Sony Unveils Flexible OLED Thinner Than a Hair

Elliot Chang writes "For Sony's newest display, the company decided to throw into the mix ultra-thinness (just 80m or a bit thinner than a human hair) and the energy-saving power of OLEDs. The new prototype is so bendy that it can be wrapped around a pencil while still streaming video!"

Comments

80m? Quite a hair.

[John Hasler]

> just 80m or a bit thinner than a human hair

80 meters is a pretty substantial hair.

Didn't know 80m(eters) was thinner than hair

[Fallen Kell]

I mean, that must be some THICK hair! Does it grow thicker as it grows longer?

Subby has....

[Braintrust]

extremely thick and luxuriant hair, it seems.

Pantene Pro-V? It has to be.

micrometers

[egcagrac0]

If you can't mu, u.

Video on akihabaranews

[exhilaration]

You can watch the video on akihabaranews

Re:Video on akihabaranews

[Fallen Kell]

If they can fix the stuck pixels, it would be a sweet screen!

Re:Video on akihabaranews

[Anonymous Coward]

finally! I can wrap a dancing Natilie Portman around my p33n0r!!!

Re:Video on akihabaranews

[Chelloveck]

If they can fix the stuck pixels, it would be a sweet screen!

Fix them? They're a feature! They give you a visual reference so you don't lose track of where you are in the picture. Sheesh, you're probably the same guy who wants to get rid of artificial lens flare in CGI, when everyone knows that pictures only look real when they're covered with fake image artifacts.

Re:Video on akihabaranews

[Jarik C-Bol]

That should not have been funny. But it was.

Re:Video on akihabaranews

[Anonymous Coward]

it would be a sweet screen!

yeah, "sweet screens are made of this, who am I to disagree?"

That's awesome

[SlashDev]

I can finally watch a distorted version on my favorite show! Woohooo!

Re:That's awesome

[Lord Ender]

Well, there are some advantages to distortion. Think the girl in your adult video is a bit too chunky? Just bend the edges of the screen toward you!

Re:That's awesome

[sznupi]

I imagine such screens would be useful during the process of manufacture of various gadgets (and after production remaining in one shape, with hard translucent shell around it; otherwise it would be damaged too easily). In that case distortion shouldn't be a problem.

Re:That's awesome

[Garble Snarky]

Or to make devices with retracting/rollup screens, that's what I'm really looking forward to.

Re:That's awesome

[hedwards]

I think the point of this is to have curved displays. Currently if you want to have a really wide display you're stuck looking at portions at an angle. But with this sort of technology you could bend the screen a bit on a fixed basis and have all portions of the display more or less equidistant from you. It would be awesome for gaming. Imagine driving your car and being able to look around you the way that you would in real life. Or a FPS where you can more or less look over your shoulder. It'd definitely be amazing for those horror games.

Re:That's awesome

[sznupi]

The only small consumer product (to be most general) with large and thin retracting/rollup part that I can think of is a measurement equipment. Similar idea with the stripe being much wider and containing a screen probably can't be made sturdy enough... (and cheaply enough)

I suspect one should look at rollup screens, that are shown now and then, mostly as a nice demo with easy appeal. Not much more perhaps even until the time of things like Nokia Morph (which is a quite different ballgame) or contact lenses with video overlay.

Re:That's awesome

[damien_kane]

Alright then, how about translucent measuring tape that can, at the push of a button, change its display between metric and imperial?
Perhaps one that can add/remove its sub-units of measurement

I.e., if viewing imperial, show only the per-inch markers, add 1/2 inch, add 1/4 inch, add 16/inch, etc..
Similarly with metric, start off at dm, breakdown to cm, mm.

What if we were to now make this translucent retracting display partially refractive (or even better, change the refraction index on-the-fly). Now you could have a magnifying tape-measure that can display the units of measurement scaled to the level of magnification.

Re:That's awesome

[sznupi]

You know, or you can just get normal (and sturdy! in this case that really matters) measuring tape with all units needed by you already on it...

With magification you're thinking about totally different type of device; with high quality optical system and for which such screen is not required.

Re:That's awesome

[bill_mcgonigle]

Or to make devices with retracting/rollup screens, that's what I'm really looking forward to.

Not enough people here ever saw "Earth: Final Conflict".

The Globals would be pretty nice with Android.

Re:That's awesome

[Garble Snarky]

Why not music/video players, phones, GPS, etc..? Every consumer electronic device could benefit from this. You could roll up a 10" screen lengthwise and fit it into a device the size of thick pencil. Big screen, pocket-sized device, that's the whole point, to me.

You're worried about sturdiness? For a simple, completely mechanical solution, just add some crossbars that swivel up from the short sides, and lock into place on the long side.

I think a much cooler solution would be some sort of material that can harden/soften when different voltages are applied, and that would be handled automatically.

Re:That's awesome

[Kilrah_il]

Yep, and when someone hacks into your rolled-up screen measuring-tape (iTape, anyone?) we are going to see some mighty pranks:
"Johnny, did you change Daddy's tape from Inchs to cm? So that's why the new porch crushed with grandma on it!"

Re:That's awesome

[sznupi]

Sure, music/video players, phones, GPS (not like those devices are separate nowadays) - but I suspect not in the way people imagine (really, doesn't this tech seem good to cover most / whole surface of the device, for example?). Things we have are already quite pocket sized and besides, the main problem with miniaturisation is battery nowadays - that won't improve much in coming years.

Or...how many constantly used or "wearable" devices / etc. have similar levels of awkwardness? (one which still might not improve on the problems much in this case)
Plus we already have quite workable solution

And I take it you've seen Batman Begins recently? ;)

Re:That's awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

but then I would need to use both hands...

Re:That's awesome

[dwarfsoft]

But that would require using both hands to hold both sides of the screen... Where is he going to get another hand from?

Re:That's awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe this is the solution to the eReader flipping mentioned yesterday - if price drops enough you could essentially have an eReader booklet that when you reach the last page, flipping the booklet back over advances to the next 10-20 pages on all screens. This enables you to have a chapter or at least chapter section of a textbook to flip through without lugging the whole dead tree version around with you. Also avoids the prohibitive costs of binding textbooks as chapters.

Re:That's awesome

[Jarik C-Bol]

yeah, electronic measuring tape, thats real good. until you drop it off a scaffold, or into some wet cement, or whatnot. a normal tape measure will usually survive that, but something loaded with electronics more complex than your moms first cellphone? yeah thats gonna die the first day on the job.

Re:That's awesome

[Jarik C-Bol]

everyone is thinking of the awesome GPS/map/computer thing from red planet. you know, the one from the scene where val kilmer says 'this is it, that moment our teachers told us about; when one day, algebra would save our lives'. thats what we think when we say roll up screen.

when you think about it, that device was a huge prediction, just look:
1. roll up screen (apparently, almost here)
2. gps, map, computer combination (smartphones)
3. realtime overlay of info onto background through transparent screen (augmented reality apps, partially here)

all this 10 years ago, when cell phones where still nearly the size of your shoe, and the imac was the size of a boat anchor and still came in several fruit flavors.

Re:That's awesome

[sznupi]

Similar devices were being conceived at least a decade before red planet, it's not very accurate to give it credit; especially since we basically already have them, quite a bit sooner than that film depicts ;)

I'm still not holding my breath for roll up screens. I suspect they belong to things which are mostly only good to be shown at exhibitions in order to amaze customers.

Re:That's awesome

[Jarik C-Bol]

well, thats the only example of a roll-up screen i've ever ran across, so i used it. I'd love some more examples though.

Re:That's awesome

[sznupi]

Perhaps even Jetsons, I believe.

Plus remember that I have my doubts about rollable screens / wasn't really thinking about this part as the defining one. We basically have rest of the tech you mentioned, and those do change the state of affairs. I can't readily recollect one scifi book where devices practically identical to modern mobile phones were discussed, but it's certainly comfortably older from red planet.

Flexible gadgets are undeniably sexy, eh?

[noidentity]

Flexible gadgets are undeniably sexy

I kept telling her that, but she wouldn't fall for it.

Re:Flexible gadgets are undeniably sexy, eh?

[imikem]

Just tell her to bend over.

Re:Flexible gadgets are undeniably sexy, eh?

[machine321]

I guess that's one way to keep your mom out of the basement.

video pencils

[gbjbaanb]

The new prototype is so bendy that it can be wrapped around a pencil while still streaming video!"

and to think, in my day we were happy with a plastic woman whose undies floated off when you tipped it up.

Re:video pencils

[dubbreak]

and to think, in my day we were happy with a plastic woman whose undies floated off when you tipped it up.

Think of how that can be improved on! Just add an accelerometer and it can cue a video of woman stripping when tipped. Shake the pen and it will skip to a different woman (3 stock woman but you can either have a monthly subscription or purchase individual new penstrip avatars for $0.99 each). Algorithms can determine your preferences and suggest new avatars... etc

The future is awesome. It can't come quick enough.

Re:video pencils

[Anonymous Coward]

You've put *far* too much thought into this already. Only on /. do you see business models in posts.

Re:video pencils

[Monkeedude1212]

It can't come quick enough.

I think it just did.

Re:video pencils

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither can you.

Why does it look so horrible?

[ArbitraryDescriptor]

Granted, it's the best video quality I have seen wrapped around a pencil, but those artifacts are pretty unacceptable. Are they supposed to be there?

Re:Why does it look so horrible?

[ArbitraryDescriptor]

Gizmodo has a video. The 'dead' strips seem to change as it get's bent. It's cool.. but that doesn't seem like a problem easily solved.

Re:Why does it look so horrible?

[Volante3192]

For a prototype, though, this is pretty smurfing impressive.

Re:Why does it look so horrible?

[Anonymous Coward]

For a prototype, though, this is pretty smurfing impressive.

Yeah, too many people here don't seem to acknowledge that this is an early prototype. They're acting like Sony's going to start marketing these things as is in a few weeks or something.

Re:Why does it look so horrible?

[Valdrax]

The 'dead' strips seem to change as it get's bent.

I don't see it. Looks to me like the stripes of dead pixels are pretty consistent and don't appear or disappear as it rolls up.

Re:Why does it look so horrible?

[Trinn]

I'm pretty sure these artifacts are actually a result not of the display itself but whatever connector elements are used to actually drive the oled pixels, as they can appear and disappear, and are forming one pixel wide lines, suggesting problems with the horizontal and vertical electrodes that are undoubtedly laid across the display in a grid (one layer H, one layer V, display between), and specifically, problems with whatever method they are using to essentially glue/solder/otherwise make connection at the junctions between the electrodes and the display elements, as well as with resistances changing in the electrodes themselves along their lengths. the fact that a line can start and stop somewhere within the display suggests to me the electrodes are driven from both edges and what's going on is the center is being electrically isolated from the rest by a pair of locations of high resistance.

Re:Why does it look so horrible?

[blair1q]

No, actually, it's pretty fucking lame.

Take the glass off your LCD and bend it and you'll get massive distortion, too.

The idea of a breakthrough is to solve a problem, not to demonstrate it.

Re:Why does it look so horrible?

[Daetrin]

I can't access the video at the moment, but if the broken "pixels" go away again when the screen is unbent they've still got something great. How many people desperately want animated pencils? The useful bit is that the screen doesn't break when you wrap it up like that. They can attach such screens to spring loaded rollers, like old style movie screens. You unroll it when you want to watch something, and roll it back up for easy storage when you're done.

Re:Why does it look so horrible?

[Fallen Kell]

Are they supposed to be there?

No, they are lines of dead and/or stuck pixels. If you notice, they are all either red, green, blue, or black lines. What this means is that the control lines, or power feeds for those lines of pixels are bad/malformed.

Re:Why does it look so horrible?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, actually, it's pretty fucking lame.
Take the glass off your LCD and bend it and you'll get massive distortion, too.
The idea of a breakthrough is to solve a problem, not to demonstrate it.

You don't understand the difference between LCD and LED screens, do you? But you sure do know enough to know that this is "lame" and not at all impressive.

Re:Why does it look so horrible?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is in the layers. Bending can cause the layers to miss-align, creating dead areas. make a normal LCD without glass and bend a bit, have MASSIVE damage to the layers, I daresay total damage to the entire film.

The thinner the layers, the easier it is to bend. And this is a prototype. At first the majority of these screens would be used later in items that did not need such bending. Its the degree of flexibility versus durability that has been a major improvement.

Just back in 2007, they were bending by hand a plastic sheet around 90 degrees with the same level of damage, distortion. Going from that to wrapping it around a pencil is definitely quite interesting to me at least.

Re:Why does it look so horrible?

[Garble Snarky]

I don't know how the technology works, but the article implies that this can not be done with an LCD panel, even if you take the glass off.

Re:Why does it look so horrible?

[canajin56]

What? They seem pretty static to me. And, you really think prototype LCDs never ever ever ever ever had stuck rows due to bad connections? And you think bad connections are an almost insurmountable problem? :/

Re:Why does it look so horrible?

[ArbitraryDescriptor]

You're right, I watched it a dozen more times, I thought they were disappearing where the screen was bending, and other times they were just hard to see after an unroll because the color of the video obscured them.

Re:Why does it look so horrible?

[blair1q]

Er, sorta.

LCDs need a finite thickness of fluid (crystals in colloidal suspension) so that applying an electric field can create regions of polarization alignment and disalignment. The liquid has to be contained bewteen sandwiched layers and kept to a constant thickness. When you bend the panel, the thickness is no longer constant, and the alignments are no longer coherent across the panel. In parts the liquid may be totally squeezed to the sides, producing a totally dead spot.

OLED devices are essentially printed onto their substrate, along with their wires. In theory, if all of the materials are elastic, you should be able to roll it up tightly and not see damage. But theory is not reality. In reality, the printed wires stretch and crack and lose continuity.

The fact that these people are maintaining some continuity is interesting. But it's clear they have not solved the problem well enough to use the device in the ways they're demonstrating, as it's failing in this test.

Re:Why does it look so horrible?

[blair1q]

What "this" is that? Damaging the image by bending it? I'm pretty sure an LCD can do that. Which is what I tried to say.

When they can bend it without losing coherence, I'll see it as non-lame.

Re:Why does it look so horrible?

[badboy_tw2002]

Hey dude, I'll email you when they get it fixed. Its obvious you don't want incremental updates but would rather see it as a finished product only. Some of us like to see the steps in between and marvel at the progress to get this far. Others don't really care about the underlying technology and just want to see a finished "apple like" presentation. There's rooms for all types of course, but /. typically trends toward the "show me what you've got" deal rather than "here's something you can buy right now."

Re:Why does it look so horrible?

[renoX]

Would someone with moderators points increase one of the answer: the GP was wrong: the dead pixels don't change upon (re)rolling.
So now what they need to show is that there are able to make prototype without dead pixels and this technology would become useful (if the production costs are reasonable).

Re:Why does it look so horrible?

[bughunter]

This.

Trinn has it nailed. It's an addressing or contact problem for a whole row of pixels.

(We see this a lot with detectors, too, but we can post-process the artifacts out.)

The specific distribution of failed rows/columns is typically random from device to device, as is the number of failed rows. It's a yield issue that can be improved with a refinement of the manufacturing techniques and display (or detector) design.

In other words, it's an engineering problem that will be solved eventually by some clever person, not a fundamental technical limitation.

Re:Why does it look so horrible?

[Garble Snarky]

What happens when you bend an LCD? You seem to think it would do the same thing this device does. I don't know, because I've never tried it, but somehow I doubt that it would continue to display any image at all. Saying that this device does not demonstrate any improvement over an LCD at all is absurd.

Re:Why does it look so horrible?

[bynary]

You're joking, right? Someone actually displays a working, FLEXIBLE video screen and all you can say is "it has artifacts." Give them some time.

Re:Why does it look so horrible?

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations. You've shown us you know how to use wikipedia. Too bad you have no idea what any of that really means.

Re:Why does it look so horrible?

[holmstar]

That video seems to show a testing apparatus. IE: it repeatedly rolls up the display to see how much abuse it can take before pixels/lines begin to fail. It would be nice to know how many times it had been rolled up prior to the video. Clearly there has already been some damage.

Artifacts

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like the rolling around a pencil part doesn't quite work. The video shows vertical and horizontal lines appearing randomly all over the screen when that is done.

Re:Artifacts

[TheRaven64]

Wrapping a display around a pencil while it's in use is not especially useful. The point of the demo is that you can have a display that is wrapped around a cylinder and rolled out when you use it. The big advantage that a laptop has over a palmtop now is screen size. A folding keyboard that is big enough to be comfortable can easily fit in a pocket, but you're limited to something like a 4" screen. With an OLED like this, you could have a much larger screen which is simply rolled up when not in use. Eventually, you could have a pocket computer the same form factor as a pen, which you just unrolled wherever you wanted to use it. Connect a wireless keyboard if you want to do a lot of text entry, otherwise use the touchscreen. The system on chip and battery remain in the pen body.

Re:Artifacts

[cmiller173]

I don't know if you (or anyone else) remember the "Global Link" handheld computers in the science fiction series "Earth: Final Conflict". It was a compact device that slid open to reveal what had to be a rolled up screen. Similar to the mockup on this page: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/perlow/google-and-sirius-xm-build-my-dream-handheld/9233 I've been waiting 13 years for them to build one.

Re:Artifacts

[st_adamin]

Do you remember the commercial with the guy buying stocks on the glasses/projector that looked like no more than a BT earbud? I believe the tagline was: It's Coming. Is it? When? They should stop advertising futuretech and then dumping it because it's currently unfeasible. That does wonders for their company image. Though I have long since forgot WTH company that was. Probably not IBM, though my memory seems to be adding their logo to the end of the commercial.

Re:Artifacts

[JWSmythe]

They should stop advertising futuretech and then dumping it because it's currently unfeasible.

    I agree totally. I pretty much ignore anything that looks like it should have a "forward-looking statement" disclaimer on it.

    I remember seeing a variation on this years ago. It was on one of those future-tech shows in the late 80's or early 90's. It was a transparent LCD screen that was on something resembling a window shade roller. When you didn't need your monitor, you could roll it down into the desk. Additionally, it was transparent, so it used ambient light from the office to illuminate the screen. blah, blah, coming in a year, blah, blah. They were showing a working prototype, which looked nice (as I recall).

    So 20-some years later, now there's another one, except it's not transparent, and ... well ... has huge visible faults on the prototype.

    Since we've been seeing stories about solar cells that you can print on inkjet printers for several years, I expect that tech will be available first. :) I've added them to my Christmas wishlist, right behind Duke Nukem Forever.

    You'd be amazed how helpful it is in the real world if you see if you can append a forward-looking statement disclaimer to something. "Can I borrow $100? I'll give it back next Thursday." Fool, your money has been parted with you, and Thursday will come and go without ever seeing a penny of it.

    I don't want to hear about futuretech until I can pick it up in a store, or order it to be delivered within a week. If neither can be accomplished, I won't hold my breath on it ever existing. That way, I'll be content when I can buy one, and I won't be upset that something cool was canned because it couldn't work as advertised. I am still waiting for my personal flying car/spaceship that I was promised so many years ago. Everyone will have 'em, they said. They'll be affordable, so you could have a spare. You can visit the moon or mars stations, or just spin around the solar system for the weekend. Take a trip to the mons of Venus. Avoid Uranus though, the methane is bad this time of year.

    Damn them forward looking statements, and their evil lies.

Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

shear strength will not be included until version 2.0.

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[Monkeedude1212]

They clearly had some French researchers working on it.

Too bad.

[Merls the Sneaky]

Too bad sony is making it. Guess I will have to wait for a chinese knockoff. No way is sony getting any of my money.

Re:Too bad.

[blai]

unless this OLED uses some proprietary connector or something ('hey! good idea!' - mkt dept.), I don't think Sony products deserve so much avoidance.

Re:Too bad.

[Monkeedude1212]

Don't look now, someone has your credit card. ...

Haha, you checked your wallet, didn't you?

Re:Too bad.

[noidentity]

Too bad sony is making it. Guess I will have to wait for a chinese knockoff. No way is sony getting any of my money.

I guess you're right. Sony probably has a rootkit that's a tenth the thickness of a human hair, embedded in this thing.

Re:Too bad.

[roman_mir]

Too BAD? Do you see anyone else making stuff like what Sony does? They are clearly always a step or 10 ahead of everyone else. They maybe assholes about many things, but first of all, the company is big and different people are responsible for different things, their research is great. Secondly, they are likely to sell licenses on production to other companies as well, so you will see these screens on other pieces of electronic equipment that is not directly coming out of Sony.

As to Chinese knockoffs, that will come eventually, but the manufacturing of these devices may be about as difficult as creating the technology in the first place.

Re:Too bad.

[h4rr4r]

You think you should buy from a company that produced CD's with a rootkit on them?
You think you should support a company that makes a habit of removing features from their game console?

Re:Too bad.

[sconeu]

I'm sure that this is cool. But...

Sarcasm aside, I refuse to buy any Sony products either. Not because I'm afraid there's a rootkit there, but because Sony Corp. has stated via said rootkit, that they think I'm a criminal, and they don't give a shit if they damage my property.

Given that corporate attitude, the only way I can "punish" them is by refusing to give them my money.

Re:Too bad.

[nomadic]

Why not? Do you think they rootkitted the OLED?

Re:Too bad.

[gyrogeerloose]

They are clearly always a step or 10 ahead of everyone else

Like in mobile phones? Or music players

Sony is a lot like HP--a once-great engineering company that has been given over too and ruined by marketing drones, at least at the consumer product level. Their pro video equipment is still great stuff but even in that realm Sony no longer rules the way it once did.

Re:Too bad.

[Urkki]

Why not? Do you think they rootkitted the OLED?

Maybe not yet, but it's just a matter of time...

But seriously, DRM technology will eventually be tightly integrated with display technology itself, the display surface itself. And Sony will be leading the way.

Re:Too bad.

[mcgrew]

Indeed; they taught me that they were not a reputable company when they put malware on music CDs, and again when they took away functionality from devices their poor customers had purchasd after those customers had bought and paid for those devices. Sony coouldn't be more evil if Satan himself was CEO.

In fact, they're so untrustworthy in my eyes I won't even believe in this breakthrough until the Amazing Randi says it's not an illusion.

Why anyone would give Sony their hard-earned money, especially for computer gear, is beyond my comprehension.

Re:Too bad.

[roman_mir]

The phones, the music players, all that is done by firms like Apple today is just regurgitation and evolutionary improvements.

This screen is a revolutionary improvement, that's what I expect from Sony.

Re:Too bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't, but thats because I knew that the someone who had my credit card was me... Logic fail for you.

Re:Too bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

That was exactly the first thought in my head is well. Who would be stupid enough to throw any money at SONY (those lieing cheat bastard fucks) at this point. Sure you get a fully functional OLED now, but 6 months from now, they'll "upgrade" the firmware so you can only plug a SONY product into it, or some other bullshit. SONY doesn't belong in an open market.

Re:Too bad.

[noidentity]

Agreed. I don't even care if they think I'm a criminal; it's that they would do things like that to my property (not even a Sony product!) with little care.

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[zazenation]

But it would be about right for a person that was 2 mega meters tall...

Old is new again

[Anonymous Coward]

Who would have figured on scrolls coming back in style?

Re:Old is new again

[TheRaven64]

Lots of people. There have been scroll-like concept designs for well over a decade, but the technology to make them hasn't yet appeared. Flexible displays were one of the early promises of OLEDs; the first demo I ever saw of one had it flexing, although not nearly as much as this one. Electronic Ink displays were also supposed to be possible to use in the scroll form factor. One company had a prototype that did, but I don't remember if they shipped any.

But when?

[michael_cain]

But when will I be able to buy a reasonable-size and reasonable-price display that uses OLEDs? Lab toys are cute, but real products are sexy.

Re:But when?

[roman_mir]

about 20 years from now the prices will be in the range that you'll like, before then, if you have to ask about the price - you can't afford it.

Re:But when?

[h4rr4r]

You can already get phones with AMOLED displays, so I can't imagine more than 5 or 10 years, but if you want bargain basement prices you may need to wait longer.

Re:But when?

[barkingcorndog]

I want an Oompa-Loompa NOW!

Re:But when?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what I'm getting tired of. When the hell will a desktop 24" OLED monitor be on the market. I don't need to bend it around anything. I just need it to sit on my desk and act as a display for my computer.

Re:But when?

[gyrogeerloose]

But when will I be able to buy a reasonable-size and reasonable-price display that uses OLEDs? Lab toys are cute, but real products are sexy.

Apple apparently considered an OLED display for the iPhone 4G but decided against it because of cost and reliability concerns. However, the fact that they even considered it suggests that it won't be all that much longer before manufacturers start shipping OLEDs in actual products.

Re:But when?

[HeckRuler]

Lab toys are cute, but real products are sexy.

You actually got that backwards. Lab prototypes are sexy, new, unheard-of, exotic pieces of dream fluff made real. Mass-produced plastic crap is common and unsexy. It's the difference between the stage-shot and airbrushed playboy vs. the average walmart cashier.

Think about mp3 players. Back when they were lab products, the idea of portable music that used digital copies instead of lugging around CDs or *gasp* cassettes was a sexy idea. Today they're impulse items for $10 in Menard's.

Now, when the prototype becomes the bleeding edge product that only the stupidly wealthy or those with a wealth of stupidity will go buy, it retains some sexiness as only those elite few can have it. It's still exotic, but less so. But you're not looking for that, you specifically want something that's "reasonably-priced". When that happens, they will no longer be sexy. Because they're so common. Because demand has gone down. Because they're no longer sexy.

Re:But when?

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

last time anyone tried to use something from a lab that wasn't theirs had the cops banging down the doors.

They were also stupid enough to advertise they had the product to begin with.

Re:But when?

[Anonymous Coward]

Several Android phones use OLED displays, like the HTC Desire I've got sitting in front of me. It is a sweet screen.

Re:But when?

[John Meacham]

The Nexus One has a big beautiful OLED display right now. So do some of the other new android phones. Check one out next to an LCD iphone and the difference is quite apparent.

Re:But when?

[gyrogeerloose]

The Nexus One has a big beautiful OLED display right now.

See? I told you it wouldn't be that much longer! ;-)

Seriously, how do those phones do in bright light? I know that brightness is a problem with OLEDs right now.

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[Anonymous Coward]

Even my aging CRT is a "hair" under 0.5m.

Unless... the diagonal viewing size is significantly greater than 280 ft? Because if you scaled my CRT up, and the diagonal viewing area was 1:1 proportional with the depth of the thing, then it would be about 80m deep. So I'm thinking like maybe 500 ft diagonal viewing size, and flexible? Well... sounds a bit unwieldy to be flexing, come to think of it...

This is it

[freeshoes]

Think of it, you take out your iPhone sized phone and pull out a ipad size screen lock it in place. Make it run android and you have the ultimate internet device.

Nice. Not great but nice.

[LWATCDR]

How much?
How big can you get it?
How long will it last?
When will it ship?

You know the kind of important info...

Re:Nice. Not great but nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like the conversation during my last date. :-)

the Fun House re-born

[rhendershot]

this gives a whole new aspect to the House-of-Mirrors. Gawd! I want to be a kid again....

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[Angst Badger]

80 meters is a pretty substantial hair.

You can't expect much grasp of metric units from Americans. It was bad enough when they used the Imperial system, but nowadays they have only two units of scale: a human hair and the state of Texas. Anything in between is just passed over in embarrassed silence.

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[Glarimore]

They obviously mean microns, but either don't know the abbreviation or accidently left out a .

Aspect Ratio fix

[aapold]

I like the idea of being able to switch my aspect ratio by stretching the screen.....

Re:Aspect Ratio fix

[maratumba]

Or to create multiple displays by tearing it apart...

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[Stickybombs]

Not true, we have football fields and libraries of congress as well! He meant to say it is just under 1 football field.

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[marcansoft]

As you can now see, it's Slashdot's fault. Apparently someone is too lazy to update the Unicode whitelist with characters that are actually useful on a tech site.

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[Glarimore]

Apparently slashdot won't take the micro symbol in comments. I don't know what is more fail: a board for nerds not allowing the micro symbol in comments or the fact that I didn't properly proofread by one sentence post.

Summary of comments so far

[Volante3192]

50% Hurr hurr they said 80 meters in the summary!
50% The pixels are broken.

I guess it'll take a while for the intelligent posters to come up with any decent feedback on this technology...

Re:Summary of comments so far

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess it'll take a while for the intelligent posters to come up with any decent feedback on this technology...

Apparently.

Re:Summary of comments so far

[Thud457]

"it's not how well the bear dances,
but that the bear dances at all"

... and also that he doesn't maul your face off and take your vodka, commrade...

Re:Summary of comments so far

[MRe_nl]

All i can say from the specs is you'll need a pretty dark room to see anything. The sun has a luminance of about 1 billion cd/m2, fluorescent lamps about 10,000 cd/m2, the iphone-screen has a peak luminance of 428 cd/m2, and this is only 100 cd/m2. (cd=candelabra).Any stronger light-source shining on the picture (or your eyes)=less picture.
That would mean almost all light sources with this tech so far, even reflected light/backlightcan be >100 cd/m2.

Re:Summary of comments so far

[dwarfsoft]

Yes, but is that Imperial or Metric Candelabras? ... and how many Candelas is one of these Candelabras? Putting pettiness aside for a minute, where did you find the peak luminance spec of the device anyway? It wasn't in TFA, or in the article that TFA linked to. Google gave me this but I couldn't see anything that Sony has verified or released regarding this.

Re:Summary of comments so far

[MRe_nl]

Specification of the OTFT
organic semiconductor : peri-Xanthenoxanthene(PXX) derivative
hole mobility : 0.4 cm2/Vs
current on/off ratio : 106
channel length : 5m
threshold voltage : -5V

Specification of the rollable OTFT-driven OLED display
size of a panel : 4.1 inch wide
number of pixels : 432 x 240 x RGB pixels
size of a pixel : 210m x 210m
resolution : 121 ppi (pixels per inch)
number of colors : 16,777,216
peak luminance : >100 cd/m2
contrast ratio : >1000:1
minimum bending radius : 4 mm
driving scheme : 2T-1C voltage programming with OTFTs
thickness of a panel : 80m
Via Sony

Re:Summary of comments so far

[MRe_nl]

I think it's the same source your link provides. in hindsight there's a > sign next to the 100cd/m2, i wonder what that means, surely not "greater then", more likely "slightly more then" or "up to"?

Re:Summary of comments so far

[Anonymous Coward]

. (cd=candela).

there, fixed that for you. an candelabra is the thing Elton John has sitting on the piano

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[by (1706743)]

Well, at least it wasn't 80 hellameters!

Or, if you prefer, the conversion in more sensible units...

What happens

[blai]

If you fold a crease? Will that cost $300 to replace?

Re:What happens

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Will that cost $300 to replace?

No, there's also labor.

Re:What happens

[sznupi]

It doesn't have to be meant for screens foldable to end user. Just for fab making gadgets.

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[sznupi]

the fact that I didn't properly proofread by one sentence post

Not a big deal really, considering the "editing" of TFS...

Get over yourself.

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

You realize that nearly anything you buy may have components by Sony somewhere inside right? Video encoders, audio decoders, LCDs of all kinds, various DSPs, DACs, etc.

Get over yourself. Sony pulled a stunt FIVE YEARS AGO. Sony's also a huge company that produces a lot of different components used by a variety of manufacturers.

Re:Get over yourself.

[marcansoft]

Sony pulled a stunt FIVE YEARS AGO.

Try last month. They unconditionally (and probably illegally) pulled out a major feature of the PS3 for all PS3 owners.

Re:Get over yourself.

[VGR]

Get over yourself. Sony pulled a stunt FIVE YEARS AGO.

And aside from the price of minor public outrage, they have paid virtually no price for doing it. (Forgive me if I don't view having to pay each affected customer $7.50 or a voucher for a free song download as a significant punishment.)

You're correct that completely avoiding Sony products is next to impossible, but that's hardly a reason to give up on trying to impose a punishment. Where choice exists, one can choose not to go with Sony.

Re:Get over yourself.

[Lumpy]

Nope. all my panasonic gear has NO sony components in it.

no Sony chips inside. It's one reason why I went Panasonic... they dont use ANY sony parts and are a glass maker on their own as well.

Re:Get over yourself.

[jimbolauski]

No No No. What I said was, is like Sony guts.

Re:Get over yourself.

[doctor_no]

GIve me a break, people that spew this BS haven't actually used Linux on the PS3.

It was NOT a "major" feature, I was on the YDL forums (the most active PS3 Linux community online) and it was a ghost town.

Quite frankly, PS3 on the Linux was useless, it had 256MB or RAM, less then 200MBs were usable, you could hack it to access GPU memory but it was overall pretty much useless. PPU builds of applications were hard to find, you were stuck without Flash (crappy Gnash work around), and old version of Firefox (no HTML5), and any cheap netbook would run circles around it.

The worst part is after 3 years of Linux on the PS3 nobody made any substantial Cell applications. There was barely any community support. Nobody cared.

All these whiners complaining about he loss of Linux of the PS3; where the hell were you when it was available?

Re:Get over yourself.

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

What about your Celphone? Your car? or any number of electronic devices you own?

It's fucking ridiculous. Great, you avoid anything sony and I'll go look at the cool new flexible display.

Re:Get over yourself.

[advocate_one]

and people are still unsuspectingly installing rootkits using Sony CDs made several years ago... I have a few CDs I have to hold down the left shift key for when loading them just to be doubly sure...

Re:Get over yourself.

[perryizgr8]

i'm almost sure that panasonic does not make flash memory. maybe they source it from sony?

Re:Get over yourself.

[IndigoDarkwolf]

Putting Linux on the PS3 served one single purpose: Revealing to everyone the kind of crap we game developers have to put up with when making games for the damn thing.

Re:Get over yourself.

[Anonymous Coward]

All these whiners complaining about he loss of Linux of the PS3; where the hell were you when it was available?

Here, since week #1 (March '2007, Europe), you insensitive clod!

Re:Get over yourself.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was on PSUbuntu, or rather, my grandmother was on PSUbuntu, as it was the only "computer" I could convince her to use (mostly by saying that it's connected to the TV, so it's not really a computer, so there's nothing you can do to break it...). So, yeah, I never used it to it's potential. Yeah it wasn't super fast. Yeah, it just barely functioned as a computer. But it did, and it functioned beautifully for the application I bought it for (a computer for my grandmother, a gaming device for when I'm there and she's already gone to bed). And now Sony has removed an advertised feature that I used in my purchase decision (either linux or online gaming, my "choice"). So fuck 'em. And yes, I was involved with the community (true, there wasn't much, but we were a fairly active bunch and I did what I could, being an art major and all...). So I'll continue whining, thankyouverymuch.

Re:Get over yourself.

[B4D BE4T]

Quite frankly, PS3 on the Linux was useless

(Assuming you meant Linux on the PS3)

Many, including the US Air Force would beg to differ.

Re:Get over yourself.

[Lumpy]

Cellphone = iPhone and no sony chips.

Car = GM and nope, Delphi does not source sony chips. In fact sony does not have any chips for engine management or automotive systems.

Crestron gear - i doubt it. Coffee maker has no chips. Stove, Fridge... not a chance.

Sony really is not a massive chip maker anymore. It's rare to have a sony chip anymore unless it's a specific sony technology or device... Blu Ray players... They have a sony parts...

I will not buy a blu ray player. It's a dumb thing to own IMO. I use an AppleTV and a roku box for my HD movies.

Re:Get over yourself.

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Why? Keeping uncompressed HD video around tends to take up disk space I don't have.

Re:Get over yourself.

[bynary]

Indeed. Several years ago I purchased a GE portable CD player. When it finally quit working I opened it up to see what made it tick. Turns out around 90% of the components had the name Sony stamped on them. You're absolutely right: Sony makes damn near everything when it comes to electronics.

Re:Get over yourself.

[Anonymous Coward]

... Just like the right to the source code of GPL software is not a major feature to most users, so fuck it, right?

Re:Get over yourself.

[IsoRashi]

I installed both ydl and gentoo at different points in time. You're right that linux on the ps3 was largely useless. I had originally wanted to play video files from over the network on my tv but the performance at full screen was horrible. I had also thought it would be cool to run some emulators and use the ps3 controllers to play games, but I never even got that far due to the performance issues with mplayer/vlc/etc.

I think there would have been a larger community around linux on the ps3 if it hadn't been gimped from the start. It's a shame, but I'll live w/o it, same as I have the past few years.

Re:Get over yourself.

[Xamindar]

It's the principal that matters. I and many others don't use ps2 backwards compatibility so by your logic no one should care if Sony removes it from all the 60 and 80 gig models either.

Re:Get over yourself.

[mattack2]

"many"? Wasn't the PS2 backward compatibility heavily advertised upon introduction? The PS3 Linux capability wasn't. (BTW, the lack of PS2 backward compatibility is why I don't yet have a PS3.. though I will likely eventually get one via sony points on their web site.)

The PS3 linux usage seems like infinitesimal amount, based upon the other replies, especially the guy from the PS3 forum.

Re:Get over yourself.

[Anonymous Coward]

GIve me a break, people that spew this BS haven't actually used Linux on the PS3.

It was NOT a "major" feature, I was on the YDL forums (the most active PS3 Linux community online) and it was a ghost town.

Quite frankly, PS3 on the Linux was useless, it had 256MB or RAM, less then 200MBs were usable, you could hack it to access GPU memory but it was overall pretty much useless. PPU builds of applications were hard to find, you were stuck without Flash (crappy Gnash work around), and old version of Firefox (no HTML5), and any cheap netbook would run circles around it.

The worst part is after 3 years of Linux on the PS3 nobody made any substantial Cell applications. There was barely any community support. Nobody cared.

All these whiners complaining about he loss of Linux of the PS3; where the hell were you when it was available?

I was too busy playing my SNES and Genesis emulators on my PS3 to worry about posting on the YDL forums. The forums were handy to look up info like getting the BT drivers for the controllers, though.

I held off updating the firmware for as long as possible, but I found it hard to explain to my 6 year old son that he couldn't play the user-created levels on Little Big Planet because Daddy is trying to stick up for his rights as a consumer. Now I'm left with 10GB I can't use until I buy/ borrow an external HDD to back up my data. Yay.

Re:Get over yourself.

[Anonymous Coward]

H264 compressed HD is as good on a low res 1080p screen as the "uncompressed" you claim is on a blu ray. News flash... Blu Rays have COMPRESSED VIDEO on them. Hell I compress a BluRay to 4.8gb and it looks great on a 1080p 108" screen. enough that nobody can tell the difference between it and the original bluray. Only a fool thinks you cant compress a HD movie farther and get no visible losses. Blurays are not compressed harder because the processor in the players is a low power turd. That's one of the reasons that the best bluray player you can get is the Ps3.. it's the only player made with enough horsepower. So unless you are getting really good torrents of the source uncompressed video, you dont have uncompressed video anywhere at your home. Finally, why keep it? I have yet to find a movie that I want to watch over and over and over. I'm with lumpy.. Watch the HD from netflix on a roku or Xbox360.. anything not on that is on the AppleTV or AmazonVideo so watch it streamed in full HD glory (appleTV has the advantage of downloading and holding it and having full AC3 surround unlike the crud that Amazon or Blockbuster has. It's one thing that Apple got right) I have yet to see a movie in the past 10 years that I wanted to own and watch over and over and over and over and over again....

Re:Get over yourself.

[MikeBabcock]

And that affected you or 99% of the population how?

Thanks. Moving along, Sony has an excellent hardware engineering track record, as their TVs, the PS1/2/3, their various other A/V equipment all demonstrate.

Sony MUSIC's behaviour has nothing to do with anything either.

Re:Get over yourself.

[MikeBabcock]

Increasing video compression is easy if you're willing to use variable bit rates and increase it dramatically in action sequences with lots of movement and ignore macroblocks growing out of all similarly-coloured areas.

Watching Transformers on BD on my PS3 with details turned on shows how the bitrate changes dramatically even from scene to scene in that movie. If specific sets of frames require 30Mbit/s to reproduce well, are you willing to commit that much bandwidth to them? If not, those scenes will always blur or have massive artifacts.

Re:Get over yourself.

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Finally, why keep it?

Because it's also the same box that lets me play Super Street Fighter IV and ModNation Racers?

Re:Get over yourself.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Linux capability was still advertised as a feature. Given that they had removed the feature from the slim version, I don't see the point in removing it.

Even if only one person used it it would still be unethical (and certainly should be illegal, if it isn't actually) for them to remove the feature. If they have to remove the feature the least they should do is to provide decent compensation to those affected.

Sony's actions are those of a scummy company that clearly doesn't care about it's customers, it is hard to justify why you should support them with your purchases.

Re:Get over yourself.

[mattack2]

Where was it advertised as a feature? Lots of people are saying this, but I've yet to see someone provide an ad mentioning the Linux capability.

Re:Get over yourself.

[wirelessbuzzers]

It was pretty good for cheap scientific computing clusters. But it's being replaced now by tower computers with 4 GPUs.

Just curious

[Xacid]

Why do the images of both of those prototypes have lines going all across them? I'd imagine you'd want to demo something like that without that being a side effect - unless it's intentional...? I'm sure someone here knows. :)

Re:Just curious

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do the images of both of those prototypes have lines going all across them? I'd imagine you'd want to demo something like that without that being a side effect - unless it's intentional...? I'm sure someone here knows. :)

The fact that they have video playing on a flexible screen thinner than a human hair isn't good enough for you? The video needs to be absolutely flawless, too? And then will you bitch about how the color saturation isn't rich enough? Or that the refresh rate isn't high enough? Seriously, there's just no pleasing some people...That they're able to do this at all is pretty fucking amazing. Or if you're going to bitch about how it's not perfect, why don't you show us how you've done something better?

Re:Just curious

[MaWeiTao]

I'd say they're in the research phase. The technology is being shown both to impress us and to show it's possible. The problems are either do to wear and tear, technology at such an early stage isn't particularly durable, or there are a few issues that still need to be addressed.

Re:Just curious

[Xacid]

I'll feed the troll since I'm feeling masochistic today: My subject said "Just curious". I don't think I had to rehash "oh, that's pretty cool" to ask a question - a legitimate technical one at that.

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[oodaloop]

or the fact that I didn't properly proofread by one sentence post

Even more fail would be not proofreading a post commenting on not proofreading.

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[Anonymous Coward]

More common is to use 'um' for micron when a mu is not available.

Environmentally friendly?

[atamido]

By making it so thin does that mean they are using less exotic/toxic materials? Or does it simply mean that they've found a way to reduce the size of the packaging around the OLED pixels?

Re:Environmentally friendly?

[Sir_Lewk]

It means they've found more potent/exotic chemicals than before, so now they can make it smaller and maintain toxicity.

Flexibility? Pfft. I want quality & longevit

[Valdrax]

So, it can wrap around a pencil. That's... nice... I guess, but have they come anywhere near to solving the issue of longevity? Plus, all those dead pixels are pretty intolerable unless you're making a disposable gimmick products -- and the world certainly doesn't need more of that.

45 Comments and no applications

[Tekfactory]

Seriously,

Sunglasses with HUD, Contact Lenses with onscreen displays, Fingernail Applicques a la Cyberpunk. Subdermal vital signs readout, Passports, Driver's Licenses and Credit Cards with really cool security features.

Every book and magazine you wanted to read ever on a 1 or 2 page Ebook reader way thinner than anything we have now. Yeah, batteries and storage will take up some room. At some point the interface, and charging equipment will be the bottleneck to making smaller system.

Re:45 Comments and no applications

[robot256]

At some point the interface, and charging equipment will be the bottleneck to making smaller system.

Not even. Just wait til resonant inductive charging and micro high-speed RF become common, then your paper-thin ereader will have wi-fi and a constant power source.

Re:45 Comments and no applications

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't see sunglasses or contacts... the focal point is too close to your eye. The display would have to include focusing somehow.

How about the coolest kite you've ever seen?
Windsurfing sails. High-profile-race sails.
Roll-up displays like in avatar.

Labels on products. Imagine a stack of beans at the grocery that could link together and make one big display. Yikes.

Video game or movie boxes that show a preview of the contents.

Re:45 Comments and no applications

[Lumpy]

you still have focal point problems. Been there done that. did research on information HUD's with the big guys..

It's hard to get past the change in focus. you cant have a perfectly clear hud superimposed over your vision at all times.

Re:45 Comments and no applications

[Solandri]

Every book and magazine you wanted to read ever on a 1 or 2 page Ebook reader way thinner than anything we have now.

You're thinking in the wrong dimension. This is working towards an ebook reader which you can roll up so you can carry it around in your shirt pocket. Back in ancient times, they rolled up parchment so it would take less storage space. Those scrolls got replaced by books with pages because you needed to keep scrolling parchment to continue reading, and it was easier to flip a bunch of pages than to scroll to the section you wanted.

Ebook readers eliminate the need to physically turn pages, and so once again rolling becomes the most space-efficient storage method.

Re:45 Comments and no applications

[blair1q]

Sunglasses with HUD, Contact Lenses with onscreen displays,

Your eye can't focus on those, unless you're tragically myopic, and then you're gneeing over a flexible screen on coke-bottle glasses...

Subdermal vital signs readout

Interesting, but a bit clunky when you add in power and I/O.

Passports,

You want a passport that has a variable display? So would a lot of crooks.

Driver's Licenses and Credit Cards with really cool security features.

Which will still be summarily ignored by crooks ordering online using your stolen digits.

Ebook reader way thinner than anything we have now

The e-paper versions are already made of a flexible-display material. This will make multimedia devices way thinner, though. But really, I don't want more thinness. My Nexus One is already so narrow I feel like I have to coddle it. The flexibility will make it more durable in hyperthin applications, though.

But, actually, you missed the point of wrapping it around a pencil: Pencils that have moving displays on them. Jewelry, shirts, headwear, tablecloths, curtains, tents, blimps, flags, kites, uniforms, shoes, shoelaces, cereal boxes, taxicab seats; anything that's made of fabric can become a fabric-based output device.

And even better: a digital display device that weighs grams that you can roll up and stuff into a tube for easy portability. With OLED brightness and detail.

And since OLEDs are "printable", these things may be scalable to make gigantic, truly seamless displays. Imagine your multiplex with 40-foot OLED screens instead of projectors and silver-painted cloth. (Albeit, I'd put a plexiglass shield in front of it; because repairs are going to take more than a patch of muslin and some wallpaper paste...)

Re:45 Comments and no applications

[BJ_Covert_Action]

I personally like the idea of ultra-light, ultra-thing displays being stitched into the skin to create modifiable tattoo platforms. Of course, the day someone learns how to hack it and writes, "Insert Penis Here!" on your new, super cool video tattoo will suck. Then again, it will be funny when you learn how to do that to someone else.

Re:45 Comments and no applications

[NicknamesAreStupid]

How about on a T-shirt? One across the chest that alternates between "Do Not Look at My Breasts" and a video of a pair of breasts -- just stupid enough to sell a few million at $500 each. Guess it is time for me to file that patent.

Re:45 Comments and no applications

[Anonymous Coward]

Great.. Now those Ultra HD Vision sunglasses will have these screens for lenses and a good quality video feeding into them, so the HD Vision you're seeing isn't even reality anymore!

Re:45 Comments and no applications

[Bertie]

Hang on, don't the pilots of Apache helicopters and the like have a HUD over one eye? I've heard stories of how they develop a weird ability to move and focus each eye independently, like a human chameleon.

Re:45 Comments and no applications

[masterwit]

Don't forget
Harry Potter collector cards!

Re:45 Comments and no applications

[perryizgr8]

you can, but you'd have to intercept and modify the signals thru the optic nerve. there are very few impossibles in this world.

Re:45 Comments and no applications

[mdielmann]

Some things are mostly training. I had a friend who could go cross-eyed, revert to normal looking in one direction, and then go the opposite directions (horizontally or vertically). Very freaky, and just something he learned for kicks. I imagine with the right tools/incentives, it would be easier.

Re:45 Comments and no applications

[Lumpy]

yes it's focused for their view out the cockpit. Helicopter and jet pilots look at everything that is far away. When they look at the instruments it's out of focus.

Walking around we use our entire focus range. Pilots use near and extreme far only. If they focus on something tat is 500-1000 feet away it's usually only to start screaming just before they die from the impact.

Re:45 Comments and no applications

[ImprovOmega]

Would it have to be clear anyways? Couldn't you put it out-of-focus in exactly the right way such that looking at it from .5 inches away actually makes it in-focus to the viewer? I mean, this is curvable material right? We could conceivably just bend it so that it naturally projects the correct viewable image on the cornea? I feel like I must be missing something here so please, correct me. I would be curious to learn more about this.

Re:45 Comments and no applications

[Monkeedude1212]

Well, not exactly. A Piece of paper lying flat would require less space than a rolled up piece of paper. A book not only easier to read, but also very space efficient. Considering an Iphone is already small enough to fit in your pocket, why would you make it bulkier by putting it into a scroll?

Making it foldable does double its ability to be stored in spaces of varying dimensions, but its not like making a device designed to play video ROLL up is going to make it any more efficient, unless you have a video player with the 1 to 1000 aspect ratios they had on ancient scrolls. Folding just makes it flexible. (Haha, I made a funny)

Re:45 Comments and no applications

[bill_mcgonigle]

It's hard to get past the change in focus. you cant have a perfectly clear hud superimposed over your vision at all times.

I thought that was the point of the microvision approach - to take the lens out of the equation. Maybe they never got that part working?

Re:45 Comments and no applications

[Legion303]

Stephen Baxters "softscreens" sprang immediately to my mind. Or at least I think they're Stephen Baxter's.

Re:45 Comments and no applications

[DarkEmpath]

Driver's Licenses and Credit Cards with really cool security flaws.

T,FTFY

Re:45 Comments and no applications

[tloh]

You forgot to mention mediatronic chopsticks.

Re:45 Comments and no applications

[severn2j]

It sprang to my mind also.. Also, how cool would an iPad suddenly become if you could roll it up and stick it in you pocket?

Re:45 Comments and no applications

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you get the lens out of the equation when it is part of your eye that light has to go through to get to your retina?

I wouldn't say it is unsolvable, but it certainly isn't as simple as sticking some OLEDS on a contact lens.

Re:45 Comments and no applications

[Culture20]

Well, not exactly. A Piece of paper lying flat would require less space than a rolled up piece of paper. A book not only easier to read, but also very space efficient. Considering an Iphone is already small enough to fit in your pocket, why would you make it bulkier by putting it into a scroll?

Because tech like this allows the CPU/battery/etc to be in an iphone sized casing, and the display on a roll-out 20inch wide, 5inch tall rectangle. Try fitting a 20in/5in iphone in your pocket. All you need to increase the viewable area vs/physical space is the height of the device. Imagine an iPad sized display rolled up in the shaft of your umbrella, or just about anywhere there's a cylindrical object.

Re:45 Comments and no applications

[laddiebuck]

But books have shown that flipping is much more efficient than scrolling around. I'm sure there will be books of e-paper or oled pages stuck together eventually, and I'll certainly be buying them.

Bidirectional text (5:erocS)

[tepples]

I don't know what is more fail: a board for nerds not allowing the micro symbol in comments or the fact that I didn't properly proofread by one sentence post.

Even more fail than those is people who can intercourse with a page's layout by abusing directionality override characters. That's why Slashdot uses a whitelist in the first place.

Re:Bidirectional text (5:erocS)

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait a minute. You can intercourse with a page? This is the Internet I've been waiting for!

Re:Bidirectional text (5:erocS)

[Philip_the_physicist]

They could just append a LRO character to each post, which is a relatively small overhead, especially as it could be added as the page is generated, so they won't even have to store it.

Now to make it touch sensative?

[Killer99]

Now if they can only make it touch sensitive.... I can see MANY applications for this (ok more then there currently are)

I can't wait...

[N0Man74]

It's still very cool. I can hardly wait until this have been out on the market long enough for Sony to give a firmware update to remove some of its features!

Re:I can't wait...

[blair1q]

I'm still somewhat amused by people who bought a gaming console and expected to treat it as a personal computer... ...if Sony ever advertised rooting the box, then they'll have to put that feature back in or face charges of false advertising. If it's hackers who advertised rooting the box, Sony doesn't owe anyone anything.

Re:I can't wait...

[Volante3192]

I'm still somewhat amused by people who bought a gaming console and expected to treat it as a personal computer...

You weren't paying attention to Sony's ad campaign, were you? Heck, I think the only thing they did NOT advertize the PS3 could do was...play games.

Re:I can't wait...

[Quirkz]

I'm still somewhat amused by people who bought a gaming console and expected to treat it as a personal computer...

Mostly, yes, I'm kind of there with you--I bought my PS3 without even knowing it was possible to run an OS on it, and still don't care. However, considering the military invested in a cluster (no idea if it's Beowulf style) of these for computing purposes, it's well known that SOMEONE is using them for just that reason, and others might be inclined to as well. They just had a /. article about how the military will have trouble finding unpatched versions of PS3's to replace any broken equipment in the future. Seems kinda boneheaded for Sony to shut them out. Or more likely, Sony has secret back-room agreements with the military to keep them in unpatched hardware, while everybody else has to deal with the restriction, and that seems silly, too.

Re:I can't wait...

[blair1q]

I didn't see the ads. But if they said "you can run Linux on it" and then defeatured that, it's class-action heaven.

Re:I can't wait...

[blair1q]

It's probably a bunch of machines wired up for use in Grid computing. They're fricken' supercomputers when you cast your algorithms in the right form.

Which brings up an interesting point: maybe the military told Sony to push the linux-killer patch, so that _our_ military would be the only ones with griddable devices.

Re:I can't wait...

[N0Man74]

Putting Linux on the Playstation 3 was not the work of hackers, but there by original design.

There was a built-in option in the OS menus that said, "Install other OS".

Sony listed the ability to install another OS on their specs and features lists.

I believe it was printed on the box originally also.

They had executives who tried to assure customers that they weren't going to be removing this feature... shortly before they removed the feature.

Installing Linux on other console systems involved hacking. On the PS3, it was a feature... until they decided it wasn't anymore.

Re:I can't wait...

[N0Man74]

One might think that...

"Sony Hit With Fourth Class Action Lawsuit" - http://ps3.ign.com/articles/109/1092140p1.html

Re:I can't wait...

[Volante3192]

Phil Harrison, former Sony executive, 2006: "We believe the PS3 will be the place where our users play games, watch films, browse the Web, and use other computer functions. The Playstation 3 is a computer. We do not need the PC."

Harrison again, 2007: "One of the most powerful things about the PS3 is the 'Install Other OS' option"

Geoffrey Levand, Principle Software Engineer at Sony, August 2009: "Please be assured that SCE is committed to continue the support for previously sold models that have the "Install Other OS" feature and that this feature will not be disabled in future firmware releases."

Re:Flexibility? Pfft. I want quality & longevi

[sznupi]

Or perhaps they just want to have somewhat oval screen on some of their devices; or even most of the surface of the device being a screen. Highly flexible display should come handy during manufacturing...and then simply remain in place, under protective layer.

Predator suit and fake doors

[Anonymous Coward]

So, I will finally be able to build my miniture camera and streaming video camouflage suit?
and an invisible car.
and a "hiding" box.
Does it stand up to weather?
Could I make my house "dissappear"? My neighbors wake up and be like WTF?! where did that house go!
oh....I hope this is some low cost stuff. The possibilities are endless.

Have a full-size "open doorway" with people "inside" moving around in hi-def......hours of fun.

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[viking099]

Or the equivalent of 50 Volkswagen Beetles.

Re:Flexibility? Pfft. I want quality & longevi

[blair1q]

OLED longevity has increased quite a bit since the first cell-phone displays in the early '00s.

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[Nadaka]

Dont forget our standard unit for fluid flow: hogsheads per acre fortnight.

Re:Flexibility? Pfft. I want quality & longevi

[Rolaulten]

Now a real trick is if they can get the prices down to the level that it can be 'tossed' out - for example getting a moving logo on the can of beans you just picked up at the store...

Wall Paper

[arthurpaliden]

Nope. Not a good idea. The pattern would keep changing. You could never line it up. Which as any married person knows is the worst type of sin.

*rimshot*

[djdanlib]

This is... OLED NEWS

Pencil in your pocket?

[LoverOfJoy]

Is that a pencil in your pocket or are you just ha...whooaaah change the channel!

blogspam at its finest

[Anonymous Coward]

a splog (inhabitat) that references another splog (gizmodo) that references another splog (akibarah news) that references a Sony Press Release

im really glad adblockplus removes the revenue from these shitty worthless sites who add NOTHING to the discussion other than shill adverts for some other sad desperate business.

i thought one of the ideas of the web was to cut out the middleman, yet Web2.X is littered with the leeches

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[gyrogeerloose]

nowadays they have only two units of scale: a human hair and the state of Texas.

Not quite true. The human hair unit has three levels: the hair, the cunt hair and the red cunt hair.

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[gyrogeerloose]

Dont forget our standard unit for fluid flow: hogsheads per acre fortnight.

Or speed: furlongs per fortnight.

whizbang

[Anonymous Coward]

Call me cynical, but I'm guessing this will be used to put video ads on everything.

Not thinner than my hair!

[Anonymous Coward]

EOM

Cereal Boxes

[Neutral_Observer]

I can't remeber where, but I read that the first use of this would be for Cereal Boxes. They would use the moving images to attract peoples attention in the cereal aisle. Can you imagine if this were implemented on every flat surface we encounter on a daily basis?

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dont forget our standard unit for fluid flow: hogsheads per acre fortnight.

I could have sworn the unit was cans of Bud Light per (beer bong × frat party).

Re:Flexibility? Pfft. I want quality & longevi

[sznupi]

I would hope we, as societies, would be able to resist such waste...

But I don't hold by breath.

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[Inda]

Metres!

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[Majestix]

lets not forget the ubiquitous Bread Box

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[Rigrig]

Is really that useful? If you whitelist then should also be allowed, along with , and . Before you know it people will be asking for , or even !

cutting room

[tenco]

With this out in the wild, cutting video gets a new meaning. Right beneath paper cuts.

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, um is a micrometer, the Greek letter mu being commonly used for micro. micrometer != micron

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[Anonymous Coward]

You think that's big.. you should see the 5 bladed razor for the beard. It's a planet killer...

Speaking of which, can we use named entities yet?

[Benfea]

• (lc micro)
• (uc theta)
• (trademark)
• — (em dash)
• ” (right double quote)
• (horizontal ellipses)

I guess the answer is “sorta”.

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fail, micron is a micrometer

Now I wanna know which ones are implemented...

[Benfea]

...and which not. Is there a list somewhere?

• Á (uc A acute)
• é (lc e acute)
• ö (o umlaut)
• ø (o slash)
• (right arrow)
• (for all)
• (empty set)
• (congruent)
• (not equal)
• ± (plus or minus)

Re:Now I wanna know which ones are implemented...

[geezer nerd]

There is a list of defined character entities for HTML here: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/sgml/entities.html Unfortunately, Slashdot does not seem to accommodate them very well. I tried μ for Greek mu, and that did not work at all.

Re:Now I wanna know which ones are implemented...

[geezer nerd]

The 5 standard defined character entities for XML work: & (= &) ' (=') " (=") < (=<) > (=>) The ampersand, apostrophe, and quote work fine as themselves, but the angle brackets require using the encodings. Em dash — works, as you can see: —

Re:Now I wanna know which ones are implemented...

[tomhudson]

There is a list of defined character entities for HTML here: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/sgml/entities.html [w3.org] Unfortunately, Slashdot does not seem to accommodate them very well

The problem may also be with perl. Unicode support is not always as advertized. I've had to write code in c to remove some of the more exotic unicode characters that perl choked on.

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[linhares]

what catches my eye is the fact that this is basically blogspam taken from gizmodo. Interesting, no?

No No NO!!

[KillShill]

Only Microsoft is evil.

There's only room for one evil empire.

Now back to your regularly scheduled propaganda.

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[craash420]

...the fact that I didn't properly proofread by one sentence post.

I see what you did there.

Re:Flexibility? Pfft. I want quality & longevi

[perryizgr8]

its not a waste if it is so cheap that you can put it on disposable cans.

Thinner than a hair?

[PPH]

I'm bald, you insensitive clod! What am I supposed to use for comparison?

Re:Thinner than a hair?

[DinDaddy]

Look in your nose.

Re:Thinner than a hair?

[Bigjeff5]

You're bald everywhere? Sucks to be you.

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[bjk002]

um... im not followin ya.

Re:Flexibility? Pfft. I want quality & longevi

[sznupi]

I guess you thinking that I was talking merely about the price (plus that's in relation to costs acceptable in given place, as always) ilustrates the issue...

No, waste is about much more (X axis)

The obvious applications

[Anonymous Coward]

The first and most obvious application would be a foldable device. Imagine for a moment an e-reader or similar form factor device that has a single screen which folds in the middle. It can in landscape mode display two facing pages, or in either portrate or landscape mode display one large page. It would be a lot more versitile than current devices.

Later on when the rest of the hardware has had time to adapt, data-scrolls become possible. These would be a cylindrical modual containing the battery memory and prosescors with a screen wrapped around it. Unroll to view, then roll back up to store. Add a tape measure like auto-retract and lock mechanism and your screen will be better proteced in transport than on a flat tablet.

variable size screens. Combine this technology with a measn of determaning what portion of the screen is unrolled/unfolded, and vector based UI graphics and you can have a screen that rather large but you only unfold the portion of it that is convinient at this time. For example having a full blueprint sized screen that you can fold to the size of a piece of notbook paper while you're on the plain then unfold to full size for your presentation.

Re:The obvious applications

[wonkavader]

Foldable is nice, and clearly what they're aiming for, but having something very thing also means you can essentially paint a wall with it (ok, stick a bit sticker on a wall). We could (if this got bigger, brighter, etc.) have video screens on just about anything, all over the friggin' place. Very convenient, but kind of nightmarish.

me thinks

[bjk002]

someone needs a nap.

Seriously? Troll?

[N0Man74]

I thought that a troll was someone who is trying to upset people...

If some of you are such Sony fan boys that simply making a joke that pokes fun of a recent and absolutely factual occurrence is interpreted as trying to upset people or stir up trouble, then I think you really need to reconsider the importance that a video game console holds in your life...

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[Bloke down the pub]

Yeah. If only there was someway to check, in advance, whether your symbols work or not.

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fortunately, the SI unit of smugness is large enough to measure Angst Badger's personality without requiring the use of scientific notation.

Apache HUD tracks head not eye

[Zinho]

Hang on, don't the pilots of Apache helicopters and the like have a HUD over one eye? I've heard stories of how they develop a weird ability to move and focus each eye independently, like a human chameleon.

Yes, the pilot has an HUD over the eye, but it solves the focus problem by cheating - it only works when the pilot is looking at things that are far away. Most things that are outside the cockpit are far away, though, so that works out OK for them; just don't expect that solution to work for your contact-lens-mounted HUD system. reference

[nitpick="on"]Also, someone's been pulling your leg about pilots developing lizard eye. The Apache heads-up system is head-tracking, not eye-tracking. The skill pilots learn is to look around while holding their head still - useful, for sure, but not superhuman. Go ahead and submit that one to Mythbusters, though; I'd love to see them do an episode on it.[/nipick]

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[suomynonAyletamitlU]

My brains now are leaking out at a rate of 1 teaspoon per quarter fortnight.

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[Eudial]

Not true, we have football fields and libraries of congress as well!

He meant to say it is just under 1 football field.

Libraries of congress is also an important unit of information quantity. This comment page, for example, is roughly one nanolibrary of congress.

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[Boot10it]

Isnt it meant to be smaller than a 'Needle in a haystack'........... Hang on I think i got confused somewhere!

Fix the PS3 Other OS problem first

[twoblink]

If Sony is ever going to get me to buy another one of their items; they have to fix the PS3 they broke, and then promise to never do it again. Bad dog, hit yourself with a newspaper.

How can I trust they won't disable my OLED after a year? You can't. Sony's lost all cred with me.

The Modern wig.

[Anonymous Coward]

Use it for a wig.

Example 1
"WOW look at your hair, Is that Avatar?" " You bet it is!"
Example 2
"DUDE YOUR HAIR IS ON FIRE!" "NO, it's my screen saver."
Example 3
"Excuse me sir, why do you have a head on top of your head" "NO, I'm watching a movie."

That would be SO nice. All the things you could do!
Imagine your in the air plane, flip your hair down and turn on a movie.

Wrap around pencil?

[CeruleanDragon]

Wrap around a pencil, you say? I see the world's most advanced cheat sheet in the future...

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[gmanterry]

The interesting thing is that mu prints fine in "reply" mode but disappears when submitted.

Finally...

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

...my neverending, streaming, wi-fi hi-def porn coat will happen! I am currently mapping the addresses of every shopping mall and elementary school within the 5 miles that I'm allowed to travel from my home.

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[Anonymous Coward]

It says 80 meters OR a bit thinner than a human hair. Obviously it is available in two sizes.

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[HTH NE1]

80 meters is a pretty substantial hair.

You can't expect much grasp of metric units from Americans.

80 MILES?!

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[MidnightBrewer]

Left out a " "? I think the issue here is that the Slashdot publishing system isn't showing the markup correctly, since your own post fails to show it, too. Even if you use the html syntax, it fails to show up. Probably a font problem.

Maybe he means a Hare, like the Beast of Badonor?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear that horrible hare could eat an hundred hogheads of Eddie Furlongs every fortnight. That would explain more about the Beast being 80 metres long and with all the teath and ayes, not Repunsals hair 80-metres longgg.

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[Jarik C-Bol]

no no no, your brains are leaking at the rate of 1/16th of a dram oer quarter fortnight.

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[Philip_the_physicist]

Well, if they juts wanted to fix the sillyness which has been blamed for the introduction of unicode-mangling, they could just add a left-to-right override at the end of each post. That way, people would still be able to, for example, post arabic quotes, but they wouldn't be able to break anyone else's comments.

I suspect there are other "fun" things one can do with unicode, but they probably wouldn't be much harder to fix.

Thinner than a hair you say?

[shipbrick]

This could be just what geeks with alopecia need!

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[shipbrick]

Common geeks, ascii code (hold alt and press 230 then release) - tadum ->
Well it doesn't work.. I stand corrected, or slashdot translates it too well and it's just to small to see.

Re: hold both sides of the screen...

[Fubari]

hold both sides of the screen... Where is he going to get another hand from?

Dude, it wraps around .

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[geezer nerd]

Yes, according to Wikipedia. And according to what I learned when first studying the metric system about 50 years ago.

Re: hold both sides of the screen...

[dwarfsoft]

First thing that came to mind when you mentioned wrapping around with an 80um thick screen: Paper Cut. Ouch!

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[geezer nerd]

Ummm. How about the Preview function when entering a comment.

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[suomynonAyletamitlU]

Well look, if I only have a teaspoon on hand then that's what I measure with.

Honestly, your elitism is quite off-putting. You should be ashamed.

Interesting, but... SONY?

[KlausBreuer]

Sounds very interesting indeed. Normally I'd be quite fascinated, but... seeing that the whole thing comes from SONY causes me to simply call up this article to say I refuse to touch anything made by SONY.
I know. Large company, lots of different attitudes, some of it could be quite good - but sorry, no. I have had so many bad experiences that I'm willing to get rid of a bit of good stuff while pouring out a huge amount of junk and irritation.

Let's wait for a copy. Even a more expensive copy would be interesting. As long as there's no SONY involved.

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[maroberts]

Not quite true. The human hair unit has three levels: the hair, the cunt hair and the red cunt hair.

Blonde hairs are apparently thinner for fine measurement, but if you have to check collars and cuffs match before using such units.

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[RivenAleem]

That a male or female human hair? Since they are different thickness's, I find this method of comparison shoddy at best.

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[rmullins]

Yes, and don't forget the State of Alaska, and the distance from there to Russia.

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[2obvious4u]

& # 9 2 4 ;

Lame.

That and...

[Benfea]

...the board scripts also seem to accommodate accented characters common to other European languages. I'd still love to see a definitive list of which ones work and which ones don't.

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[CodyRazor]

Hogsheads per acre fortnight measures volumetric flux, not volumetric flow.

If you know the area of your pipe in the direction of flow in outhouses (that's microbarns for the layman) you can calculate the rate of flow in the standard rundlets per galacticyear in your head with the following simple conversion:

rundlets/galacticyear = (hogsheads/acre fortnight) × 3.5 × (pipe in outhouses / 4.04685642 × 10^37) × (5.85 x 10^9)

(without getting too technical, this is assuming hogsheads of ale, and the lower bound on a galactic year. Of course rundlets always refers to ale and not sherry/tobacco)

So a pipe with an opening of 2.02342821 × 10^34 outhouses (5 cm diameter) and a volumetric flux of 16 hogsheads/acre fortnight has a rate of flow of 163 800 000 rundlets per galactic year.

(or for you scientific types thats 427,417 years, 56 days, 23 hours, 29 minutes and 45.6 seconds per library of congress.)

Re:80m? Quite a hair.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why did I just spend my last mod point arggggg