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Roll-Up Monitors A Step Closer To Reality
gwernol writes "CNN are covering the merger of two of the leading companies in the field of OLEDs. This brings the dream of flexible plastic monitors and TVs a step closer to fruition.
You can find out more at Cambridge Display Technology who have acquired Opsys. CDT's technology paper on light emitting polymers (in the Research & Technology section of their site) is interesting reading."
but the article fails to explain why this merger is such an important step in the development of new display technologies.
Tor
How long until some whack job duct-tapes a bunch of these to a blow-up doll for his personal pleasure?
We hear lots of hype regarding this great new technology. Companies developing the technology start acquiring each other before there is even a deliverable. Stocks soar....
Then, the bubble bursts leaving no real technology, thousands holding worthless stock and a CEO retiring in the Caribbean.
Haven't we seen this before????
Is it just my imagining, or has this story been seen about once a month for the last couple of years? OK, not necessarily on /., but I'd swear I've been seeing "Cambridge Display Technologies to have flexible screens Real-Soon-Now" stories for a LONG time. Followed, every time, by the obligatory "gee wow, I can't wait to get a screen I can roll up when I'm not using it" comments. Unfortunately, I'm feeling too lazy/tired at the moment to go searching for previous stories - so if all this is my imagining, slap me down to -5 Offtopic :-)
I'll get excited about this technology when it actually ships in a usable form. Until then, I just see these periodic "newsvertisements" as a means for CDT to raise their public profile and raise a few more investor $$$....
as excellent, large and cheap.
Any signs of progress of THAT front?
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
I notice that the /. crowd has already taken up the call for wall-sized monitors. I hasten to direct anyone with such notions to the Ray Bradbury classic "Fahrenheit 451". It is a disturbing work on many levels, and you can Google a lot of analytical treatments of the themes in the book.
Particular to the current thread, in the book there are wall-sized display devices used in the predictable fashion; not to view above the sky full of live stars or weather a la Hogwarts in Harry Potter (which sounds delightful) but to take a small room and create a large, totally synthetic environment with an extended synthespian family, all via subscription service. And there you sit all day, listening to their dramatic, interesting lives while your own dull, wasted existance drains away. So if you like, views into a crafted world with fake people, custom made for unneeded people. Homeowners in the book measure themselves successful based on how many walls they own; four walls is just enough.
Entertainment is emmersive enough. Do we really want to be flood with non-reality? Or Unreal Tourny, for that matter? The stars overhead sound good, and so does an "invisible wall" that projects an outside view of your backyard, or anywhere else in the world for that matter (the crater of an active volacanoe sounds nice!) But that's NOT where this is headed, you know. People historically ignore nature and real people and embrace entertainment instead.
=^..^= all your rodent are belong to us
Wow. With headlines like "Roll-up TV screens to hit living rooms" and "This brings the dream of flexible plastic monitors and TVs a step closer to fruition", you'd think that these are ready to be rolled off the shelf. Actually, it doesn't. It simply means that instead of fighting with each other, they'll now work together and thus hopefully save some money. However, imagine if you will, that betamax and vhs joined forces before the marketplace was well defined? Who would win? Exactly, it wouldn't matter because the winner would already be decided and we'd all have betamax players. So this is probably not seen as a good thing because a) these companies will no longer compete (something I'm sure all /.ers see as a negative) and b) they will carve up/patent this technology and innovation will stagnate (HDTV) and c) it will ripple to other technologies which may or may not rely on this in the future because they will have a stranglehold on the technology. Finally, when companies merge with similar products and or technologies, the resulting product-lines are often lowest-common denominators of the two. A little research and you'll find business history littered with just such examples.....
"This isn't a study in computer science, its a study in human behavior"
You mean this:
Takes out his pen. Opens it. Unrolls the OLED display inside. Connects it to the 15 LB desktop computer he was carrying. Watches some mpegs.
The computer technology is still bulky. You still need a power source to run it on. If you want fast internet access, you need a wire. Want to type a quick email? You still need a keyboard!
The future is when ALL of these needs are eliminated.
If a screen only lasts a year or two with the current OLED technology, why is that a big deal?
Make the screens replaceable. I mean, this technology makes it sound like they're pretty cheap to make since they are built using a modified (granted, more complex) inkjet technolgy. You've also now got a whole new after-market for laptop screens.
Don't need super-hgh rez - get a cheaper one.
Want to have a tri-fold-out screen at the office, and a lighter, energy efficient one for on the plane?
So what if the screen goes out if you can just buy a new screen for a few benjamins?
If i could get a lot more battery life, have a much more rugged screen, and it was mch brighter - i'd pay $200 for a newer screen(with higher rez, of course) every year and a half.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
Where do you propose the old ones go? At least with CRT the environmental nightmare is on a ~5 year life-cycle. With this it may be just as toxic (not to mention the mfg process used) but it would be on a much faster life-cycle.
Who are you? The new #2 Who is #1? You are #617565. I am not a number, I am a free man! Muhahaha.
If we could make a better TV? We should atleast get 1/4 the quality of the picture into the programming. Lets take a look at the Chronology of Televison, Shall we? Old Shows - Honey Mooners, Lucy, Etc, all Hilarious and very well thought out shows. Then we goto Color, with the New Lucy Show, Etc... As we got color, the programming quality reduced to produce more gimmicky affects. Then we came to The 70-80's, where cable comes along somewhere. We get terrible 80's sitcoms like Webster and Small wonder. Then, HDTV, We get shows which have no plot, but the earlier counterparts were well thought out shows. Take enterprise, perhaps THE most overrated TV Show of all time, and even though it's overrated, people watch it. It's linear, the better the TV, the worse the shows. Here's a little equation. For each year TV Exists (N), and Shows on a scale from 1-100, We have n=100-n
And why did you staple the trout to the RAM?
The head of technology and strategic planning spoke. Despite the hype-ticle on CNN, it was clear from what he said that you shouldn't expect flexible displays any time soon - probably not inside 10 years. I don't get a T-shirt with space invaders on it any time soon. You can expect conformable displays within a few years - i.e. rigid, shaped screens. However it's likely that you will see other companies building these; CDT is an IP company. They hold fundamental patents on light emmiting polymers. They aren't just a holding company; they do develop technology, but their basic strategy is to licence to others. They will have bought Opsys to strengthen their patent portfolio.
If you are currently building hardware that needs small mono screens you should definitely check out CDT. Their displays have superb characteristics - an almost 180 degree viewing angle, bright even in sunlight, and very low power requirements. The examples of the technology that he showed were very 'version 1.0', but show brilliant promise.
Next CHASE meeting - 12 Nov - Invisible Networks are building community broadband networks in rural villages around Cambridge. Currently using 802.11.
Jeff Veit
www.tanasity.com and www.tangledtime.com
I can't help but notice that, in all the articles that I've seen on this over the past year, including the 3 links listed by /., there is not a single photo or computer-generated example of this so-called "roll-up TV".
I'm suspiciouse of any physical product that get's this kind of press, but still cannot show some sort of demo, hell, even some FakeWare cardboard cutout or something! I mean, my God... it's a TV -- show it to me. You'd think if they were making real progress that they would be all over showing people the future, rather than talking about it.
If Slashdot is where the spelling-challenged go when they die, I'm in heaven.