retina towards a camera to verify the identity of the user. It could quickly check this periodically during use. This would make stealing these kinds of devices very unattractive, because they would have no value to anyone but the user.

Re:Monitors Replacements , 3D Holographic Monitors

[geekster_2000]

already in development which will have many more
advantages using MEMS technology. ferroelectric
molecular optical nontechnology will be the
material of the future with many hundreds of
new product aplications.

Tech that won't die...

[brandsndottr]

I can safely say that by the time I die (late 2000's) CRT and LCD displays will still be around.

Yeah, sure, CRT and LCD displays will still be around -- just as tubes are still around. There will still be people who say you can't have a truly perfect viewing experience without the heat, high-frequency noise, and flicker of a good old traditional CRT. They'll also swear that the standard HUD with 120-line-per-degree resolution, 1KHz effective refresh, and full-speed tracking and registration "takes the soul out of" video presentations.

Re:Nothing like the Sony Glasstron. Not even close

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, my monitor doesn't hurt my eyes enough as it is. Now I can have scanlines beamed DIRECTLY INTO MY RETINAS. I can't imagine this is conducive to a lifetime of good eyesight...
I can see more vivid colors than I've ever seen before? I dunno... LSD gives LCD and CRT a run for their money...

Aside from Typos...

[huckda]

the article was very interesting, although I'm not so sure I would like to be scanning a focus'd light source into my eye directly to use my retina as the projector screen.
Long term effects obviously haven't been tested on this one...wearing contacts/glasses is bad enough just to see over yonder, but who knows what these little gadgets would do to your eyes had to been using them a lifetime...

--Huck

You Forgot

[huckda]

Looking east to read /. on the wall...

Writing?

[Karellen]

Ugh - why on earth would you want to go back to writing? It's so bloody *slow*. I hate writing. It takes forever, and having to differentiate my written symbols for ( { < and [ enough so that any intelligence (human, artificial or other) can decipher them on their own (without context) would really start to annoy me.

Typing's quicker and more precise.

I suppose at least for an English speaker though. I guess if you speak a language with characters that aren't neccessarily part of 7-bit ascii, things can get a little more complicated...

K.

Re:And the #1 reason why MEMS will become popular.

[Anonymous Coward]

they'd pay $32 to watch four secure personal MEMS displays at home.

Yeah right -- the motion picture industry is going to broadcast new release movies directly to people at home, "securely". You know and they know if they tried to do this it would be immediately broken. No, people will be going to the theaters for a long time to come.

Re:And the #1 reason why MEMS will become popular.

[eaolson]

I think you missed the fact that a MEMS chip with a laser light source could easily be used to power a big-screen television. You'd watch TV just like you do now -- by looking at a big box -- only it would be the MEMS chip powering the display instead of a CRT (or several CRTs, in the case of some big-screen televisions).

Unlikely. First of all, a CRT uses an incredibly high energy beam of electrons, several tens of kilovolts IIRC, not a laser. Secondly, MEMS are small. Very small. To get enough energy coming off of one of those things to be visible to the eye as a reflection several meters away from the source, you'd have to really crank up the power. The headset displays seem feasable because you can use a small light beam, since it's getting projected directly into the eye. But a really high power beam might melt the MEMS mirror.

Re:And the #1 reason why MEMS will become popular.

[TGK]

Until this system can come with a 8+ speaker full surround sound system complete with the seat shaking bass that tends to go with the typical hollywood shootemup blockbuster I'll go with the theater.... headphones can only do so much.

That and there's something quintessentialy different about watching a movie in a crouded theator. One of the classes I took in college centered on the vampire film (it was a very strange class). The professor made a big deal of getting a largish room with a projection screen for the film showings because of the atmospheric difference between watching a film alone and with 120 some odd people.

Re:oh yeah,ok..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I know what you mean. Back in the early 80s I used to get pissed off at articles that were promising hard drives cheap enough for everyone to own.

You're really young, aren't you?

Re:Nothing like the Sony Glasstron. Not even close

[Wandering_Sole]

Which is why the air force doesnt allow anyone who has had laser eye sugery to pilot a jet, for the slightest fear that the laer surgery left an imperfection in the eye and messes up the ability of the pilot to use the device ... atleast that was what my doctor told me ...

Re:HDTV DOA??? Back to the poison....

[vortexau]

You like poisonous gasses? Carbon arc lighting was phased out of Offset Printing Plate exposure because of hazardous gas emissions, but you want to use it? Bet you are a smoker.!!
.

Video games did this 20 years ago

[raindog2]

The Entex Adventurevision was a portable video game system that used a spinning mirror and a few LED's to simulate a 150x40 display at 15 frames per second. It was cheap, fairly effective and fun.

However, it also suffered from headache-inducing flicker and its red LED's didn't help any, so it only ever had 4 games released for it and was quickly overshadowed by the twice as expensive but much cooler Vectrex. They're now rare enough that Adventurevision units have gone for upwards of a grand on ebay in recent years. You can relive its glories (including flicker) using xmess and the appropriate roms from adventurevision.com.

Nonetheless, I could easily see how modern MEMS implementations could replace CRT's, maybe even projection screens, if not your Gameboy or cellphone. I don't think it'll take over the way Cringely seems to (mass market retinal projection will be pie in the sky for a LONG TIME for many reasons) but the technique is bound to see some use.

Re:READ THE ARTICLE FIRST

[Anonymous Coward]

learn to read, cock sucker