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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."
http://www.reviewfinder.com/reviews/glasstron/inde x.asp
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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.
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/
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
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
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.
"Upon attaching the waterblock to my penis, I began to notice that I know nothing about computers." -- JRockway
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.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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
There is a war going on for your mind.
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.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
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.
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.