New Film Renders Screen Reflection Almost Non-Existent

An anonymous reader writes "Sony has used the SID 2012 conference to demonstrate a brand new combination of conductive film and low-reflection film that promises to render screen reflection almost non-existent in devices like smartphones and tablets. Sony achieved such low reflections by combining its new conductive film with a moth-eye low reflection film. The key to the low reflectance is the formation of an uneven surface, which consists of both concave and convex structures (tiny bumps) that cover the entire film. The uneven surface means that light won't just bounce back off the screen creating a reflection, and therefore making the screen usable in a wider range of lighting conditions."

Comments

Moth-eye

[Phibz]

I was wondering what they meant by moth-eye and I found this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-reflective_coating#Moth_eye

Re:Moth-eye

[PatPending]

I'll see your Wikipedia reference and raise you two USPTO patents granted to SONY for this:

8,027,090 and 7,633,045.

Note: according to another of SONY's patents, moth-eye can also be used to record info on optical media:

"Today, there are seven primary methods by which information can be recorded on optical media. All methods heat the recording layer to a certain temperature. The methods are known as ablative, alloying, bubble-forming, moth-eye, phase-change, dye/polymer and magneto-optic which cause or could cause some mechanical deformation of the substrate."

P.S.

Unlike TFA these patents include detailed drawings and SEM photographs.

P.S.S.

I remember when the authors of tech articles did this kind of background research. Sigh.

Re:Moth-eye

[Vintermann]

Looking at patents is, sadly, not something that should be recommended.

Re:Moth-eye

[Anonymous Coward]

P.S.S.? What is this world coming to? http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/pss.html

Re:Moth-eye

[justforgetme]

Research?! On teh Internetz?! You crazy, crazy man!

Re:Moth-eye

[kanweg]

To the contrary. The purpose of patents is to spread information, which is what we as a society get in return for a temporary monopoly as a reward for the inventor. For an all you can eat link on any (technical ) subject go here: http://worldwide.espacenet.com/

Please note that what you can find on this site is patent applications. They are (or will) not necessarily granted. If the patent is granted but not for your country, is expired or the owner stopped paying renewal fees and the patent lapsed, you can use this info free of charge!

Bert

Re:Moth-eye

[sarysa]

In terms of parents, it's actually quite refreshing to see something that deserves patenting for a change. I'm no fan of Sony and I feel patents need to expire sooner, but I do appreciate the hard research and development put into this one. Not the idiot software patents like "slightly different list scrolling behavior" that we typically see.

SONY "do not patronize"

[Anonymous Coward]

SONY has been on my "do not patronize" list for years and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

Re:SONY "do not patronize"

[EdIII]

SONY has been on my "do not patronize" list for years and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

Cue the people telling us to just get over the root-kit or whatever else Sony has done.

NEVER.

Sony long ago declared war against the consumer, and much like an aged convict in prison, it does not matter how goody two-shoes they are today. They still murdered somebody. Parole Denied. Let them turn to dust.

Only the complete destruction of Sony will assuage they deep and intense desire for justice against Sony and their evil deeds.

I don't care if they release the fucking cure for cancer tomorrow. The execution is still going to proceed on schedule.

Re:SONY "do not patronize"

[Thanshin]

You will regret those comments when SONY becomes a branch of your government.

Re:SONY "do not patronize"

[dwater]

80s??? Am I *that* out of fashion?

Re:SONY "do not patronize"

[omglolbah]

They have quite a few researchers which are far from the decisions to be asshats to consumers.

I loathe the company's customer fuckups and asshattery in general, but love the researchers doing this kind of work even so.

Re:SONY "do not patronize"

[PatPending]

Or Sony could moth-ball it.

Re:SONY "do not patronize"

[Anonymous Coward]

Note: DRM = root kit. I hope your list also includes Apple, some/many Android vendors, and now MS.

Mine certainly does.

Re:SONY "do not patronize"

[samoanbiscuit]

Sony is a lot like Samsung in that they're really more like a network of affiliated companies that use the same brand. While I don't mean to disagree on why you don't patronise them, the possibility exists that other devices from other companies will use screens manufactured by them, as they seem to have a patent on this tech. Would you buy a device from Apple, Samsung or HTC using a Sony made screen?

Re:SONY "do not patronize"

[lhunath]

The researchers know full-well what kind of company they're getting payed by. If they don't want to be affiliated with the crap the company does such as by the parent, they can go work elsewhere. They're still working for SONY, which means they didn't care to make that moral choice, which means they fully deserve the affiliation.

Talk like yours is what convinces people that "it's OK" to do evil crap. "The customer will forgive you", eventually. "Find someone to blame and throw them out".

That isn't going to stop the next idiot with an overzealous plan at SONY's board.
Customers sticking to their principles will.

Re:SONY "do not patronize"

[omglolbah]

I do not buy sony products. I do not 'forgive' them for the asshattery.

The researchers in the article are not doing "evil crap". They're doing research into reducing glare.
It is an interesting piece of tech and has very little to do with rootkits or screwing the customer.

When it comes to morality it is worth pointing out that almost no research is immune to being used for Evil(tm). No matter who you work for, or what research it is, someone will use it in a negative way.
In addition almost all corporations have some form of Evil in its past or present... To varying degrees for sure, but refusing to acknowledge positive contributions because of previous negative ones is just plain stupid.
Weighting the positive and negative and making an informed decision is the way to go, not going all out 'hurr durr rootkitz!!!' like so many seem to be stuck doing.

Re:SONY "do not patronize"

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I think there's a point in that. I removed the cover from an old Canon PowerShot and found a Sony screen, which was relatively surprising as there are many other screen makers, and Sony competes with Canon in several market segments.

I don't think we can ever completely be extricated from any multinational corporation, but folks are free to see how far they can go with that.

Re:SONY "do not patronize"

[CastrTroy]

That's quite a grudge you carry. What about in 50 years when none of the people involved in the root-kit fiasco even work there anymore. Sony isn't a single person. You could probably find plenty of anti-consumer actions taken by just about any company out there. If you want to boycott any company who ever did anything anti-consumer, you'd probably have to live self sustained on a desert island. Sony has done some truly stupid things over the years. But they've also brought us some pretty cool products.

Re:SONY "do not patronize"

[ColdWetDog]

If you disassemble any modern bit of electronics, it's very likely that is has some Sony derived component in it.

They're everywhere! Ahhhhhh!!!!!

Re:SONY "do not patronize"

[mikecvelide]

You will regret those comments when SONY becomes a branch of your government.

Don't you mean when our government becomes a branch of SONY? Let's remember who writes the checks here...

Re:SONY "do not patronize"

[circletimessquare]

clever troll

or

clueless naif

you decide

Re:SONY "do not patronize"

[justthinkit]

Speaking of dust, will this mottled display be more of a dust magnet?

Re:SONY "do not patronize"

[EdIII]

It is the magnitude of the past crimes.

Sony's past crimes, combined with their well known war against the consumer, justifies the death sentence and avoidance at all costs.

They would need to stop their war against the consumer today, eliminate DRM in their products, actively push for sane copyright reform and customer protections under the law, and engage in behavior beneficial to society for decades to make up for what they did.

I can refuse to acknowledge positive contributions because when weighed against the negative contributions, just the current ones, it is so massively one sided, that Sony is seriously evil to the customers.

Re:SONY "do not patronize"

[EdIII]

DRM != rootkit.

They were not remotely equivalent.

Re:SONY "do not patronize"

[tlhIngan]

SONY has been on my "do not patronize" list for years and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

Thta's quite hard actually, because Sony's like Google in that regard - they're big enough that they have tentacles everywhere that are practically impossible to avoid.

E.g., Sony makes a lot of components - especially imaging ones. A Sony camera sensor can be in your digital camera (point and shoot/dSLR), your cellphone camera may hae a Sony sensor. Your PC might have Sony batteries. If you play Blu-Rays, you are using Sony's patents in that (and probably Sony has a pile related to h.264 as well, covering practically all media), etc. etc.

Re:SONY "do not patronize"

[EdIII]

It's the magnitude of their offenses and the strength of their current war against the consumer.

It's not as if they are reformed, in the process of reforming, or even interested in the idea of reform.

Sorry, but it will take a complete replacement of all upper management and years and years and years of good works, involvement with the local communities, helping grandmas across the street, and feeding starving orphans before I can start to reconsider my grudge.

Re:SONY "do not patronize"

[EdIII]

That's only because people like you continue to enable corporations like Sony.

If you don't put up with their shit, and actually boycott them, Sony will die before you do.

Re:SONY "do not patronize"

[MobyDisk]

Forgiveness requires first an apology, or even recognition of error.

Re:SONY "do not patronize"

[Gizzmonic]

TOKYO, JAPAN - After reading a sullen, masturbatory blog post by user 'EdIII' on popular tech blog Slashdot, Sony Corporation has decided to dissolve. "It's been a good run," said George Harrison, "but after EdIII's post accusing us of murder we really decided it was time to pack it in. We really are fat idiots and definitely worse than Hitler." Sony's numerous patents will be acquired by Apple Inc.

Re:SONY "do not patronize"

[EdIII]

Be as sarcastic as you want.

The moment you let Sony off the hook, and just give up, then they have won.

More people refuse to allow Sony to continue with their shit, the less money they have, the faster they will die.

Don't settle for getting fucked in the ass when you can fight till your last breath trying to kill the bastard doing it.

Re:SONY "do not patronize"

[Firehed]

Pretty sure that most sex offenders got off.

*ducks*

And Apple will ...

[giorgist]

And Apple will make your screen like those 80s mirror glasses and call it a feature.

Re:And Apple will ...

[macs4all]

And Apple will make your screen like those 80s mirror glasses and call it a feature.

ORLY?

Then explain THIS Press Release, which says, in part "The Retina display uses IPS technology for a 178-degree wide viewing angle, and has 75 percent less reflection and 29 percent higher contrast than the previous generation." (which verbage was pretty much duplicated in Phil Schiller's demo of the MBPwRD at WWDC last week.

But you just go on spewin' that Apple Hate. Afterall, you came to the right place (Slashdot).

Also, Moth-Eye AG coatings existed before Sony's Patent. Here's one that has been a PRODUCT since at least 2008. And that took exactly 5 seconds of Google search. There may be even earlier examples. So, what's all this about a PATENT again?

Re:And Apple will ...

[mwvdlee]

75 percent less reflection and 29 percent higher contrast than the previous generation."

Which is 75% reflection than what is pretty much a perfect mirror.
I hope Apple finally wizened up and start to make their displays usable, because I detest the fact that they made mirror-monitors popular, so all the idiot bosses decide to buy monitors that look good only when switched off. I still occasionally see reflective screens advertised as a feature instead of hidden shamefully in the small print. My Galaxy S+ has a reflective screen which was "fixed" by adding a matte screen protector. The screen protector makes the display a bit muddy, but atleast I can SEE that it's muddy.

Re:And Apple will ...

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Glossy screens do bother me too. However, it turns out that Apple does use use glass with anti-reflective coatings. The current revision iMac has a surface that cuts reflections roughly in half. I was pretty surprised when I realized that. I just wished the industry used even stronger coatings though.

Re:And Apple will ...

[omnichad]

Although it only works well in a dark room with no windows, a glossy screen gets you better contrast and brightness by not having that anti-glare coating.

Not even diffuse reflection?

[c0lo]

The uneven surface means that light won't just bounce back off the screen creating a reflection

What, the film absorbs (almost) everything? If so, where the energy goes? In heating the screen?

(not to mention the "light won't just bounce back..." invites a continuation on the line of "... but also...")

Re:Not even diffuse reflection?

[Thanshin]

The uneven surface means that light won't just bounce back off the screen creating a reflection

What, the film absorbs (almost) everything? If so, where the energy goes? In heating the screen?

(not to mention the "light won't just bounce back..." invites a continuation on the line of "... but also...")

Two options:
1 - Absorbed: It will heat the screen just as much as having it turned upside down heats the back; not much.
2 - Scattered: You can avoid reflection by just scattering the light in a very large angle.

My guess is that it will be a mix of both.

Re:Not even diffuse reflection?

[Thanshin]

Eventually (in the next few years) we'll learn to refract all light coming from one side in an angle that sets it parallel to the screen.

At that point we might consider collecting that light on the edges of the screen to charge the device. Or just leave the screen edges uncovered and rounded to let it disperse, leaving a beautiful light "halo" around the device.

Re:Not even diffuse reflection?

[dwater]

if you're gong to redirect the light...might as well do into a camera and have a direct-at-the-user webcam type thing

Re:Not even diffuse reflection?

[PhilHibbs]

It must be scattering it, if the post is in any way accurate about it being just an uneven surface. Which means you will still get just as much light reflected off the screen on a sunny day, but the reflection won't form a coherent image to distract you from the screen image. So it's a step forward but it isn't magic.

Re:Not even diffuse reflection?

[Thanshin]

That's pretty hard with the technology I'm talking about (refracting all incoming light "half-sphere" into a flat surface).

I think we'll have such material in a few years, but take into account that at the border you don't know at which point in the surface a ray has impacted it nor it's original angle. All rays come to the edge parallel to the surface.

In a usual lens, rays never aquire equal characteristics. From the angle of incidence you can deduce the point of impact on the lens, and from both you can deduce the original angle. You lose that information as soon as you refract all rays into the same plane.

Re:Not even diffuse reflection?

[c0lo]

Two options: 1 - Absorbed: It will heat the screen just as much as having it turned upside down heats the back; not much.

Almost black body - may turn unpleasantly hot in direct sun (bitumen/asphalt on pathways during a hot day? Don't walk barefoot.)

2 - Scattered: You can avoid reflection by just scattering the light in a very large angle.

My guess is that it will be a mix of both.

This do mean diffuse reflection - which is not quite "non-existent reflection"

Re:Not even diffuse reflection?

[Thanshin]

It does look like magic. Search a video on youtube about a group of japanese researchers who did that with a window.

We see clean transparent glass by its reflection. When that's removed, it looks like solid air.

Re:Not even diffuse reflection?

[c0lo]

It must be scattering it, if the post is in any way accurate about it being just an uneven surface. Which means you will still get just as much light reflected off the screen on a sunny day, but the reflection won't form a coherent image to distract you from the screen image. So it's a step forward but it isn't magic.

I'm afraid of not much of it being actually scattered. Wikipedia says:

The [moth-eye] structure consists of a hexagonal pattern of bumps, each roughly 200 nm high and spaced on 300 nm centers.[5] This kind of antireflective coating works because the bumps are smaller than the wavelength of visible light, so the light sees the surface as having a continuous refractive index gradient between the air and the medium, which decreases reflection by effectively removing the air-lens interface.

If I'm right, this would mean: What's good for moths at night-time may not be that good for Sony's screens during daytime. Letting the screen in full sun may be sure way to get it burnt (have you tried to walk barefoot on asphalt pathways during a hot summer day?)

Re:Not even diffuse reflection?

[PhilHibbs]

Further reading indicates that the moth-eye coating removes the air-glass surface interface that causes the reflection, so the fraction of light that would have ben reflected passes straight through instead. So then it hits the screen below... what happens then I'm not sure, I guess some of it is converted to heat and the rest is scattered back. Since the amount of light that is reflected at the air-glass surface is quite low anyway, I doubt that this will make a significant change one way or the other to the temperature or to the effect of daylight on the screen, but the removal of a coherent reflection while maintaining a touch-sensitive interface is still a significant benefit.

Re:Not even diffuse reflection?

[c0lo]

From the angle of incidence you can deduce the point of impact on the lens, and from both you can deduce the original angle. You lose that information as soon as you refract all rays into the same plane.

Interesting! (and it seems correct)

However, practically, you don't need to refract all rays into a perfect plane - a small angular dispersion may be enough for practical purposes. (theoretically, if you could focus the light into a perfect geometrical point, you could hope to achieve fusion with a flashlight. Or not?)

Re:Not even diffuse reflection?

[Thanshin]

(theoretically, if you could focus the light into a perfect geometrical point, you could hope to achieve fusion with a flashlight. Or not?)

You could certainly hope for it.

Out of curiosity, how many batteries does your megajoule flashlight spend per second? :)

Re:Not even diffuse reflection?

[Thanshin]

Or pick up any decent* flashlight -- they all have anti-reflection coated front lenses.

Why would someone need an anti-reflection coated front lens in a flashlight? How much power is lost in reflection (taking into account that reflected light will reflect on the flashlight cone and come back)?

i.e.: if you lose 1% in reflection, of that 1% >90% will go out in a second passage. So your anti-reflection coated front lens would have to cost less than adding 0.1% power to not be a marketing gimmick (gold plated hi-fi connectors).

Re:Not even diffuse reflection?

[c0lo]

You could certainly hope for it.

Out of curiosity, how many batteries does your megajoule flashlight spend per second? :)

:) (so where's the mistake in the - naive - statement of: "If you concentrate no matter how small amount of energy in a geometric point, the temperature of that point becomes infinite > 40 x 10^7 K required by D-D fusion"?)

Re:Not even diffuse reflection?

[Angeret]

Christ man, get that patented quick before some asshat comes along and tells everybody that the newly invented iSomething has it and it is a direct sign from iGod who now sits in iHeaven giving iPolicy.

Re:Not even diffuse reflection?

[Thanshin]

:) (so where's the mistake in the - naive - statement of: "If you concentrate no matter how small amount of energy in a geometric point, the temperature of that point becomes infinite > 40 x 10^7 K required by D-D fusion"?)

I don't know. I'd intuitively guess that the temperature is limited by the total energy at the point of emmission, but I don't know why.

Re:Not even diffuse reflection?

[c0lo]

Temperature is defined in statistical terms (the Boltzman constant in the eV->K formula assumes a certain type of randomness).
But... you can't have a rich enough statistical set of particles in the volume of a geometrical point to actually define a temperature for that point.

Re:Not even diffuse reflection?

[Thanshin]

Temperature is defined in statistical terms (the Boltzman constant in the eV->K formula assumes a certain type of randomness).
But... you can't have a rich enough statistical set of particles in the volume of a geometrical point to actually define a temperature for that point.

If you concentrate the light on a larger volume and then progressively reduce that volume, how does the temperature grow?

Re:Not even diffuse reflection?

[JoeRobe]

I agree that it sounds like a scattering mechanism, but in that case how is it different than a simple matte finish? Matte finishes are just roughened enough to scatter rather than reflect images. I was hoping they'd announced a near perfect AR coating method.

Re:Not even diffuse reflection?

[PhilHibbs]

That's a window with nothing on the other side - a screen is a window with an LCD slapped up against the other side. Big difference. The light will still wash out the LCD image, but you will not be distracted by a coherent reflection of yourself or your surroundings.

Re:Not even diffuse reflection?

[c0lo]

:) :) How many items make a heap? More precisely: how many you can take out and still have a heap of them?

(what's the limit on which you can still speak of enough particles that still follow a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution? The funny thing: the distribution is obtained by taking the considering the limit towards infinity, while your attempt drives towards a zero limit).

Re:Not even diffuse reflection?

[mark-t]

Bearing in mind that a significant percentage of light passes right through it...

The relatively small amount of remaining light that would have been otherwise reflected by normal glass could probably get entirely absorbed by the film and only contribute negligibly to heating up the surface.

Re:Not even diffuse reflection?

[Immerman]

The uneven surface means that light won't just bounce back off the screen creating a reflection

What, the film absorbs (almost) everything? If so, where the energy goes? In heating the screen?

(not to mention the "light won't just bounce back..." invites a continuation on the line of "... but also...")

No, the film doesn't absorb the incoming light, the nanostructures create a region that has a smooth transition in refractive index, so instead of light bending sharply at the boundary and losing some of the energy to reflection it all curves smoothly and hits the screen. So yeah, now 99% of the incoming light will hit the screen instead of 75%, and it will heat up a little faster.

Re:Not even diffuse reflection?

[Exrio]

This do mean diffuse reflection - which is not quite "non-existent reflection"

Well let's not forget the forest by looking too much at the leaves, for the purpose of looking at pictures on a screen such a diffuse reflection could indeed be described as "non-existent reflection". It's the subjective impression non-pedantic human observers (ie. most, thankfully) will have.

Re:Not even diffuse reflection?

[Immerman]

Ah, but a thermal distribution of energy is a Bad Thing for fusion, it's just really hard to avoid. Ideally you'd want all particles traveling at exactly the same velocity so that all collisions would have exactly the right energy to maximize the probability of fusion occurring, with a thermal distribution the vast majority of collisions will involve much lower energies, so the temperature (average velocity) must be much higher in order to raise the probability of fusion-enabling energies being involved in each collision.

Admittedly getting anything *but* a thermal energy distribution using a flashlight is probably impossible, which is why much low-budget fusion research involves some sort of particle accelerator instead - a 10-atom high-energy plasma just isn't terribly interesting.

Re:Not even diffuse reflection?

[Immerman]

Actually most of the incoming light will strike the screen regardless, only a fraction gets reflected, so leaving it in the sun is a bad idea whether or not 10 or 20% of it is reflected. On the other hand making the screen bright enough to overpower the reflection will probably require an image somewhere on the order of 10-100x as bright as the reflection, and you'd better believe all that power use is heating up the device even faster, not to mention rapidly sucking the battery dry.

Re:Not even diffuse reflection?

[cellocgw]

Two options: 1 - Absorbed: It will heat the screen just as much as having it turned upside down heats the back; not much.

Almost black body - may turn unpleasantly hot in direct sun (bitumen/asphalt on pathways during a hot day? Don't walk barefoot.)
There's an awful lot of uneducated posts in this thread from people who know nothing at all about optics or thermodynamics. Here are a couple facts from me, IAAPAOE (physicist and optical engineer). 1) Uncoated glass has a reflectivity of about 4%, increasing as the angle of incidence moves away from vertical. This means the difference in the amount of transmitted / absorbed light when there's an antireflective coating is rather small.
2) The reason asphalt, or a metal car hood, is painful to touch is due more to the material's thermal conductivity, not its temperature. You can heat a space shuttle tile until it's glowing red and hold it in your hand because its thermal conductivity is incredibly small.

How about

[redcliffe]

just not making laptop screens deliberately shiny so tards will buy them because oooh shiny?

Re:How about

[Anonymous Coward]

that and 4:3 screens

Re:How about

[TubeSteak]

Matte screens have lower effective contrast, brightness, and sharpness than reflective screens.
Hence the general market shift to shiny.

My laptop has a max brightness setting that is almost painfully bright anywhere expect direct sunlight.
I'd kill to get that level of brightness behind a matte screen. It'd be perfect everywhere.

An uneven surface?

[lxs]

The key to the low reflectance is the formation of an uneven surface, which consists of both concave and convex structures (tiny bumps) that cover the entire film.

From that description it sounds like Sony has reinvented screens with matte finish. Surely there is more to this.

Re:An uneven surface?

[Anonymous Coward]

1. make almost all matte screens disappear from market
2. wait a few years until non-savvy people forget that we used to have matte screens
3. reinvent matte screen and sell it for a premium
4. ...
5. Profit !

joke aside, I don't understand the difference with matte screen either and I'd love someone to enlighten us all.

Re:An uneven surface?

[6031769]

Indeed there is more to it. This is a screen for "smartphones and tablets" ie. a touchscreen with a matt finish. That is the novelty here.

Re:An uneven surface?

[dargaud]

Indeed there is more to it. This is a screen for "smartphones and tablets" ie. a touchscreen with a matt finish. That is the novelty here.

The problem with matte screens is that they are besically impossible to clean. I punch my cow workers if they put their greasy fingers on my screen after the 1st warning. So hopefuly they've found a screen surface that cleans easily like a glossy one, but without the reflections.

Re:An uneven surface?

[fgouget]

From that description it sounds like Sony has reinvented screens with matte finish. Surely there is more to this.

Yes. The answer comes from Wikipedia's description of the nanoscale structure found in Moth Eyes:

Moths' eyes have an unusual property: their surfaces are covered with a natural nanostructured film which eliminates reflections. [...] The structure consists of a hexagonal pattern of bumps, each roughly 200 nm high and spaced on 300 nm centers. This kind of antireflective coating works because the bumps are smaller than the wavelength of visible light, so the light sees the surface as having a continuous refractive index gradient between the air and the medium, which decreases reflection by effectively removing the air-lens interface.

Re:An uneven surface?

[bill_mcgonigle]

So hopefuly they've found a screen surface that cleans easily like a glossy one, but without the reflections.

I suppose it's possible to find something that's bumpy at optical scales but smooth at molecular scales.

Moth eye coating

[teslar]

Philips has a television with a moth-eye coating (just that though; not a combination with other coatings as in Sony's approach) available. Just read the review this morning. Seems a bit fragile though - I wonder if this will also apply to Sony's new film (I guess it won't since that'd be rubbish on a smartphone, but TFA does not actually address it):

Amazingly, it works - but thereâ(TM)s a caveat. The filter requires extreme care, so much so that Philips supplies a proprietary cleaning solution to remove any thumbprint smudges. This fragility makes the screen a questionable purchase for those with young families.

One major hurdle to overcome prior to production

[PatPending]

Before Sony can commercially produce this, they have to overcome one hurdle: how to stop a device with this coating from gravitating to bright lights!

Novel invention

[Trogre]

Was it perhaps developed by a Sony employee named...

Matt?

Thanks, I'll be here all week.

In high-tech Japan, film renders screen!

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one who got vastly confused by this?

"New Film Renders Screen..."
Me: Hmm... shouldn’t the screen render the film?

"... Reflection Almost Non-Existent"
Me: Well, duh. Film is not exactly smart, so of course it won't be able to reflect about things that much.

Aaah, Slashdot headlines... so much fun, nobody even reads TFS any more. ;)

Re:In high-tech Japan, film renders screen!

[Datamonstar]

Missed a prime Soviet Russia opportunity.

Re:One major hurdle to overcome prior to productio

[PatPending]

Each product with this coating will have this warning prominently displayed:

WARNING: DO NOT PLACE NEAR MOTHBALLS

mash them eyes

[jago25_98]

I expect Sony won't license this and prevent Samsung etc from using this.
I want free choice on phones but this is a very useful thing for me to have on a phone.

Should you be able to buy an aftermarket plastic film to stick on anything you want?

look out moths! I'm gonna mash you up and sell your eyes on Taobao!

I guess making bumps less than lights wavelength is not something I can do at home right? I mean, a rep rap hasn't got that precision... hmm...

Willful blindness

[tepples]

How so? Is it to avoid knowledge that leads to treble damages? If so, the concept of "willful blindness" is emerging from recent exclusive rights cases.

Forget computing devices

[killmenow]

How about they put this shit on car windshields? I'd love to stop getting blinded by the sun's reflection bouncing off the rear glass of the car in front of me.

Re:Forget computing devices

[Whorhay]

Personally I've got polarized sunglasses that help enourmously with this issue. But I have wondered why car makers, especially luxury brands, haven't added a polarized coating to the insides of their windscreens.

How wear resistant

[AbrasiveCat]

Nice, it sounds excellent. My only concerns would be price, Sony licensing it out to others, and how well is it going to hold up to daily wear and tear? If the surface is that special, then the top edges of shapes on the surface maybe subjected to rapid wear. This could defeat the effect and you could be in a worse boat than if it didn't have the coating at all.