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Microsoft Engineers Invent Displays That Top LCDs For Efficiency
MechEMark writes with this excerpt from a hope-inspiring article at the IEEE Spectrum, which says "Researchers from Microsoft say they've built a prototype of a display screen using a technology that essentially mimics the optics in a telescope but at the scale of individual display pixels. The result is a display that is faster and more energy efficient than a liquid crystal display, or LCD, according to research reported yesterday in Nature Photonics ... The design greatly increases the amount of backlight that reaches the screen. The researchers were able to get about 36 percent of the backlight out of a pixel, more than three times as much light as an LCD can deliver. But Microsoft senior research engineer Michael Sinclair says that through design improvements, he expects that number to go up — theoretically, as high as 75 percent."
Aren't OLED displays already a lot more efficient?
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You're not excited about an advance that can improve the type of monitors that we actually use? You must not get excited about display technology advances very often.
Or is it that you don't get excited about advances in general unless they speak to any of the various orphaned technologies you have adopted, simply for the sake of safeguarding your delusion that your understanding of technology is wider and deeper when compared to other students of technology?
I'm guessing it's a combination of the two.
But notebook and PDA users might be exicited their batteries will be lasting longer.
I guess I'm looking at this from a different point of view from most of the comments so far. I read the article, and I'm thinking "Wow! What a cool new way of attacking an old problem!" It's a brand new technology, I don't expect it to be immediately better than decades old technology overnight. I just like the new technique and the micro-scale optics. Then again, I am studying optics in graduate school so I might be a bit biased...
Yes, it is possible for this to be a Microsoft-only technology.
For example, they could just link it with their wacky 'Surface' [or whatever], so you have to buy the whole display/computer together, and since it'll be a proprietary, custom solution, sorry, but no Linux support. Or license it to companies making AllInOne computers [iMac knockoffs], but with the licensing restriction that Linux be prevented from running on it [what, more secret anti-competitive licensing terms].
Hell, they could mandate that the display only has say DisplayPort or HDMI connections, and requires some wacked version of these protocols [no, Microsoft would NEVER do that...] so that any device that wants to display using it would have to 'prove' that a license fee has been paid to Microsoft [via some complicated private/public key exchanges, along with an always-on network connection, that only occasionally doesn't work].
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Who cares? Insofar as Microsoft is in the hardware business, they don't seem to discriminate except by providing only Windows and Mac driversâ"but everyone does that, so no biggie. Lots of people use their Intellimouse or their Microsoft Natural Keyboard on their pet OS. I don't see what Microsoft would gain by doing more work to discriminate: they'd just give people a reason to buy some other excellent monitor. It's more of an Apple thing to do, and even *their* displays work fine on any OS.
I think you are being paranoid. MS didnt do that with any of their other hardware. (joysticks/keyboards/mouse/etc) Really, is there any practical way to keep someone from plugging a monitor into a linux box?
Actually, all they need to do is follow the DRM laden specs that high end monitors on HDMI are supposed to use in Vista - and lock the monitors in that mode.
All Linux and other OS's need to do is enable DRM... MS isnt locking them out of anything... they arent implementing the right technology to use it, even though they "can" (or can't because the video card manufacturers wont release the specs needed to modify drivers under Linux).
This would have the same effect, and put the blame at someone else's feet (ie: not Microsoft's).
Note the sarcasm in the words... yet it is quite possible the truth will follow that path nonetheless... but it would be a stupid move. Especially with other technologies out there that would be competing against this.
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Nothing Linux cant adapt to.
Yeah OLEDs are superior by nature. No backlight thus no efficiency problems.
The light is generated on demand.
I'm not so sure. Didn't they invent the F-lock key?
Except that OLEDs and SEDs in theory also reduce the power consumption over normal LCD, as the pixels themselves emit light so there's no need of backlight.
Sure SEDs and OLEDs are not really mass produced currently, but neither is this new technology for LCDs.
And SEDs and OLEDs have many other advantage over LCDs: better refresh rate, contrast, viewing angle (reliability for SEDs).
So this new LCD technology isn't very exciting..
Microsoft research is doing some very cool stuff, I didn't know they also got into hardware research, and this is almost going to fundamental research. No reason to be bashing here, at least it's money spent that isn't going to buy out competition just to smack them, or to pay lawsuits. And if it makes you feel better, most of the innovations from microsoft research don't make it into microsoft products anyway.
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Linux is an operating system kernel. Microsoft ( note not Windows ) is a huge multi billion dollar technology company with diverse interests. You are a troll and whoever modded you insightful - what happened, linux ran off with your girlfriend ?
Pixels are placed next to each other so that the maximum possible fill factor of 78% is achieved. [...]
The maximum transmission of a single pixel in the on state can be derived from the fact that the secondary mirror has a diameter equal to half that of the primary mirror and blocks 25% of the backlight. Thus, 75% of the backlight will reach the primary mirror. Simulations indicate that 95% of the light from the primary mirror can reach the pixel's output. In the experiment it was measured to be 61%, which can be further optimized.
The total amount of backlight that can be transmitted by a telescopic pixel display based on the experiment is pi/4 times 0.75 times 61% approximately 36%, and simulations show that up to 56% is possible. The current experimental value is 3.5-7 times greater than that of LCDs, and therefore for the same backlight intensity, the telescopic pixel is 3.5-7 times brighter.
That pi/4 (78.5%) filling density comes from the fact that the circle-shaped pixels are aranged in a square grid, if they arrange them in a hexagonal grid, they would achieve efficiency of pi/(2*sqrt(3)) - 90.7%.
I always said that Microsoft was pretty good as a hardware company.
My dead Xbox360 would respectfully disagree with you.
You're all wrong - open source software IS capable of innovation. For instance, take a look at LyX, a document processor that beats all else hands down. For that matter, LaTeX itself is open source and is the gold standard in creating technical documents. Neither of these is a copy of a closed source original.
The free software/open source approach works well where people can scratch their own itches - in fields where those who need technical innovation are also capable of developing the technology to do it, such as science and mathematics. It fares less well for products which are developed to be sold to someone else - `office suite' software, or for that matter computer monitor hardware (to get us back onto topic). However, saying that open source is incapable of innovation is like saying that all major discoveries are made by commercial entities rather than universities.
I'm not joking here, I'm genuinely confused.
Why is it that Microsoft is actually a pretty good hardware company? All their peripherals are pretty good. Xbox has a few issues but it's really a one off.
Intel on the other hand is just about the worlds best software company. I spent a lot of time at university working with intel developer tools and libraries without ever encountering a single issue.
The one thing that I really do like about the closed model is that Apple and Microsoft seem to be the only two American companies capable of actually taking on foreign competition in their core competencies and winning.
They are just kicking the shit out of Sony and as guy who watched RCA flounder and go down for an answer to the Walkman every iPod and xBox 360 sold just gives me great delight. And now, the even possibility of Microsoft taking back at least the design of electronic screens back from asian manufacturers is pretty damned sweet.
You all may hate Microsoft and Apple and love Linux, but is there any doubt that if Ford and GM were as adeptly run as Microsoft and Apple were, American car companies wouldn't be caught building giant trucks -again- and then take seemingly 5 years to turn around.
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As an owner of a Microsoft Natural keyboard that is still going strong, I'd say that you are mistaken... some of their hardware has been quite good!
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That's really unfair. Their hardware is way more reliable than their software.
If they've figured out how to put a lens in front of an LED I can't see how reliability will be a problem.
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Your point has been repeated over and over. You are -1, Redundant.
Linus Torvalds is not a great thinker, but he has some reasonable ideas. Not long ago he said that innovation is overrated. Anybody can come up with new ideas. The thing is implementing them, and good.
Xerox was great, but Macintosh was more important in bringing the desktop to people.
There are good ideas everywhere, we don't need new ideas, we already know what we want, what is needed is good implementations.
Aside from that, MS is not that good an innovator, either. They didn't come up with WIMP, they didn't come up with the idea of selling it to the masses. They didn't come up with office productivity software. They didn't come up with media players, consoles, mouses, anything.
The thing they are good at is building a product that is good enough (good, when it comes to hardware), and selling it. They rule at marketing. They are the kings of it. They are innovators in that area. But that doesn't benefit the users, so I think it's not important for us, but for their shareholders.
GNU/Linux is a way to get good software, on _my_ terms. It's what I want, and it works. There are alternatives, a lot worse in most regards, and somewhat better in other, but they are not provided on terms that are fair to me, so it's a no-brainer who I will choose. It's not about innovation either. It's about fulfilling my needs, without asking for my first born baby in return.
My still-working Original Xbox would respectfully disagree with you :)
See how stating anecdotal facts doesn't actually mean anything?
Life is rarely fair. Cherish the moments when there is a right answer.
Unless you consider adaptation to be waiting 2.5-5 year for something that works about 90%, I won't be eagerly awaiting the reverse engineering!