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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."
I can't wait until this stuff can be put like wall paper and connected to the house backbone. Just a quick calibration so it can map images to it properly and presto. Just imagine all the cool stuff you could do with it. I still think having a camera pointed at the sky out in the middle of the pacific so you could have a truely starry night on your ceiling would be amazing!
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
CDT's technology paper on light emitting polymers
:P
:)
When I first read that, I thought they had invented some way to put OLEDs on paper not written a paper about OLEDs
Well, one can dream, can't that? (Actualy, that can't be to far off. IIRC you can 'print' plastic on paper, and people have made electrically conductive plastic, if they could be merged with OLEDs....)
Hehe, how cool would it be to be able to buy a off-the-shelf ink jet printer and print electrical circuits, with built in OLED displays and all kinds of other craziness
Lonely?
Find love on the internet
Does this remind anyone of Back to the Future 2? I could easily envision this as becoming a "picture window" type device in every home.
$ man woman *
-bash:
Make an ultra-durable polymer version that I could use as a cutting surface with an X-acto knife.
A semitransparent version for use in tracing.
Clothing - afterall, if you can make a sheet of this stuff, you could conceiveably make a fiber out of it, no?
Just thinking out loud.
tcd004
If I had my own oil company, I would...
So are there any problems with these like the 20-30 year delay that it took to get a decent blue LED???
I'm sure back in the day they were talking about LED TV and it wasn't until the past 5 or so years that the technology was there. Not that I would't mind a high res, super thin, and sexy monitor/tv. It sure would be a killer app for most TV's out there, and a good way to combine a coumputer station and TV...
I can't believe this - my 3rd post to /. in one day. Must be a slow Monday...
:-)
Back in 1994, I attended a demo of the newest Apple hardware: the PowerMac 6100, 7100, and 8100. Those PowerPC 601 processors just blew me away!
As part of the demo, the Apple guys showed us a video of upcoming technology, including a computer that folded like a book. The computer used an "avatar" that the user controlled by speaking naturally, as if to a person.
The Apple guys then asked us what was the missing link preventing anyone from producing the contraption. The answer: "folding glass." Of course, we know now (and probably did then, just we didn't want to admit it) that the CPU's and graphics processors of the time would have choked on the OS needed to pull off the magic.
JA
http://www.johnalex.org/
How soon before Tommy Hilfiger makes a shirt that has a spinning or flaming logo on it?
How long before Tommy lets you download your own images to the shirt?
How soon before that system is cracked and you're walking down the street with a picture of a guy f%^king a chicken on your back?
It should be an interesting ride on the subway in a few years.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
Consolidation doesn't mean progress is happening, or that consumer products will make it to store shelves, nor does the fact that they're making very cool, very usable products. History is littered with companies that were about to produce amazing things that never came to fruition and imploded.
What consolidation often means is that noone is investing in the idea, or that one of the companies couldn't survive long enough to get an actual product out the door.
After visiting the Litrix website, I'm impressed by the sheer scale of the hardware involved with making the displays. For an adequate comparison, imagine two 2-drawer filing cabinets side by side. This means something spectacular; Anyone who can purchase the machinery can produce a display, and due to the sheer size, can even produce displays in a store front setting under their own brand stamping.
This opens up a huge boon to the small computer retailer. Want to sell displays? Print 'em! Save a bundle on the costs of shipping heavy glass CRTs, and the risk of shipping fragile TFT displays.
Due to pre and post printing processes, the likelihood of being able to "print your own" display are slim, since more than likely you still would need to test the leads to the polymer substrate, calibrate the individual displays, test for bad pixels, and laminate the whole pile together. In other words, don't expect to save a bundle by buying the fabrication hardware and doing it yourself, at least not until Avery or some other mainstream paper manufacturer comes out with a "EZ LEP" package, complete with inks you could only use once (logically, by the time the display dies, the ink cart will be dried out).
Still, this does a good deal for both online retailers and brick and mortar shops, and opens up a world of possibilities.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
But an electronic book means that you can search the entire text for a phrase. And not only would a proper one allow you to write in the margins, but it would be able to index your annotations.
Do you really need to dog-ear the pages if you can simply do a search on the book for everywhere you wrote 'cool quote'?
Just because it works, doesn't mean it isn't broken.
The article has pretty much 0 content, but I suspect this is an important step because one combined company with no cash struggling to survive while developing a product that is really far off can last twice as long as two seperate ones. Maybe even long enough to see the product come to fruition, or more likely long enough for some major electronic component maker to buy them and really bring the products mainstream.
A "predator suit" would need to reflect differently to different angles, which no pixel system can do.
You could use some form of sensor ($5 webcam mounted on a helmet) to detect the location of a single viewer and match the image to their location based upon the current shape of the suit, but you couldn't match the image to more than one viewpoint with this technology.
Adjusting the image to account for viewer focus would be another design consideration.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
i was struck, when watching Lain for the first time, just how much the creators must have loved Scully-era Apple dreams of the future. ("Navi" stood for "Knowledge Navigator", and ran something futuristic called "Copland OS", i.e. what was going to be Apple's new modern OS before they canned the project and bought NExT, begetting OS X)
The machines in Lain are surprisingly close to the newest Palm handhelds, and Copland OS looks a lot like OS X (ok, maybe a bit more 3-D).
m-
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas