Printing Out A New Monitor 194
wackypak writes: "Seiko / Epson have developed a new technology which allows it to print out a video screen onto paper! Believe it or not, they've even demoed the technology, and hope to use it for mobile phones! This may be the death of paper as we know it -- imagine being delivered an electronic video newspaper every morning, then *recycling* it. Or even delivering your speech as a multimedia piece of paper! Or having walls and walls of video wallpaper!" Or ending more sentences with exclamation points!
Nothing new... (Score:1)
Doesn't everyone remember the dozens of articles written years ago about that guy in the MIT Media Lab who had the exact same idea (called electronic ink, then)...All the pop. mags picked it up.
Even check out the corporate spinoff: www.eink.com [eink.com] and also check out the neat-o simple flash anim off of the "Technology" section...
Old idea, new company trying it...
Re:Instant Billboards... or Why they won't work. (Score:1)
Re:The 1000hrs blue LEP is worrying (Score:1)
tattoos? (Score:1)
-Erik
Re:OK, so here's a flaw... (Score:1)
Just think... These screens could become the equivilent of trash bags. Just keep a few in the closet.. when you need a new one the old one gets thrown away. groovy.
They're new and improved!
GLAD kitchen-sized TV screens
100 per box
OK, so here's a flaw... (Score:3)
OK, so the display's only good for 1000 hours. I don't know about the rest of the world, but I keep my cell phone turned on 24 hours a day. So, if I do the math...
1000 hours / 24 hours per day = 41 1/3 days.
So it looks like I'll have to replace my cell phone every month and a half if it uses one of these displays. Doesn't seem that useful to me. Maybe they could have a red "screen saver" mode that would just use the red display elements unless you needed full color. That would at least give it a little better lifetime, since then their assumption that a cell phone is only "in use" 200 hours a year would be a little more valid.
However, I still think that a display that is only good for 1000 hours of use is probably not going to be that widely used at all. I mean, sure, the rest of the crowd here is talking about a lot of neat things:
paper thin TVs - How many hours of TV do *you* watch a day? More than 3? Then this display is dead in less than a year.
digital wallpaper - Do you really want to re-wallpaper your house every month and a half?
If the technology is cheap enough, then sure, it can be used for things like an electronic newspaper. I would really like to see that, actually. I'd pay $100 a year (assuming non-continuous usage here) for a thin, flexible display that gave me up to the minute news. Of course, you still need something to drive the display, and then you might be getting into something bulky. But the ideas are there. I just think that someone needs to worry about the 1000 hour lifetime of this technology, rather than just dismissing it.
-Todd
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A printed monitor (Score:1)
Other implications: (Score:3)
Or a transistor. (Even with only one type of semiconductor you can make a FET.)
Now think about what you can do once you can print transistors with chemical inks.
Then remember you can also print wires, resistors, capacitors, small inductors, and antennas. (You can do a large inductor with a capacitor and an amplifier.)
Densities will likely be too small for a really smart computer. But a slow RISC machine should be trivial. Analog will be easy.
Hybrids on paper from an ink-spitter... Brings a whole new meaning to "printed circuit". B-)
Re:Something sounds wrong (Score:3)
This will more then likely change, the blue pixel lifetimes will rise, when they do then it would be easier to impliment them as screens.
-- iCEBaLM
Re:Something sounds wrong (Score:1)
JL
Re:Ultra Hi-res displays. (Score:1)
Probably not - think of the memory required for a frame buffer to support a 1440 dpi monitor.
And on the hardware side, the data transfer rate required to achieve a decent frame rate on, say, a 19" 1440 dpi display must be quite high (too tired to do any calculation on it
But surely, it's nice technology.
MHBD (Mean Hours Before Disposal) (Score:1)
200 hours?
Is having the latest technocrap so important that we replace phones after about 8 days of continuous use?
Maybe McPhoneald's should start selling fries with their phones.
Re:A flight of fancy... (Score:1)
This reminds me of an idea I loved from a Michael Marshall Smith book, where every building is covered in something like this pr0n stuff and the colours/patterns are controlled by a central computer for the whole city, and clothing is made of it too. The hero of the story (who has impeccable taste in patterns on his clothes) gets home one day to find an email from the central computer thanking him for being so colour co-ordinated and saying what a pleasure it was to work with him today.
Bet you thought this post would be more interesting.
--
My comments/questions/concerns (Score:1)
are as follows:
Holy CRAP! On the Cambridge Display Technology's home page [generics.co.uk], the two cell phones on the splash page show a tiny image of Asuka from Neon Genesis Evangelion! This company gets cool points :)
Application: Okay, we've seen the somewhat uninformed ideas about how this can be used. What exactly is the consistency, durability, etc. of this silicon substrate they're talking about? Why do they talk about such small screens? This suggests to me that either the PPV (the light-emitting polymer) or the silicon cubstrate material is expensive. On the other hand,according to Generics, the size isn't a problem: [generics.co.uk]
Ecological Effects: This isn't going to be disposable, as far as I could read. It sounded short-lived, but not disposable. What effect would the LEP have on the environment (or, for that matter, on the user)?
The Reality: This has been researched since 1989 by the CDT. How long will it take for their efforts to come to fruition? The blue lasts a bit outside 41 days on constant use. The green will last three years. Again- longevity is a problem, and disposability isn't the answer. It looks really cool, though.
Screen life.. (Score:1)
That's because your typical current cellphone screen just isn't all that interesting to look at. Put a video screen on the phone and suddenly you've got pr0n and other eye candy to stare at while you should be driving - let's see how many hours of use your phone gets after that.
seanmeister
Re:Instant Billboards... or Why they won't work. (Score:1)
tc>
I know, I submitted this story June 23... (Score:1)
Re:Nothing new... (Score:1)
Re:this is cool (Score:1)
-FekIhr : monkey - scripter - jerk -
Cynic's point of view. (Score:1)
We once used to worry about technology being abused to make weapons of mass destruction. Now it seems that we'll have to worry about technology being abused by Madison Avenue and the teenybopper demographic to make the future more garish.
....
Mix this with a DumbUser, and: (Score:3)
If they have switch rates like 'normal' LEDs (which I expect), it it should be possible to redraw screens at normal video rates.. it will also be possible to build portable 'books' with multiple physical pages....
Hold on... This stuff goes on a SILICON substrate. They may still need a WHOLE lot of work to fit it onto a flexible backing.
Nontheless, it still does mean that we can start to look for nearly-throw-away monitors. -- I mean, who's going to mind that their 19" monitor only lasts a year if the replacement panel only costs $15? (I'm presuming that, by the time they get to market, the green LEPs will have a somewhat longer life.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø`ø,,ø`ø
Re:Can't think of good subject (Score:1)
Of course, if it's cheap enough that might not matter - replacable/upgradable screens would be cool.
Re:Impressive... (Score:1)
Re:What about MTBF?? (Score:1)
Re:MHBD (Mean Hours Before Disposal) (Score:1)
Means that phones don't last 5 years in use.
Maybe two or three years tops? (I assume 4 years would be just "before.")
Re:Instant Billboards... Billboards are replaced.. (Score:1)
Diamond Age (Score:1)
I think this sounds like very cool tech, but I can see it getting overused and making everything gaudy. I sure hope architects don't do as you suggest. Ignoring the natural play of shadows and shape would really limit the artistic possibilities. I can picture an amazing variety of buildings incorporating traditional techniques as well as LEP displays. My only worry is that these would increase the omnipresence of advertising.
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WHO CARES ABOUT 1000 HOURS IF IT IS CHEAP. (Score:1)
Christ! The entire POINT of this technology is that is is PAPER and therefor is CHEAP.
You guys are all reacting like paper is $1,000 a square foot a sheet.. Good lord.
Re:Not onto paper (Score:3)
Actually, they did, over a year ago when this was covered in detail in relation to the electronic ink stories [slashdot.org] here on Slashdot.
Or this one [slashdot.org] from last week.
Or half a dozen others I found when doing the 30 seconds of research that could have been done before this article was posted as if into a vacuum...
--
Impressive... (Score:1)
Hopefully this tech is genuine and not just going to vanish into the ether like so many good/futuristic ideas seem to these days.
Re:Mix this with a DumbUser, and: (Score:1)
The blue LEP's only last 1000 hours which is little more than a month. These things will not be used for desktop monitors until that number gets up closer to the 30000 hours that the green LEPs are alleged to last.
Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.- George Bush
George Santayana, not George !#@$!@# Bush.
Quantum Dot Displays? (Score:2)
I'll admit I don't understand the relevant physics, but I wonder whether this technology could be adapted to displays. People working in photovoltaics are also developing cells that use quantum dots to absorb photons and emit electrons, and it seems to my quantum physics naive mind that this process might be reversable to convert free electrons into photons.
People have tried similar things with photovoltaic polymers, but the quantum dots have the advantage that they are highly stable in direct sunlight. It would be cool if the technology could be adapted for displays, because at one stroke it would make the display application cheaper by longer lifespan, and the photovoltaic application cheaper by letting a larger market bear much of the development costs.
I'd like to have a car that has a computer customizable paint job, and that uses the paint job to recharge the battery when it's parked.
Ummm... (Score:2)
Re:Impressive... (Score:1)
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script-fu: hash bang slash bin bash
Re:Cynic's point of view. (Score:1)
I think you're probably outnumbered. AFAIC, the more the better.
Video screens aren't the problem, it's probably the way you're using them.
Re:Print out video screen? (Score:1)
Bzzzzzt.
Umm has anyone read the article? (Score:1)
Re:Think of the lolly wrappers and so on ... (Score:1)
That would be a good way to not get people to buy your product, whatever the fsck a lolly wrapper is. ;)
Invisivility (Score:1)
I can see them military using these screens as new camo for their soliders.
They will have a bunch of these tiny screens sticked together on the clothes and tiny CCD cameras on many angles. The opposite side will display the image on the clothing. This has been attempted before using tiny mirrors and it works so so.... with this new flexible (cheap) display technology, it will give the effect of the Preditor!
Imagine a truck where a huge screen displays the opposite side's camera image and vice versa. If you have ever seen on of those large mirror-carrying trucks you know the effect. Very disorienting and if you don't look carefully it's quite easy to not even notice a truck is there!
Oh yea... and don't forget about the Wallp0rn...
Won't work!!!!! (Score:2)
Now, move through 30 degrees. The display is still showing the old picture, but you're seeing it from the wrong angle, so you're seeing a distorted version of the wrong image. It would stand out like a sore thumb.
Now, a pseudo random image would porbably vanish under your notice a lot faster
Just think... (Score:1)
0.02 isn't worth much
flexible polymer displays (Score:1)
Printing out on paper? (Score:3)
"Seiko Epson can deposit individual pixels of red, green and blue LEPs directly onto a silicon substrate."
Um, silicon != paper... It sounds like they're working on other substrate possibilities, but right now, they can't print on paper. It just happenes that in order to deposit the LEPs on silicon they're using the same techniques people use to put ink on paper.
Trust me, while it's not as nice as being able to print on paper, it's a LOT nicer than current LCD/silicon tech - It looks as if this particular manufacturing tech won't need the stuff to be in a vacuum at all, while most silicon processing techniques require all air to be removed from the chamber. (Either a vaccum or an inert gas of your choice depending on the process... Or a reactive gas for CVD.)
Finally ... (Score:2)
+++ATH0
Re:There's nothing new about this (Score:4)
Did you bother to read the article above?
You refer to two different technologies in your post, both of which are TOTALLY different in design, and implementation in comparison to the one that was posted on Slashdot today.
One of the technologies that you are speaking of uses tiny balls - One side is black with a certain charge, and one side is white with an opposing charge. Depending on the electric charge hitting the paper, the balls flip over displaying the white side, or the black side.
The other technology you're talking about uses a capsule filled with tiny balls. the capsule is a transparent dark color, and the tiny balls inside are white. There are electrodes on the top and bottom of the capsule. Depending on which electrode is powered, the tiny balls in the capsule either go up (making the 'pixel' white), or go down (making it dark blue). It works like a Magic 8 Ball. Kinda.
Now, the technology that was reported today is very different. It actually uses a polymer that emits light when voltage is applied to it. By coloring the polymer red, green, and blue, and spraying it on a base with an opposing charge, you have a color display. It's a solid-state deal. No moving parts, with the exception of the electrons moving through the PPV.
Next time, you might want to read a little more closely. You might learn something.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
Re:Why bother with an intermediate layer... (Score:1)
Errr, that was the mood ring [ajcockrell.com], remember them?
Can't think of good subject (Score:1)
My one real concern is that the LEP might be very resistant to scratch. If it isn't, and is reasonably cheap, I would be quite happy to say goodbye to those 10k$ digital HDTVs, not to mention the enormous size of my monitor.
Whenever they come up with a new thin screen, they don't talk about putting it on desktop monitors. I hate the amount of space this monster takes up. Why can't they use this to make a nice, cheap flatpanel display, using DVI?
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there's already a flexible (roll-up) screen (Score:1)
When I was researching components for wearable PC's I ran across a site advertising flexible displays; I think I didn't store it in long-term memory (my head, I mean) because it was monochrome. But if a flexible screen is important to you, do look it up. (-8
Btw, there are also roll-up keyboards advertised (on a different site), but when I sent them an e-mail, I never got a response. They were for scientific/research users, and were also waterproof (and for nasty environments generally). Just in case you need one....
Re:Can't think of good subject (Score:2)
I see it as a good technology for phones and some devices you don't use for a long time and maybe some advertising, until that lifetime hurdle can be jumped.
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Re:Instant Billboards... (Score:1)
Perhaps, but there's a couple of things to consider here.
Would these devices degrade in the sun?
How bright are they? Because they are light-emitting devices (as opposed to regular printing which is light-reflecting), they would need to be very bright indeed to be colorful in daylight. (There's an electronic billboard near my place that uses high-intensity LEDs, for instance.) I doubt that they would be bright enough.
Re:Print out video screen? (Score:1)
The initial idea for this was somewhere in '81,
but the Xerox management goons said they Xerox
wasn't 'interested' in digital paper. Imagine
if they would have given the go-ahead then.
Wallpaper? Guess which room... (Score:3)
think of the possibilities for the single male's bathroom...
"Wow Tom, you've got WALLPR0N!!!!"
you all know this should be "Score +(bignumber):Funny"
Re:Instant Billboards... or Why they won't work. (Score:2)
Something sounds wrong (Score:4)
Ok, so the procedure can produce a piece of paper that can act like an LCD screen. This sounds really great, but why didn't they mention it can be used to replace TVs, or even screens.
According to their values quoted (270,000 pixels on a 6.3cm screen) it works out to about 64 pixels per square millimeter. Now that sounds like much better than TV quality, and sounds to me like its Screen quality.
So why haven't they mentioned this ability? What is wrong with the technology that it can be used as a screen for your computer. They mentioned using it in Wireless Internet applications, but never once as a replacement for your TV.
So what did I miss? Either I missed something, or they have really sucky marketing. (People don't care *THAT* much about their cellphones screen quality, but tell them you can make their TV screen as thin as a piece of paper, and much much better technology, and they'll come in the droves if you have the product made).
Its a damn nice product, but I want to know why I can't use it as a replacement for my TV.
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Re:What's the big deal? (Score:1)
Re:Instant Billboards... (Score:1)
-Phredrick Dobbs
Emperor of the Universe
Grand and High Protector of Everything
Re:Not onto paper (Score:1)
I meant "year" and typed "week".
In any event, the comment applies the same whether it's last week, yesterday, last month, last year, or anything else; it took a few seconds to search for the most obvious related terms, to determine that this had been discussed numerous times.
The poster should have done that before he submitted.
His submission was still valid, but it would have been worded differently and probably would have included more useful related links.
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Re:Won't work!!!!! (Score:2)
Yep you're right; I guess you'd need holographic chameleon cloth then. It'll be a *while* before we have any kind of decent holographic display.
What I'm waiting for (Score:2)
This is what I've been waiting for forever. I don't want a laptop, I don't want a palm-pilot - I want a piece of paper I can take out of my pocket and start computing/surfing/etc. I figured I'd have to wait at least 5 years though, so I'm excited.
Re:Quantum Dot Displays? (Score:1)
Re:Something sounds wrong (Score:1)
I used to do this on my mac (Score:1)
My poor eyes (Score:1)
Re:A flight of fancy... (Score:2)
Even if the flexible, weatherproof substrate is perfected, it would still be a manufacturing process that requires a significant factory, not a special cartridge for your $99 printer that lets it hook up to your sewing machine.
The article also described displays a few inches across with TV resolution, and a 1000 hour usable life. While cool, that technology is a long ways away from what "fudboy" rhapsodized about. What's the inverse of FUD - Glee, Uncertainty, and Premature Raving?
Ultra Hi-res displays. (Score:2)
Re:Not onto paper (Score:2)
Re:Oh, so THAT'S the big deal (Score:2)
{shhhhh... the froggies are asleep.}
spam-proofing?
Re:Instant Billboards... (Score:2)
Coupled with "netcasting" and GPS, a cellular or narrowband radio could be used to even SHOW YOU where you are on a map, accurately, and quite visibly. Traffic delays and accidents could come up in realtime as coloured areas to avoid if possible.
Cool! You could even see a MAP VIEW of yourself HAVING AN ACCIDENT in real time!! ;)
I plan to invest in UI research that keeps people's eyes on the road as much as possible while still giving them the information they need...
Re:Oh, so THAT'S the big deal (Score:4)
Second, let's take a look at your supposedly "Interesting" post point by point...
I don't know very much abount monitors or TV's..
That's obvious.
A conventional monitor uses EXTREAM amounts of light to go through lots of magnets and such to bend the light to hit the monitor/TV in the right places to do different colors, etc...
Did you ever take elementary physics at school? Did they teach you that light can be bent by the kind of magnets you'd find in a TV? If so, take your teacher out back and shoot them. TVs fire electrons at a phosphor-painted screen which produces photons of the appropriate frequency when the electrons give up their energy.
THIS technology would basicly make it so that your monitor could be as thin as a piece of paper and the wires which connect all the dots back to the computer.
Well done. You read the article.
a. How BRIGHT will these monitors be? Would they be viewable in broad sun light or in an office with bright lighting? Or just in the dark?
Since they produce their own light, rather than utilizing reflected light (standard LCDs) or light passing through the substance (backlit LCDs), I presume they'd show up well in the dark, and reasonably well in an indoor setting, but we'll just have to wait for ACTUAL PRODUCTS before finding out, won't we?
b. How FAST can these color dots light up and turn off?? I mean nothing worse than seeing trailers on your mouse when you don't want to. Or you minimize a window but you have to wait for the "dots" to loose their charge
I don't think you're going to be using a mouse (or minimizing windows, for that matter) on your cell phone.
c. How "WELL" do these things respond to electricity? Can you give them a "little" juice and have them light up a little, and MORE JUICE to light up more? Otherwise you taking back to the primary colors for monitors.. back to 8 bit graphics..
ALL color monitors are made up of "primary colors" (actually red, green and blue, ehich are not the traditional primary colors, but oh well...). In addition, if you couldn't vary the luminance (i.e. of the pixels had only two states, "on" and "off") that would be TWO-bit color, not EIGHT.
d. Why couldn't you just do this with conventional LED type things? Like a "Light Bright"
You're a genius! I'm sure this has never occurred to any engineer anywhere ever!
For a start, show me how you're going to make those LEDs so small, how you're going to bring power to them, what substances you're going to use for the various colors, how you're going to avoid black gaps between them........I could go on.
It's a fab process (Score:2)
It looks like Epson is on the right track, but is still having trouble with the blue LEDs. If they're concentrating on cell phone displays, they probably have a high cost per unit area. (If they'd cracked that problem, they'd be showing wall-sized TVs.)
Another company making displays by printing is E-ink [eink.com]. Their process is different, and involves tiny balls in fluid moved by electrostatic drivers in the substrate. Writing rates are slow; this is for signs, not TV. The site is heavy on hype; skip the irrelevant Flash animations and go for the data sheet. [eink.com]
Re:There's nothing new about this (Score:2)
1) blue only lasts 1000 hours
and
2) no backlight is needed
ok so 1 means that its only real use would be cell phones, pagers, anything that doesn't get used very much or is disposable. Number two means that this technology has an edge above all other technologies mentioned above in that those require some form of illumination, where this produces its own, which is a huge savings in cost.
A flight of fancy... (Score:5)
First off, I expect rapid development of resolution, blue LEP lifespans, modularity, chip embedding, wireless broadband(streaming), and physical properties like flexibility, elasticity, heat and cold resistance, waterproofing, etc.
Ten years after something like this comes to market, it will seem like the blink of an eye, a couple product generations go by and wham! this tech is now ubiquitous and has amazing, undreamed of applications.
One thing people will probably do is wallpaper everything in it: house, car, tennis racket, shoes, shirt, bathing suit area. This technology will also lend itself to vandalism nicely. imagine slapping a 40" square sheet, looping video of pr0n or subversive images on the back of a bus? on the side of a politicians limo? all over a building!
But what to play on these displays? The trippy nebulous winamp plugin style would get old quick. Anything curvy like clothing would distort video, making video look surreal, and making surreal movie footage that much stranger. Looping footage of stars, fire and clouds are likely to be popular. But that still won't be enough. Designers will embrace it, and produce some wonderful combinations of color and tone, but that still won't be enough.
Fairly quick into this, I expect the military to adopt this into cheap and easy mimetic armor systems. This might lead back to consumerville in the form of very sophisticated mood clothing, that matches both your mood and the room you are in. Through practice you could learn to manipulate the clothing to convey subtle accents or advertise a specific mood. this would eventually add another dimension to human interaction. Perhaps a more polite and subtle culture would blossom around this...
There will obviously be styles that come and go, but certain things will remain relatively constant. If displays like this are adopted as the de facto standard for building adornment, there will be a pronounced change in architectural styles, marking the shift in epoch clearly.
Off the top of my head, I imagine buildings would become bland and featureless, possibly made of raw concrete with smooth sections prepared for the display coating.
After a collapse in our civilisation, future generations would think of our's as a hard and ugly era, though in reality everything will be flamboyent to the point of overstimulation and madness!
damn, I should write this stuff down!
:)Fudboy
Re:Oh, so THAT'S the big deal (Score:2)
But, well there's always a but...
ALL color monitors are made up of "primary colors" (actually red, green and blue, ehich are not the traditional primary colors, but oh well...). In addition, if you couldn't vary the luminance (i.e. of the pixels had only two states, "on" and "off") that would be TWO-bit color, not EIGHT.
This doesn't make a lot of sense. Two state pixels are ONE-bit. Pixels made from three two state pixels are THREE-bit (ie. 2^3=8 colors).
Johan V.
Recyclable? (Score:2)
Or would you be able to feed the sheets back into a printer and reprint the blue "ink"?
Your Working Boy,
Re:There's nothing new about this (Score:2)
The way I read the article (the
Now, if you read the
Next time, you might want to be a little more tactful. You might be taken more seriously.
-Todd
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Re:Maybe this will help me get what I want Sooner. (Score:2)
Re:There's nothing new about this (Score:2)
Oh get real. Now you're saying the technology is 'neat', but in your original post you downplayed it with sarcasm:
Oooh, it's color. I bet that's just a *huge* accomplishment.
Part of your first statement also alludes to the fact that you had no idea what you were talking about:
Develop the technology in black, then change it to RGB and overlay them.
WRONG. You were still believing that the technology you were referring to was the same as the technology that was just posted. They're not overlaying anything. The technology isn't starting out as black. This is NOT the MicroBall technology. It's a totally DIFFERENT technology that wasn't originally developed in black, wasn't changed to RGB, and was not overlayed. Your facts are incorrect and you're trying to throw your mistake on me.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
very old news (Score:3)
want to find out more [altavista.com].
Actually licensed from Cambridge Display Technolog (Score:3)
This is a change I don't think anybody thought of. (Score:2)
Just to think.. a screen on your t-shirt that you can say "hey baby.. I read slashdot and I'm single.. yeah ok maybe i'm ugly but i'm 50% vested"
this could be great for the whole wearable computing crowd..
Watches (Score:2)
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Instant Billboards... (Score:5)
On the individual side, the idea of a flatscreen TV hanging on the wall may become a reality far sooner now. And, if the technology is truly as "cheap" as they say it is, the I'd like to see embedded displays in car dashboards, or as a "heads up" display on an unused portion of the windshield. Volume controls on the dashboard may be replaced with control buttons for map displays.
Coupled with "netcasting" and GPS, a cellular or narrowband radio could be used to even SHOW YOU where you are on a map, accurately, and quite visibly. Traffic delays and accidents could come up in realtime as coloured areas to avoid if possible.
Hell, the possibilities of this are pretty much endless, so I'll stop here.
krystal_blade
Re:Not onto paper (Score:2)
Re:A flight of fancy... (Score:2)
Fairly quick into this, I expect the military to adopt this into cheap and easy mimetic armor systems.
You must mean "chameleon cloth". It's been a goal for a while, and this will bring it closer to reality. A few tiny cameras on one side of the tank feed pictures to the cloth on the other side, and vice-versa. Presto! a huge armoured vehicle has a visual profile the size of the camera openings, which could probably be pinholes.
You need some real sophisticated intelligent image processing and projection technology to hide shadows and depressions in the soil. If your tank is rolling across the desert, you can't hide the dust either.
Another difficulty will be getting it to hold up under fire. If the enemy suspects armoured vehicles on the field, they can spray random fire and damage the surface. Then there are other detection techniques--thermo, radar, etc...
In short, build better camo, and the enemy will build better detection.
Re:Impressive... (Score:2)
I read about it in whatever took the place of PC Computing (can't remember the new name). [newscientist.com] is a link to a related story I posted in an earlier discussion. Additionally, [cdtltd.co.uk] is a link showing some of the LEP displays.
At first I was under the impression that these two articles were covering differing technologies since they both came from the same source just a month or so apart, but then I thought about double posting of stories here on slashdot a month or so apart.....
carlos
Re:NOT (Score:2)
Alternatively, you might sell it cheap enough to let people replace them often -- replacing your screen could become just as run-of-the-mill as replacing or charging a battery.
It's just a marketing issue. Eventually, the technology will have caught up and the replacements become less and less frequent.
Re:Impressive... (Score:2)
I read about it in whatever took the place of PC Computing (can't remember the new name). Here [newscientist.com] is a link to a related story I posted in an earlier discussion. Additionally, This [cdtltd.co.uk] is a link showing some of the LEP displays.
At first I was under the impression that these two articles were covering differing technologies since they both came from the same source just a month or so apart, but then I thought about double posting of stories here on slashdot a month or so apart.....
carlos
Modulation (Score:2)
If not, you could always excite them with a variable-width pulse, or print them in sections and turn on variable numbers of sections.
Maybe this will help me get what I want Sooner... (Score:2)
It will be all screen with an area the size of an A4 piece of paper and be perhaps ½" thick.
It will run on a hydrogen fueled power cell and require, at most, monthly refills.
It will have enough CPU power and local solid-state storage to be capable of using speech recognition as the primary interface. This will work flawlessly for any user in any language in realtime without any training.
It will have minimal latency broadband access that will work worldwide.
It will have total access to every motion picture, piece of music or book ever created weather it be past, present or in the future for free.
Lastly it will have an open source OS and an unlimited supply of free application software.
Ideal toy hu? I'll be buying one next year!!
Of course, Microsoft might volunteer to release its source code and the RIAA might go easy on Napster. You never know....
Then again maybe not. At least the screen part of my ideal device seems a bit closer!
Print out video screen? (Score:5)
Um, excuse me, but I think Apple invinted this back in the early 80s. Its called a laser printer and WSYWIG. =-)
Re:Something sounds wrong (Score:2)
Even $10/month is pretty damn cheap to have a screen that is plastered onto your wall.
The only other thing I can figure is the refresh may be slow (like LCDs use to be), so you'd end up with bluring. I'd just like to know what the capibilities of this technology are.
As to the person questioning my statement about people flocking to *real* flat screen TVs. Have you seen the price of the Sony flatscreens recently? From what I can gather, this technology will be very cheap, the only reason everyone isn't getting a plasma screen is not everyone needs a second mortgage. :) If this paper is as cheap as they claim it will be, then I'd say many many people will be throwing out their old TVs, even if they need to replace the paper every 2 months.
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Re:What about MTBF?? (Score:3)
My imagination also foretells an awful lot or red, green and brown menus and other on-screen display with these phones
-Andy
Re:OK, so here's a flaw... (Score:2)
This is my hope as well. Blue has pretty much always been a difficult color for LEDs and the like. And the fact that they can do something like this in blue at all is a big advancement. So hopefully we'll see some rapid development on the lifetime of the blue LEPs.
-Todd
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There's nothing new about this (Score:3)
If I remember correctly, some researchers at MIT developed "digital ink" at least a couple years ago. Basically, a flexible thin display that you controlled in a similar fashion to an LCD screen.
Hey look, here's a link to a story on ScienceNews [sciencenews.org] about it.
And look, it's the research papers from the IBM guys working on it! [ibm.com]
Wow, and here's a Company that's developing electronic ink [electronic-ink.com]
Guess it's not such a new idea after all.
-Todd
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Not onto paper (Score:4)
No one said anything about creating a display on a sheet of paper, or even if the substrate was flexible (which would be a most iteresting feature).
A whole new arena of excuses for school kids: (Score:5)
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Re:Oh, so THAT'S the big deal (Score:4)
They found an "INK" that when it is charged with electricity it "LIGHTS UP"
I don't know very much abount monitors or TV's.. but I know a little bit
THIS technology would basicly make it so that your monitor could be as thin as a piece of paper and the wires which connect all the dots back to the computer.
I don't know.. sounds a bit FISHY to me. I mean, it should work.. but a few questions raise to my head... like
a. How BRIGHT will these monitors be? Would they be viewable in broad sun light or in an office with bright lighting? Or just in the dark?
b. How FAST can these color dots light up and turn off?? I mean nothing worse than seeing trailers on your mouse when you don't want to. Or you minimize a window but you have to wait for the "dots" to loose their charge
c. How "WELL" do these things respond to electricity? Can you give them a "little" juice and have them light up a little, and MORE JUICE to light up more? Otherwise you taking back to the primary colors for monitors.. back to 8 bit
graphics..
d. Why couldn't you just do this with conventional LED type things? Like a "Light Bright"
ANYWAYS... Try it before you buy it.. and when you do buy it, check the warrenty and keep the receipt under lock and key..
Think of the lolly wrappers and so on ... (Score:2)
Imagine if you printed a video screen onto those!
Collect the lot to view the entire Star Wars Episode 1 : The Phantom Menace movie or whatever ... :-)
Re:Print out video screen? (Score:4)
Re:What about MTBF?? (Score:2)
And you've used it continuously since then? What are you, a teenage girl on steroids? HTF do you pay for 2500 hours of continuous cell phone use?
Seriously, we're talking about devices people only use for short bursts of time. It's like saying a power source is good for 20 hours in a laser gun.
Now my question is, do they have replaceable screens, say if you were using it for like a computer monitor, could you just slide the screen off and slide a new one in? Because I use my laptop considerably more than your average user uses their mobile phone, and I would expect at least a couple years out of it. Probably twice what these screens offer, maybe 3x. I don't really know exactly, I don't have reference point for quite what 1000 hrs. is relative to how much my cmp. is on out of a day relative to how long a year is, this late at night. But I would definitely have to replace the screen over the life of my computer--if they made it doable, I would certainly consider that type of screen as an alternative to more expensive (and harder to look at) LCD but if not than forget it.
Ever get the impression that your life would make a good sitcom?
Ever follow this to its logical conclusion: that your life is a sitcom?