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LCD Screen With Embedded Optical Sensors

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the the-screen-that-looks-back dept.

dk3nn3dy writes "Sharp has developed a LCD display with optical sensors built into the displays pixels, without requiring a touch-sensitive film to be bonded on top of the regular screen. The optical sensor is similar to that used in scanners, allowing for notes or business cards to be scanned by the screen itself. As the optical recognition technology is built into the pixels it also simplifies tactile recognition based on simultaneously touching multiple points. Future uses include fingerprint authentication on the screen of your mobile phone or PDA, or iPhone style touch recognition. Volume production will start next spring."

20 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. Is it true? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Future uses include fingerprint authentication on the screen

    I heard development was funded almost entirely by Windex.

    1. Re:Is it true? by JaWiB · · Score: 2, Informative

      http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/26/apple-patent-em beds-thousands-of-cameras-among-lcd-pixels/ I dunno, sounds like this is just for touchscreen applications, but Apple was focusing on using the screen as a webcam. What the difference between "optical sensors" and "thousands of cameras" is I do not know.

    2. Re:Is it true? by Hucko · · Score: 4, Funny

      You got a monkey pic ...?

      --
      Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
  2. Focus length? by Chairboy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I wonder if this technology could be used to two-way displays? Instead of a discrete camera, just have the whole screen be an interferometry based "camera". Video phone where you're looking at each other instead of slightly off to one side...

    1. Re:Focus length? by hedwards · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Unlikely, the lens technology is almost assuredly limited to focusing just a mm or so beyond the front glass. This might be the start of that ability, but I would expect for the video phone to arrive before that does. People by and large just don't want to have to worry about their appearance when calling or emailing.

      I would be very curious to hear how they are planning to deal with the fingerprints and scratching that will almost assuredly occur.

  3. Queue the Big-Brother/Orwell freaks in..... by B5_geek · · Score: 3, Funny

    Aside from the obvious concerns; this sounds like a great tech that could allow ....

    shit everything I can think of is evil..

    sorry. =)

    --
    "The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
    1. Re:Queue the Big-Brother/Orwell freaks in..... by suv4x4 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Aside from the obvious concerns; this sounds like a great tech that could allow ....
      shit everything I can think of is evil..
      sorry. =)

      Right, just like your keyboard allows you to share your most personal and private info to the world. But you just won't, how about that.

      Also: it works as a scanner, not a camera. It sees in focus only what's directly placed on top of the screen.

      Good for barcode scanning, touchscreens, or portable scanner. As well as a bunch of other quite cool and "non-evil" uses.

    2. Re:Queue the Big-Brother/Orwell freaks in..... by cellocgw · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Even with it's current capability, I'd suppose various image disgrognification algorythms could discern something that isn't pressed to the screen.
      No it couldn't, any more than a blank sheet of photographic paper could produce an image (all by itself). Simply put: unless there is a lens, or a pinhole (Google for things like "pinhole camera"), or as someone mentioned, each detector element has a drastically limited field of view, like a dragonfly eye, you won't get an image. Each element in this case just collects the light that hits it. Just like a proximity scanner.
      If you project an image, using an external lens, then you'll get a picture. Otherwise not.

      --
      https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
  4. But... by Unique2 · · Score: 5, Funny

    How do I see the screen to click the 'Scan' button when I've got the document in front of it?

    --
    No trees were harmed in the posting of this message. However, a great number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
  5. Apple Patent by xirtam_work · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm sure I've seen an Apple Inc. patent for a device that does this. It might even have been posted here on Slashdot.

    Hopefully these sensors only work up close like a scanner, rather than like a webcam.

  6. Does this mean us blonde folks.... by AmazingRuss · · Score: 2, Funny

    ...will no longer be ridiculed for using whiteout on the screen?

  7. monkey by Inmatarian · · Score: 5, Funny

    This reminds me of that old 1995 email joke about having a scanner in your screen, and you could hold your face up to it and it would take your picture. Of course, all it did was load a picture of a monkey and said this was you.

  8. In Soviet Eurasia, TV watches... by VValdo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Winston sprang to attention in front of the telescreen, upon which the image of a youngish woman, scrawny but muscular, dressed in tunic and gym-shoes, had already appeared.

    'Arms bending and stretching!' she rapped out. 'Take your time by me. One, two, three, four! One, two, three, four! Come on, comrades, put a bit of life into it! One, two, three, four! One, two, three, four!'

    [......]

      'Smith!' screamed the shrewish voice from the telescreen. '6079 Smith W.! Yes, you! Bend lower, please! You can do better than that. You're not trying. Lower, please! That's better, comrade. Now stand at ease, the whole squad, and watch me.'

    A sudden hot sweat had broken out all over Winston's body. His face remained completely inscrutable. Never show dismay! Never show resentment! A single flicker of the eyes could give you away. He stood watching while the instructress raised her arms above her head and -- one could not say gracefully, but with remarkable neatness and efficiency -- bent over and tucked the first joint of her fingers under her toes.

    'There, comrades! That's how I want to see you doing it. Watch me again. I'm thirty-nine and I've had four children. Now look.' She bent over again. 'You see my knees aren't bent. You can all do it if you want to,' she added as she straightened herself up. 'Anyone under forty-five is perfectly capable of touching his toes.

    --George Orwell, "1984"

    W
    --
    -------------------
    This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
  9. Most screens already have this feature by davidc · · Score: 4, Funny

    All you need is the right software to access it. Fortunately, there are several websites out there that allow you to do this - e.g. amazingcamera.com

  10. Re:Smile! You're being filmed! by tomhudson · · Score: 2, Interesting

    We'll have to stop with the "In Soviet Russia computer monitors YOU!" jokes.

    Schizophrenics will finally be able to say "See - it IS watching me!"

    Of course, since they're more sensitive to IR than to visible wavelengths, you can defeat them by pointing a heat lamp at them. You'll still be able to see the picture, but "they" won't be able to see you.

  11. Apple patent on "Integrated sensing display" by wal9001 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The patent:
    http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=P TO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2F srchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220060007222%22.PGN R.&OS=DN/20060007222&RS=DN/20060007222

    It definitely seems like a similar concept.

  12. Tech support stories... by exploder · · Score: 2, Funny

    So there's the guy who thought his cd-rom tray was a cup holder, the lady who thought the mouse was a foot pedal, and the guy who thought you could fax a document by holding it up to the screen.

    That last guy should have patented it!

    --
    Yo dawg, I heard you like the Ackermann function, so OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD
  13. All OLED screens can do this already by maokh · · Score: 5, Informative

    All LEDs inversely function as light detectors, even while emitting light. All that is really needed is a display controller that is designed to detect this reverse current flow. It would be interesting to see such an application. The only thing I have seen so far is a traditional LED matrix that works like a touch screen to turn each individual LED on and off.

    Don't believe me? Here is a primer:

    http://mvh.sr.unh.edu/mvhinvestigations/light_inve stigations.htm

  14. LED do that without sensors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    LED do that without sensors so OLED might do it as well.
    It is known that the electric resistence of a LED is lower when it is lit up externally so if you put something bright near it, the resistence lowers because it receives its own light back. I wonder if it works for organic leds too, so if you can sense the resistence of every pixel on a OLED display you can know if there is something bright in front of each pixel. The image would be B/W I guess but I think it must be cheap and enough sensitive to make multi-touch displays.
    White hand palms in colour people might mean evolution thinks further than we do. ;)

  15. Re:1984 by Bloke+down+the+pub · · Score: 2, Funny

    If you hold a mirror up in front of it, then it sets up a feedback loop and burns out the camera. Feller who used to work for the BBC told me once.

    --
    It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.