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Sony Debuts Razor-Thin Flexible Display

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the forget-e-paper dept.

Mike writes "Sony Corporation has put online a video of their new flexible 2.5 inch display. The display can be bent in half, is full color, and is apparently relatively inexpensive to make. This could be used in hundreds of cool new products, as well as enhancing thousands of existing products. In fact, it's hard to see where this kind of display wouldn't be used, especially in portable consumer electronics. 'The display combines Sony's organic thin film transistor, or TFT, technology, which is required to make flexible displays, with another kind of technology called organic electroluminescent display, it said. The latter technology is not as widespread for gadgets as the two main display technologies now on the market - liquid crystal displays and plasma display panels. Although flat-panel TVs are getting slimmer, a display that's so thin it bends in a human hand marks a breakthrough ... "In the future, it could get wrapped around a lamppost or a person's wrist, even worn as clothing," said Sony spokesman Chisato Kitsukawa. "Perhaps it can be put up like wallpaper."'"

30 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. Lines on the Display? by Iggowanna · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What are those lines on the display? (see picture in article).

    If this is a PR thing for Sony, that's a REALLY bad 1st impression.

    1. Re:Lines on the Display? by Scoth · · Score: 3, Funny

      Remember this is Sony. They're holding up the aperture grill. No one will notice in normal use. Really. They mean it.

    2. Re:Lines on the Display? by timeOday · · Score: 4, Interesting

      In the late 90s I used a Trinitron monitor. I always thought it was great until some jerk complained about those two wires on usenet. It was almost as if reading his words made the lines appear. Before, I had never noticed them. Afterwards, they bugged me.

    3. Re:Lines on the Display? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 5, Funny

      If you're 2.5 inches tall and VERY thin. Otherwise, forget about it.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  2. Future by suv4x4 · · Score: 2, Funny

    "In the future, it could get wrapped around a lamppost or a person's wrist, even worn as clothing," said Sony spokesman Chisato Kitsukawa. "Perhaps it can be put up like wallpaper."'"

    He's right. I've watched plenty of sci-fi series, and people there are crazy like that. They won't blink and wear their screen as clothing! Insane I tell you.

    1. Re:Future by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 3, Funny
      They won't blink and wear their screen as clothing!

      So the TeleTubbies are coming to a playground near you? Think of the children!

      --
      That is all.
    2. Re:Future by lsllll · · Score: 5, Funny

      I can just hear the conversation in the bedroom:

      Man: Honey, you wanna make love?
      Woman: Sure (starts to get naked)
      Man: Hey! Let's play roles! Let's put on LCD masks.
      Woman: Hmmmmm, okay. But who do you want me to be?
      Man: Let's do it Indian poker style. You select my mask, and I select yours, and we'll never know whose face we're wearing.
      Woman: K. (Chooses Brad Pitt for him)
      Man: *Yum* Ok. (Chooses Angelina Jolie) Hey, can I put bigger boobs on your LCD shirt?
      Woman: Only if I can put a strap-on around your hip

      --
      Is that a roll of dimes in your pocket or are you happy to see me?
    3. Re:Future by pnewhook · · Score: 3, Funny

      What's not to love about a drunk purple alien with a martini glass stuck to its head??

      --
      Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
  3. Fantastic! by The+Mysterious+X · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Mum, the living room wall has got a dead pixel!"

    1. Re:Fantastic! by Associate · · Score: 2, Funny

      "I'll call your father and have him pick up a pack of spare panels from Walmart on his way home from work."

      --
      Someone hates these cans.
    2. Re:Fantastic! by Mattintosh · · Score: 4, Funny

      "I thought I told you never to call me on this wall!"

  4. How long until.. by Cajun+Hell · · Score: 4, Funny

    ..someone introduces a display that is as thin as three razors?

    --
    "Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
    1. Re:How long until.. by pla · · Score: 3, Funny

      How long until.. ..someone introduces a display that is as thin as three razors?

      Hah! My LCD already has the thinness of fifty-eight razors!

      Top that, Sony!

    2. Re:How long until.. by windsurfer619 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Top that?! Try my 584 razors-thin CRT, bitches!

    3. Re:How long until.. by I(rispee_I(reme · · Score: 2, Funny

      Whatever you do, Gillette is one step ahead...

    4. Re:How long until.. by Shai-kun · · Score: 2, Funny

      That'd be 580 razors! To be precise, it's really 0.058 kilorazors.

      --
      ...or so I've been told.
  5. Video by ddgromit · · Score: 5, Informative

    YouTube has a video demonstration of Sony's technology from Japan at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7QbQugXy1A

  6. Grain of salt time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The World + dog are announcing displays like this; especially digital paper products. It seems mostly to be premature announcements. Maybe they're trying to freak out the competition ala 'vaporware'.

    "Vaporware is a software or hardware product which is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge, either with or without a protracted development cycle. The term implies unwarranted optimism, or sometimes even deception; that is, it may imply that the announcer knows that product development is in too early a stage to support responsible statements about its completion date, feature set, or even feasibility." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware

    "sometimes even deception" indeed.

  7. this looks familiar by shvytejimas · · Score: 2, Informative

    is it just me, or is this really familliar to the e-paper that LG & Philips developed recently? http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/ 14/0410247
    only this time there's a lot more buzz

    1. Re:this looks familiar by Laur · · Score: 5, Informative

      is it just me, or is this really familliar to the e-paper that LG & Philips developed recently?
      E-paper can't display full motion video, its response times are much too low for that sort of thing, but it should have great battery life for mostly static images. This appears to be a "normal" LCD, but thin and flexible, and the videos show it displaying video. Different technologies with different applications, but both very cool.
      --
      When you lose something irreplaceable, you don't mourn for the thing you lost, you mourn for yourself. - Harpo Marx
  8. YAY! by Colin+Smith · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The future is here.

    Every surface can be turned into an advert. Animated no less.

    --
    Deleted
  9. Heads Up by Devir · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Imagine a sheet like this, transparent and plastered on the windshield or in a corner of one. Then it's fed from a GPS computer for map information right in front of you. This would make GPS navigation a little safer.

    Add in some of the "Object detection" systems they've been pawning off for a few years and we're talking about a nice feature for the future of cars.

    Fighter Jets as well as commercial airliners can make use of this technology as well.

    There's a million uses other then the silly and mundane.

  10. Re:e-paper... by snooz_crash · · Score: 2, Informative

    R&D through several companies started in 1996. The tech name is flexible OLED.
    A history of which can be found here http://www.oled-info.com/history/

    --
    ceci n'est pas un sig
  11. flexible, huh? by veganboyjosh · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Vaporware or not, what comes to mind after the initial neat-o factor is that the flexibility of this stuff could make for an interesting home theatre set up. Anyone remember those 180 or 360 degree theaters? Not IMAX, but the inside-of-a-dome-as-movie-screen thing. There was a motion sickness factor, but I'm thinking there'd be some cool applications as far as movies where you don't get to watch all the action at once, or maybe depending on which side you're viewing, you may miss something important, etc...
    Then there's always gaming, etc...

  12. Re:Where's the video? by ptrace · · Score: 2, Informative

    Check out youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7QbQugXy1A

  13. Re:Razor-thin? by miskatonic+alumnus · · Score: 2, Funny

    Awesome. I've been waiting years for a vorpal monitor.

  14. Re:It sounds like great technology, but... by fireboy1919 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    My worry is something like that.

    I worry that Sony will patent the technology and then make some more useless-via-DRM-and-proprietary-addons like the Minidisc, Librie, and PS3.

    So many innovations...that nobody gets to use.

    All they really have to do is sell this at a reasonable rate to PDA and phone manufacturers.
    But I think they'll probably just screw it up again.

    --
    Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
  15. Re:It sounds like great technology, but... by EdwinBoyd · · Score: 3, Funny

    Not on your life, my Slashdot friend. Now throw your hands up and rejoice, This bendy screen's your only choice!

  16. Or better yet... by xtracto · · Score: 3, Funny

    "Mum, theres a *huge* hairy hole in the living room wall..."

    --
    Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
  17. been hearing about these things for years... by JustNiz · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yet another technology demo that won't actually be in a real product for years.
    Same with ink-on-paper displays. Plenty of prototypes exist but for some reason no-one seems able to or wants to make an actual device you can buy.