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New Tiny Display w/ Full Colour
Benjamin Scherrey wrote in to send
us a CNN Tech story with a
strange display device.
It sorta looks like a handheld TV, but it looks like it
can do 800x600. Looks like it would be awkward.
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Digital paper is being tested by a couple of companies; it's in a a somewhat different format. Check out last week's New Scientist.
I thought this looked familiar. I'd seen this on ZDTV's Fresh Gear: inViso OptiScape II.
As much as I'd like a sharp display for a wearable, they say that this is hard to look at for extended periods. And I'd hate to have to hold it all the time. Head mount anyone?!
What I'd like to see is some sort of mini projector for small info devices. It does'nt even have to push the lux or anything, and the max range would be 20-30cm. (btw: anyone seen anything like it ? I've seen the direct retinal scan thing) Think about the applications of a mini 800 x 600 projector:
your gps8 in your car projects a map across to a READABLE sized white panel/sheet/rollable upable view screen. For that matter.. think about a gps projecting your actual position onto an actual paper map.... hmmm... now THERES a #@$%@#$% brilliant idea. All it would take is a red dot trained onto a pre-defined area of paper
Or.... you pull out your slightly misty white 200mm cube of perspex, and turn your projector to project inside your cube. Hey presto. Instant Holographic map of the surrounding terrain. Why's no1 using that either ????
Your cellphone AKA digital camera AKA mp3 player recieves a photo of your friends in Tahiti. You point the projector end at a piece of developer paper, and hey presto, your digital picture pops up. Hit "Print" and the ultraviolet/microwave sensitive paper prints the pic instantly. Polaroid suddenly corners the printing market. You get bored and hit the sound analyser button, and hey presto, you project your favourite music sound spectrum onto a wall.
You get to work, roll down the projector screen on your laptop (either scanned on from behind or infront depending on how much u spent). Cheap. COMPACT. but lux limited. You set the projector to fixed pattern scan mode, stick it infront of a machine component, plug in your 3d spatial scanner, and get an instant 3d cad profile via realtime interferrometry or pattern geometric distortion, or any other available means.
Plug in your ever useful projector into an industrial amplifier and beam splitter. (No, that is'nt made by Industrial Light and Magic) You need to get that CAD-CAM scan out pronto. The amplified beam shines from 3 locations into a milky white resin and scans the 3d model line by line, and into the goo, slowly building a solid model. Thats been done before, but do we get the idea yet?
And that was 2 minutes worth of ideas (on perhaps weird) apps.
Onei
--->Lazy bastard whos too lazy to look up his password, but has time to blow up his mp3 player @#$%@#$%@#$%!!!!!! For that matter....I'm short on email, write me if u think I've gone off the deep end.
Meccano22@hotmail.com
If this is anything like DisplayTech's stuff, it's a LCD layer on top of a conventional chip that has a silvered or highly reflective layer just under the LCD. Then by turning each LCD pixel on/off they can change whether light is absorbed/scattered or reflected back (by the "mirror" under the LCD).
Then you can either put one of these at the other end of a colorwheel, and index your primaries, relying on the eye to merge the images, or you can take three of them, and use a special prism (Philips?) to separate out and recombine the RGB images.
Pretty cool technology. But it'll never be used on a "large" scale... like the paper thread. Silicon's too expensive! But projection now...
What I really want is my $300 HDTV projector. I know that DisplayTech has 1600x1200 (at least in the proto stage, although all I saw working was an 800x600). That's not too much lower than the 19??x???? needed for HDTV.
Later,
Jon
If this is real then digital paper is finally here. This little screen has a better dpi resolution than a laser printer, which means the text could be as clean and readable as a paper book. The resolution of text is the biggest obstacle to digital reading, because low res just puts too much strain on the eyes. (Have you tried to read an entire book on a computer screen? It can be done, but the low resolution of the screen slows you down and can even give you monster headaches.) The only question is whether they are able to make displays larger than one inch. If they can, the digital book is just around the corner!
I can see the device already, 4x6 inches, the size of a paperback, a few navigation buttons at the bottom for turning pages. It would actually open like a book and you could put it in your pocket. Download dozens of books at a time, and when you are done with them, just flash it and dump some more! You could even subscribe to a newspaper and have it downloaded into your digital book every day! Same with magazines. Connect it to a PCS or cellular modem and you can get to the whole library, no matter where you are. A true information appliance!
If somebody isn't working on this already, they are all slackers!
Vince
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