LG unfurls flexible SEE-THROUGH 18-inch display Not content with making the world’s biggest bendy OLED TV, LG has thrown a different curve entirely with its roll-up OLED display. The 18-inch flexible panel has a 1280 x 810 resolution and uses a film of high-performance plastic called polyimide to give it its flexibility. LG flexible display Outsmarting the bendy …
How about instead of one spinning screen, have three (or more) transparent screens in front of each other with gaps between them, have the background on the rear screen the foreground on the front screen and everything else on the middle screen. No idea how to prepare a suitable image, I suspect they'd need some of those computer thingies to work out what's what.
Not full blown 3D of course but would give an impression of depth and perspective without having to spin something up, mind you to make this work I think the screens need to be more transparent than these early iterations.
I can imagine pretty eye-catching billboards set against a great horizon. If you could position one so that Manhattan was visible through it, and then have people apparently parkouring all over the skyscrapers? Of course, you'd have to keep changing the action or we'd get bored.
Like current displays can do if we just add a camera to them? Transparent displays are usually used in areas like transportation and security... not for TV viewing...
Unless... [goes off to patent a 100% transparent display, transparent 100% of the time and invisible to consumers]
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"Downside - the image would also be visible to those outside which might restrict viewing subjects a little."
Not to much of a problem. As I walk around where I live there are houses where the TVs are so enormously mahoosive, I don't know if the inhabitants are breaching some kind of pubic broadcast law. I'm sure the sheep from across the valley are keeping up with events in Eastenders.
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Unfortunately, for all the engineering prowess it probably requires to create a bendable, transparent display, I'd bet my lunch's money LG will have no idea of what to do with it – just like with the 3D display smartphones. Remember them? Thought so.
Best case scenario, this will eventually make its big-time début in a "revolutionary" iThing.
Uses? Signage and advertising. This isn't a domestic technology.
One application springs to mind immediately: in Continental Europe, a lot of advertising posters are attached to large-diameter pillars at street-corners (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising_column).
Think of the demand for a digital advertising screen that could wrap around these.
Wow, this has been done in the game Hydrophobia where the main character unfurls from a stick a tablet sized see thru screen. She lines it up with some spaceship engine and gets working schematics that allow her to more quickly determine the parts that need repairing.
If this comes out as a finished product, would it kill the nascent Augmented Reality tech companies using smart phones over your eyes? I suspect hands free would only survive in specific niches.
Dr Who - "Oh! A Dalek. Now, how do I disarm one of these things. Hang on..." Retrieves flexible overlay and holds it between him and the dalek.... (finish this for yourselves)
Firstly, they would have to fix Haynes. Mechanics call it "the book of lies" for a reason. "Simply undo the bolt shown in picture A..." ... half a day and much swearing later...
"If this comes out as a finished product, would it kill the nascent Augmented Reality tech companies using smart phones over your eyes? I suspect hands free would only survive in specific niches."
The Google Glass form factor is far better for something you're working on because it leaves both hands free to actually do the work. A pen with a screen you could unroll would make a pretty good phone; but it might be better to project your screen in the long-term, as an unrollable screen would be quite the weak point.
What puzzles me, and perhaps this is what the transparency technologists are already doing - is surely to get a transparent display, you just need a vanilla calculator-like monochrome LCD display behind your standard colour display?
The monochrome one, if it has enough DPI, effectively creates a transparency layer that the colour layer renders over?
I dunno if this would work, but that would be how I'd begin exploring the area. I highly doubt this is a novel idea, but if it is - I claim all patent rights! *runs for the hills*
My kids both have ipads, both of which have suffered various scrapes and dings. If this screen is as flexible and hopefully power friendly as indicated (if using e-ink type technology) then it would be a must have accessory for any phone. No need to have a phone and an ipad, just one device and either a small screen built in, or a huge screen unfurled at a moments notice.
There's definitely a market here, it just depends how power hungry it is, and how whether they can make it small enough to roll into something you can slip into your pocket.
Years ago I had an old TFT screen (An LG, as it happens) and found I could remove the polarisers, backlights, etc to leave more or less just an LCD panel with a bunch of electronics connected to one edge.
Which left me with a semi-transparent (we're talking at most 20% transmissive) panel that I blu-tacked to a window.
When hooked up to my PC it meant I could see the weather forecast and see if I had any Outlook appointments or if it was safe to stay in bed. Nowadays it could be hooked up to a hugely increased number of services and data feeds.
It had two problems, though:
(1) Without a backlight it only worked during the day. As an emmissive tech this would be far better.
(2) Anyone could see what was on the screen. Not a problem in a 10th floor flat, but it's none too practical in my new house...
I have a monitor here that actually featured a removable back panel.
http://www.geocities.ws/hinv.geo/sgipics/flatpanel/sgi4.jpg
The idea was you took the back off, and slapped it on an overhead projector for presentations. 1024x768 pixel resolution, and not bad clarity.
Sadly, the proprietary cable that hooks it to the computer has a few broken conductors, and I'm not sure how to get it apart to repair it, but the monitor otherwise works, as does the computer it came with, even if I have to keep punching its MAC address into the PROM prompt every time I fire it up.
It's quite a bit of faff to setup a projector. And tellies are getting to be idiotically dominant in the living room now - a bit like 2001 with the big slab being stroked by apes. (We love doing this - I'm sure we're not alone!)
So forget crappy old 3d. What will make me upgrade is a telly which rolls away when you're not using it. You could have a 'small' 50 inch one that spends its time behind a Chippendale cabinet, or a big one (fnarr) which unfurls from the ceiling and gives that cinema experience without a projector in sight.
The transparent option is good too. Who hasn't wished they could turn their UPVC windows into a stunning vitine by Chagall or those frenchies who sorted out Chartres?
(P.S. Seriously for a moment... If you've never heard of All Saints, Tudelely, Kent, it actually does have the most stunning array of windows by Chagall. Please visit! It is worth driving 100 miles or more to see:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=chagall+windows+kent&rlz=1C1AVSX_enGB390GB390&espv=2&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=T8bCU5uhBeOS7Aax_YHoAg&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&biw=1526&bih=1019
I know there have already been several Heads-Up-Display solutions already, but none have so far been able to utilise the entire windscreen..
It's still not up to scratch, UK law requires 70% transmittance - which also includes the glass.
The other niggle, which I believe Google are working on, is lining up the display aspect with the drivers eyes. I think they use a facial recognition camera to determine the drivers eye-line so that the super-imposed imagery lines up with the real world on the other side of the glass.
This raises the question of what the passenger will see. From the passengers perspective nothing will align, and could potentially cause motion sickness. This can be resolved using polarised filtering.
Polarised screens already installed in top-end Range Rovers, so that the centre console screen displays a movie for the passenger, and the sat-nav for the driver.
Once these issues have been resolved though, it would be a quantum leap in satnav technology. The direction, street names, and even what lane you should be in, all highlighted on the real world.
Obviously, speed, rev and other displays can be moved up there too. HUDs improve drivers attention to the road, by reducing eye movement away from the road, which is why they were invented for fighter pilots in the first place
Apart from the fact that I would *love* have a bunch of those glass sheet screens that only seem to work in SF movies, it strikes me that the flexibility comes in more ways than one. There are fairly practical reasons why you have size limitations in fixed sheet screens, which are not present in the rollable stuff because you need to deal with bending and correct distances to make it rollable in the first place.
This suggests that it ought to be possible to just make one screen that is 3 "traditional" screens wide, so no edges in between, and no need to have 3 separate driver cards to control it - just a roll with a support mechanism, which also makes it more portable. Making a screen wall ought to be easier too - instead of a 3 by 2 screen setup you'd just have one massive roll.
I'm *definitely* interested if they're going down that route. Meanwhile, I'd like some of those glass sheet screens, please, just to tie me over :)
No need to take your telly to the bog - it can be there as your personal hi-tech disposable. The cardboard tube will need to be a bit stiffer - how about replacing that with a carbon fibre one.
They'll have to give it a less slippy coating mind.
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