LCD Screens Almost Paper-thin

DarklordSatin writes "Nature.com has an article up about new LCDs that are thin enough to roll up and can display black and white at 96 dpi. More coverage by Wired and Scientific American. Thanks go to Arstechnica for the heads up." Wow. Let the speculation for new uses begin! Update: 05/10 14:59 GMT by CN : Whoops, this is really a dupe of an older story that slipped through because I only searched for LCDs. Ah well, it's still cool.

Comments

Cool

[Hadur]

Not a flame here, but I would rther see the price of LCD screens go down than their size.

Re:Cool

[Chicane-UK]

Agreed..

I work in a job as a Computer Technician, and people keep saying to me they really want to get an LCD screen 'because it looks cool' - fair enough I suppose, but why pay for a 17" mid range LCD screen over a 21" Natural Flat top of the line CRT monitor? Ok, it saves on some desk space..

Its a no brainer for me.. i'd still put my money on CRT every time.

Uses

[darkov]

At a refresh rate of 4Hz, it's not much use as a monitor, I think they currently use this stuff for signage displays and the like. It might be useful for a e-book sort of thing, where it's unlikely you'll be reading faster than four pages a second.

The big question is how much does it cost and how durable/stable is it?

Obvious...?

[m00nun1t]

"Let the speculation for new uses begin!"

Isn't the first use for every new technology a new way of accessing, displaying or making pr0n?

Is it just me?

[alwsn]

Maybe it's just me, but I've been visiting slashdot for 3+ years now, and I keep seeing articles about new, paper thing, cheap displays that will revolutionize everything, and really small, cheap, huge(storage capacity), solid state storage devices.

I look forward to new stuff as much as anyone, but in those 3 years, hard drive storage and monitors keep making slower (in comparison to what is mentioned in articles such as these), but steady process.

I no longer trust articles saying 'everything will be different in a year.' From my experience, it won't be different and revolutionary, it will just be slightly better.

Cheap enough to use as?

[unfortunateson]

The two goals, which in my mind are separate directions, are speed and independence from wires.

If I can 'print' an e-book, I don't care about refresh rate. But is a 300-page e-paperback cheaper than buying, say 50 paperbacks? 20 paperbacks? Or is it silly to even think of having 300 pages of this stuff, and I'd just 'leaf' through pages like I do on my PDA currently? Maybe I'm old, but I still like the page-flipping aspect of books, especially if I want to flip back to find when a character that just stepped out of the wings first showed up.

If this stuff is as durable, and as cheap, power-friendly and fast as LCDs, I'd be happy to drop a fair chunk of my PDA's weight. Cell-phone screens sound like another perfect application.

Now for the more far-out stuff:
How about rewritable MTG cards?
Medical 'patches' that tell you when they need replacing, or can monitor glucose or other body functions.
Devices when you need to measure bend

Folding, bending.

[j1mmy]

The point of these displays (as stated in the article) is to create a one-page newspaper. They can currently roll it up pretty well, but it can't be folded. What I want to know is why you would fold it.

If it's a one-page newspaper, you've only got one page. It can be the size of an 8.5x11 piece of paper. It's an entirely different presentation medium and they're still thinking in terms of traditional papers. The biggest failure of the traditional newspaper (as an interface) is that you have to do all the folding and whatnot. Most papers can't be held with one hand without folding them up a bit. It's a hassle, plain and simple.

If you've got one sheet of electronic paper, of a reasonable size, you can hold it in one hand and just read it.

I can see how folding would be useful for storing the paper, but I don't see that as a critical issue.