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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.
but the article fails to explain why this merger is such an important step in the development of new display technologies.
Tor
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/
as excellent, large and cheap.
Any signs of progress of THAT front?
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
Reuters has an article regarding this technology as well:
Reuters Link
Color-changing clothes would be cool, but what do you do when your battery pack dies and your clothes go off? :)
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
Even though most folks think that LCD monitors are the paramount devices through which to interact and view data on computer machinery, they're wrong.
;-) rips), much enhanced durability, and lighter, to boot!
This isn't bad, however, because the up-and-coming OLEDs (as detailed in the introduction to this particle story) are much cheaper to produce and should mature faster than LCDs did in the 1990s, which was their early testing period.
With OLEDs, one also finds a much-increased video brightness, faster response times (no ghosts while gaming or watching DivX
Finally, these run much hotter but are much less prone to being affected by temperature fluctuations. This means it could easily serve as a server monitor in a 100 degree PowerEdge server closet or as the primary video output terminal at a physics laboratory in Iceland (where I study in the summer).
Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S., Canada, B3H 3J5
Check out the image at the lower left.
They used to have a movie of this screen being flexed while an animation played on it. Really awesome. Clicking on the link now leads to a much less impressive movie...
http://www.universaldisplay.com/foled.php
Fold up and edible! I could watch Beverly Hillbillies reruns on a bean burrito! Play Quake on a Hot Pocket! Quick -- somebody get me a DARPA grant...
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
No, really! The OLEDs are supposedly nontoxic, and capable of being printed onto edible substrates, like rice
paper or fruit leather. Edible gold foil could be used for the wiring. The battery and control chips would of course need to be in a separate module, clearly labelled "Do Not Eat."
<;K
>;k
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.
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
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!
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?
LOL, it would certainly have to be a multithreaded attack.
=groan=
please mod this down, it's embarrassing
I have no special gift, I am only passionately curious. --Albert Einstein