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Hello MEMS, Goodbye Monitors

Posted by michael on from the l999 dept.

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."

26 of 268 comments (clear)

  1. Monitors Replacements by Medevo · · Score: 4, Funny

    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

    1. Re:Monitors Replacements by PeolesDru · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

  2. More details by Triskaidekaphobia · · Score: 5, Informative

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

  3. I would assume that he is partially correct by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    1. Re:I would assume that he is partially correct by HorsePunchKid · · Score: 3, Insightful
      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?

      --
      Steven N. Severinghaus
    2. Re:I would assume that he is partially correct by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Interesting
      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.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    3. Re:I would assume that he is partially correct by Fesh · · Score: 3, Funny

      "A realtime "nude patch" :)"

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

      "Aieeeee! My eyes!"

      --
      --Fesh
      Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
  4. And the #1 reason why MEMS will become popular... by xigxag · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
  5. Who needs LSD? by heretic108 · · Score: 5, Interesting

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

    --
    -- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
    1. Re:Who needs LSD? by Angst+Badger · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.

      --
      Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
  6. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  7. Re:Selective Moore's Law? by foonf · · Score: 3, Insightful
    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.
    --

    "(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
  8. Privacy aspect by Graspee_Leemoor · · Score: 5, Funny

    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

    1. Re:Privacy aspect by PacoTaco · · Score: 5, Funny
      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...

  9. Let's see where Moore's law takes us, shall we? by Mac+Degger · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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?
  10. Oh no, Tom Furness again by Animats · · Score: 3, Informative
    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.

    1. Re:Oh no, Tom Furness again by Wonko42 · · Score: 3, Insightful
      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.

    2. Re:Oh no, Tom Furness again by Animats · · Score: 3, Informative
      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.

  11. Re:HDTV DOA??? by -tji · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  12. Re:And the #1 reason why MEMS will become popular. by PacoTaco · · Score: 5, Funny
    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.

  13. Coming in 2014 by Y-Crate · · Score: 3, Funny

    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"

  14. Re:Monopoly on MEMS by Cardhore · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Got friends?
  15. Stupidity by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 3, Funny



    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.

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
  16. What is he babbling about? by K8Fan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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
  17. Don't buy by dcturner · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  18. Re:Not quite accurate. by K8Fan · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

    --
    "How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb