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Organic LEDs To Replace LCDs? 83

Posted by CmdrTaco from the something-to-think-about dept.
Shostykovich writes "There's a story here on the LA Times about some interesting organic-LED technology being explored by the likes of Kodak and IBM. These LEDs are made using "organic compounds", and they're hoping to replace LCDs with these in a few years." Light on tech talk, but they see to think that these could work for head displays.
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Organic LEDs To Replace LCDs? More

Organic LEDs To Replace LCDs?

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  • that's the last time i type so much shit.

  • leds will take over the world (Score:3)

    by dirtmerchant ( 162306 ) on Monday October 09, 2000 @01:58PM (#720052) Homepage
    Obviously, these people aren't paranoid enough. If they were, they would realize that no matter how little you put in, organic compounds put in electronics will evolve and take over the world. I'm still waiting for the leech computer [slashdot.org] to gain sentience and run amok. When will science learn.
    -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
    v.3.12
    GCS d-(--) s+: a-- C+++$>++++$$ UL++$>++++$$ P+>++++$ L++>++++$ E--- W++$>++

  • Yea, these things are neat (Score:4)

    by Natalie's Hot Grits ( 241348 ) on Monday October 09, 2000 @02:00PM (#720053) Homepage
    We have been working with prototypes of these kinds fo things for a few months.. they really are quite neat..

    One thing that is nice is that they use a LOT less power than conventional LCD's. Also, there is no ghost when animation occurs like in conventional LCD displays.. Even in high quality laptop and flatpannel displays you get teh ghost effect, it makes quake3 almost unplayable.

    This stuff is really cheep to build too... Once R&D is finished, cost of manufacturing will be almost as trivial as copying mp3's on napster. No more paying $900 for a new laptop display when it breaks.

    Overall, this is very great technology. I cant wait for my Crusoe 1ghz with this display and wireless ethernet to come out :)

  • This has been in development for a while.. (Score:3)

    by Diskore ( 92523 ) on Monday October 09, 2000 @02:01PM (#720054) Homepage
    You can find out more about OLED from the company working on it, Universal Display Corporation [universaldisplay.com]
  • My favorite part of LCD screens is the low emissions. They don't hurt my eyes so much. How do these LED's compare?
  • They Mention Head Displays In This Article. How long before you think they're banned while driving? You think you can drive with a head display on?

    I like the idea of organic lcds but how does this compete with the idea of printable monitors mentioned in a previous slashdot article.

  • The Truth (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The Facts:

    First, the user Zik Zak is kicked off the troll mailing list, and threatens to use a script to spam Slashdot with other trolls' personal information (summarized here [slashdot.org]). Also, Malda begins posting on a secret Troll board [slashdot.org]. He claims to be just a script kiddie that has hacked Taco's account -- but, come on, wouldn't Taco realize that users were posting unauthorized messages under his name?

    Slashdot user SlashDotShop [slashdot.org] also begins offering to sell karma to users.Enoch Root is accused [slashdot.org] of being a puppet account used to boost Signal 11's karma, another sign that karma points are secretly being trafficked "behind the scenes."

    Meanwhile, Kuro5hin suffers a DDoS attack shortly before Zik Zak begins spamming Slashdot.Taco disables the ZikZak [slashdot.org] account and deletes the post.

    At this same time, a new user ID, b1t r0t [slashdot.org], is registered, and the user begins talking about exploits [slashdot.org].Meanwhile, this post [slashdot.org] accuses b1t r0t of being behind the DDoS.

    My Conclusions:

    Terrified by VA Linux's falling stock price, Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda begins paying the trolls (who are congregating on a "secret" troll sid) to fire up Slashdot readers and inspire more banner hits and posts.Malda occasionally posts in the troll forum to check up on how the trolls are doing.

    However, that plan begins to.As a result, Malda sets up the SlashDotShop and, using a secret backdoor in the Slash code, begins taking over high-karma accounts (such as Signal 11 and Enoch Root) and auctions them off to-- a true karma mafia.

    Malda comes up with one last, desperate plan.He recruits the trolls to launch a DDoS attack on Slashdot's chief competitor, kuro5hin.org.They succeed; Malda then issues a statement in "support" of kuro5hin to prove his innocence.One of the trolls, ZikZak, refused to go along with the DDoS plans, believing that Malda had carried his greed too far.He ends up being kicked off the troll mailing list, and in response threatens to use his knowledge of the Slashcode backdoors (which he learned about from M alda himself) to take down Slashdot and reveal personal information about the other trolls.

    Already aware of ZikZak's plans through the troll board, Malda disables ZikZak's account as soon as he begins attacking Slashdot with spam posts.ZikZak lays low for a few days, then returns as the user b1t r0t.He then begins positioning himself as a cracking expert, planning to eventually drop hints as to how Slashdot can be DDoSed.

    And there you have it: conclusive proof that Rob Malda is a lying sack of shit.Malda, as a loyal Slashdot reader, I demand that you resign from your post at once and install an honest editor in your place.Furthermore, ZikZak / b1t r0t and all his fellow trolls must be banned from Slashdot immediately.Please don't disappoint the Open Source Community.Do the right thing.

  • Needs to be pointed out.... (Score:3)

    by Dacta ( 24628 ) on Monday October 09, 2000 @02:04PM (#720058)

    That organic compounds are really just plastics, and have nothing to do with life, DNA or aliens.....

    But I'm sure everyone on Slashdot already knew that, though.

  • As a general rule, these LED's take up about 1/4 the power of conventional LCD cells. This means longer battery life. As for hurting eyes and stuff, LCD and this new LED technology has always used the reflection principle. rather than emmiting colored light at you, the laptop emmits true white lite (backlite) and the light filters through to produce colored light. If you ever looked at a broken laptop with the backlight burnt out or broken you would be able to tell this..

    This is how the brightness is controlled too. just the brightness of the backlight.. Overall, the backlight takes up the majority of the power required to run a LCD, but these new LED's will virtually eliminate what power requirements were actually there to power the data filter that actually creates the picture.
  • In my ninth-grade biology class, we learned that just about anything reacts with organic chemicals. Does this make the Organic LEDs prone to breakdown due to their reactiveness, or do these LEDs resist such natural decomposition?

    Tell me what makes you so afraid
    Of all those people you say you hate

  • Hmmmm (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Great, as if feeding my two kids is not enough, now I have to feed the monitor as well.

    -----------------------
    John Miller
    Dynamic Drive DHTML [dynamicdrive.com]
  • Now this article has an interesting spin on an article about 4 back -- about a good LCD display.

    Now the person who was looking for a nice LCD display might want to wait a few years and pick up one of these babies. These are incredibly thin even in comparison to LCD's... only one-eighthundreths of an inch thick. That and the cost should be considerably less than LCD's.

    It also brings up an interesting thought that we havent even picked up on -- Our monitors can keep growing in size --> to a point. Just like computer chips can only get SO small, the tubes needed in monitors will reach a point where it will not be useful to continue as we do presently. Just another incentive to get LED's. Where can I sign up? =)
  • I don't think that all "high quality" LCD displays exhibit the ghosting effect you describe. Quake III is quite playable on my Thinkpad, and looks as good or better than most CRT displays.
  • <rant>I may be wrong, but when I hear 'Organic', I think organism. When I think organism, I think of life. Here's a free clue for all the media types out there: "Carbon != Organic". It's simply one of many elements listed on that chart I had to memorize in school. I would have read the article even without the flashy headlines, folks. </rant>

    This technology sounds impressive, so long as something better comes out to drive these prices down to an affordable level.

    Corbin Dallas
    [Insert witty tagline here.]
  • LOL that is so fucking funny.. mod this up!
  • Does this mean that I can eat them and if so, what do they taste like, chicken? and do they grow? Will we be able to get make-them-yourself kits like with cheese?
    --------
  • Will we still have to worry about stuck pixels? What about refresh rates of the pixels? I know LCDs today don't recycle quickly enough to view high-contrast high-motion movie clips, but how will the organic polymers fare?
  • Cool ... but can you eat them? ;)
  • Organic compounds have long chains of carbon molecules.

    That's why organic foods are bad for you. You might as well be drinking gasoline.
  • I can't believe this, a friend of mine sent me an email a while ago about working on this and I thought it was cool but would never work.

    ------------------------------------------------

    i am now in [deleted] which is the most boring town/city in the
    world. i
    have been here since the beginning of june (apart from 2 trips back to
    [deleted],
    the most interesting town in the world). i'm on a research internship
    at the
    [deleted], a big time,34 grand a year tuition private
    college
    with billions in research grant money a year.
    i am researching oleds, organic light emitting diodes, which in the
    future
    will be used to make paper thin, paper flexible tvs and monitor
    displays (
    kind of like the mediatrons in 'diamond age' if you've read that. the
    research is sponsored by kodak and xerox ( the principle behind leds is
    similar to photography and photocopying that is why these two companies
    are
    at the cutting edge of this field. i am working with a big time
    professor
    who owns numerous patents jointly with kodak and xerox, ' a unique,
    joint
    intellectual property agreement ' is what it's called.
    the work is interesting. i am analyzing the polymer to be used for
    these
    displays with lasers and creating small devices for analysis. in
    solution
    the polymer emits light perfectly but when a film is formed its
    efficincy
    goes down, due to polymer chain interactions when the solid forms.
    i suggested freezing the solution and then vacuum pumping the frozen
    solvent
    out by sublimation as a means of creating solid films with solution
    morphology for better analysis and the professor called me a genius
    gave me
    free run of the place. so its not so bad.
    designed the apparatus necessary for the job and i'm giving the process
    a
    trial run.
    (sent to both hotmail and yahoo, don't know which one you frequent)
    see you in a bit.

    Second Law of Blissful Ignorance
  • Whats missing from the article is the life expectancy of these organic compounds... I'm guessing its not too long ... anyone have a clue?
  • One of the problems with LED's is they draw a lot of power. Ever wonder why wristwatches use LCD instead of LED? It's the power draw. Let's do a little convoluted math:

    Typical power draw of a Panasonic blue led (LNG91LCFBW) 20ma, typical voltage 3.5 Volts, typical current 20ma. Ok now lets look at your 1024x768 LED display panel

    1024x768 = 786432 LEDs (just for blue)
    20ma X 3.5 volts = 70mw per LED
    786432 elements * 70mw each = 55 kWatts. Uhm... that's one power hungry blue screen of death.

    But seriously their new technology must be more energy efficient, but I would like to see some real specs. Most of the energy savings are going to be from the smaller surface area, but like I said, don't get your hopes up.

  • Well, not really...
    There are many common stable products that do not react to organic matter. Remember, organic just means its made of carbon in the molecule. These displays are very stable with a estimated life of 20 years or so.. you shouldnt have any problems with these LED's breaking down any time within the life of the laptop... Like said earlier, they are so cheeply made that breakdown after 20 years is a mute point.

    Just because something is organic doesnt mean its an organism/living/going to take over the world. It is just something that chemist's like to call organic. You can find more out about organic material reations here [academicinfo.net]. I duno I guess they get off on making up cool names for their job?
  • LED vs. LCD........vs. LSD:

    Smaller than a postage stamp and as thin as a sheet of paper, LSD has the ability to display infinite colors!

    Sign me up!

  • Now the person who was looking for a nice LCD display might want to wait a few years and pick up one of these babies No, he shouldn't. When buying technology goods you have to buy in the now, you can't wait for what is just around the corner because there will *always* be something better no matter how long you wait (and then you end up with a 486 and several thousand dollars waiting for the super great Transmeta based desktop with organic displays that also happens to repair the ozone hole, create world peace, and make money just by being on, but if you wait just one more year you can get an ever better version that powers itself through cold fusion). Personally, I find it better to buy the stuff that came out *last* month, as it has plenty of power to do 99% of what I want to do and is also cheap.

  • I kind of feel that this technolog could be good or bad. The bad thing that I am kind of worried about is poor color rendition and slow speeds. I do nearly everything on my laptop, from server administration to graphic design to games, and color rendition and speed are two very, very important things that I will need. The LCD that I have is sufficent, but a bit on the slow side. The good side is that they will consume less power (imagine the battery life with a Crousoe and one of these panels) and also the panel will be a little less fragle (I am so worried about the display on my laptop getting cracked).

    One other thing is, what about price. True, I can get red and green LEDs for a dozen for a penny, but blue LEDs are at about a buck apiece. An LED panel with a resolution of 1024x768 will need 786,432 blue elements. That's an aweful lot for a display, if you know what I mean.

    Mike 'Quiet you' Crawford

    "I wish, I wish, I hadn't killed that fish!"
  • idiot, organic foods means no pesitcides were used in their production.. it also means there was no genetic engineering done to make that food grow larger.. (50% of grocery store vegetables are genetically engineered) organic usually costs more cos there is more wasted food from pesticides, but they are wAY better for you..
  • You really haven't taken a chemistry class have you? Or for that matter a biology class

    Carbon is one of the identifiers for an organic compound. This doesn't mean that it's a full grown organism.

  • Nice question. too bad its answered in a previous post.

  • Re:Organic Fud??? (Score:3)

    by Carnage4Life ( 106069 ) on Monday October 09, 2000 @02:28PM (#720080) Homepage Journal
    Maybe you should have paid more attention in Chemistry class. From the MSDS hyper-glossary [ilpi.com].

    Definition
    • In the context of chemistry and materials,
    • organic refers to a materials based on carbon (an element abbreviated as C). Additional elements that are commonly found in organic materials are hydrogen (H), nitrogen (N), oxygen (O), phosphorus (P) and sulfur (S).

      • An unrelated and confusing definition of organic is used most often in reference to "natural" foods. For example, a simple definition of "organic produce" is fruits or vegetables that have been raised without the use of pesticides or herbicides. Of course, many pesticides and herbicides are actually themselves organic (using either or both definitions of "organic")!
      Materials that are not organic are usually referred to as inorganic.

    Additional Info
    • Organic chemicals are not necessarily harmful or toxic. Much or the human body consists of organic chemicals such as proteins, DNA, lipids and cell membranes. The food you eat, trees, grass, and every other living object contains organic compounds. The term "carbon-based life forms" is redundant (at least on this planet).

    • However, this does not necessarily mean that organic chemicals are good for you. For example, hydrogen cyanide (HCN) is a deadly toxin [slashdot.org], benzene (C6H6) is a carcinogen [slashdot.org] and thalidomide is a potent teratogen [slashdot.org].

      When it comes to considering the toxicity [slashdot.org] of any material, remember that the dose makes the poison [slashdot.org] . Some chemicals (organic or not) present no or minimal hazard [slashdot.org] even at very high concentrations [slashdot.org], while others can be deadly in minute amounts.

      Some organic compounds are highly reactive and are incompatible [slashdot.org] with other chemicals such as strong oxidizing agents [slashdot.org]. Be sure to read your MSDS!



    Second Law of Blissful Ignorance

  • Re: huh? my laptop doesn't do that. (Score:3)

    by deglr6328 ( 150198 ) on Monday October 09, 2000 @02:29PM (#720081)
    "ghosting" only occurs in DSTN LCD's [Dual Scan STN (Super Twist Nematic) Liquid Crystal Displays] because of the relaxation time for the LC molecule. TFT (Thin Film Transistor) LCD's "force" the molecule to 'unalign' fast when switched off using a voltage potential. hence fast switching hence....no ghosts.
  • With the LED display we can hope to see some quite interesting and useful new displays in the near future.

    As an aside, the group that is continuing the development of the LED has already gotten a patent for transparent display also.

    A few of the interesting uses could be as plastic role-up computer monitors and clear heads-up display in our armed forces fighter planes.

    Even the Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency is interested in this new technology for obvious reasons. They have already contributed a 3 million dollar reward for continued research in this area -- along with new development of "smart battle helmets."

    If anyone wants to read more about this and its history, check out http://www.wirednews.com/news/technology/0,1282,16 644,00.html
  • I may be wrong, but when I hear 'Organic', I think organism. When I think organism, I think of life. Here's a free clue for all the media types out there: "Carbon != Organic".

    Sorry, but you're wrong. (No doubt because you were misinformed by junk schools and media.)

    "Organic", when applied to molecules, means "containing carbon". Period. It has been that way for well over a century - roughly since the fall of the theory of vitalism (i.e. that there was something fundamentally different about the chemistry of living and nonliving matter). It will no doubt continue to be that way for as long as there are English-speaking chemists.

    Yes, it DID come from the fact that most of the chemistry of life is carbon based. And there are some much more recent definitions of "organic" - such as food products grown without the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. But when we're talking chemistry it's a technical term, and "containing carbon" is the entirety of its meaning.
  • That way, when electronics experimentors in high school the world over steal a handful of these from the poorly guarded electronics cabinet, and then subsequently wire them in reverse into a 220V shop socket and hit the switch, not only will they flare into flame, they'll go "OW!"
  • We can all try this out here [sfpg.com].
  • The health benefits of organic foods are questionable because the traditionally grown food is washed, and in the end pesiticide residue is a non-issue.

    Organic foods also can be more dangerous because they use manure as a fertilizer for them, and that can lead to E.coli and whatnot infecting your food.

    Also, organic farms use too much space. If all of the traditional farms switched to organic methods today, and maintained the same output, we'd have to use up all free land that's not covered in ice or water.

    In the end, the claim of health benefits has no foundation in fact.

  • Slashdot requires you to wait 1 minute between each submission of /comments.pl in order to allow veryone to have a fair chance to post.

    It's been 60 seconds since your last submission!

    So he's got an off-by-one bug. Big deal.

    Submit it again in another second. Hurry, you might take too long. B-)
  • I would worry about putting something that close to my eye. I do not know what kind of chemicals the thing might leak out. Also remember what your mother said do not sit so close to the TV. This goes against everything my mother told me. Well I might give it a try after all.
  • The last I heard (several months ago, this light emitting polymer stuff has been in the works for years) was that the big problem was with the blue light emitting compound.

    Blue's always been a tricky one to get working, and the compound only had an operating life in the order of a few days.

    I assume they've considerably improved it since then. The red and green compounds already had reasonable lifetimes (order of months/years).
  • I haven't seen anybody mention it, so I guess I'll mention it here. There is a neat web browser called BrowseX which uses tcl/tk and a c html renderer. It supports images, https, frames and seems to render most pages correctly, even slashdot :)
    Check it out here [browsex.com]
  • I'd like to annouce that I'm forming an advocacy group for the precious LCD life forms who are otherwise unrepresented. We need to protect their rights so that they are not exploited, abused, offended, or eaten. I think our first legislation will be to mandate jail time for display homicide if you allow your laptop battery to drain and thereby kill your LCD community. After that I think a labor-law will be necessary so these little creatures won't be pushed beyond a 40-hr work week. ;-)
  • Light Emitting Plastics (Also known as Organic LED's, BTW) is a known. A little company in Cambridge, UK came up with the first variety, Cambridge Display Technologies- look them up.

    This has been lurking for about 1-2 years now. I'm waiting for them to come out with the stuff.

  • yes, lots of organic things have nothing to do with living things, but that's not the point of these LEDs.

    the point about these LEDs being made of "organic compounds" is that it means they're *not* made out of semiconductors, like "normal LEDs, which use Gallium Nitride, or Silicon Carbide, or various other semiconductors to do their light-emitting.

    now this is just purely speculation on my part, but I imagine that the benefits of making LEDs out of organic materials as opposed to semiconductors may be that the organic materials in question may be cheaper, and may also be more environmentally friendly to produce and discard

  • This won't be relevant until it is as efficient as LCD displays. Currently, LCDs consume almost no power, while LEDs chug away (relatively speaking; anyone have a watt reading on a standard LED?).
  • Funny you should say that...I've a cousin who uses organic methods to grow wheat. He saves money and has higher yields than before he switched and he's using the same amount of land.

    If washing removes pesticides (which are the size of molecules), I would think it would remove E.coli (which are huger than molecules). Manure is only one of many organic products which can be used as fertilizer.

    The French intensive method of gardening uses less space to grow more produce. It doesn't produce any prizewinning vegetables, though; you get many more vegetables butindividual vegetables may be smaller.

    But you're probably right about the empirical evidence. How could large corporations survive if it was found that they were poisoning people? How can they permit such evidence to come to light?

  • The blue OLED uses a different emissive method than the blue LED you buy off the shelf. So much so that you could almost call it electroluminescent plastic instead of an LED.

    It's really almost like night and day by comparison.
  • Are those figures for standard 5mm LED, or similar? If so, then that's a pretty damn big screen, 5.12m x 3.84m, and at 5mm dot-pitch, too.

    Down the bottom of the article it mentions that Kodak's LEDs are eight hundreths of an inch thick. And now think about the resolution they're trying to get, in the size they're trying to get. I think it's pretty clear that these LEDs are _tiny_.
  • You are perfectly correct. Unfortunately like I said I didn't have access to any information regarding the power consumption of these new displays. (If you were curious the punch line was about the blue screen of death). However I was trying to make the point that just because its LED doesn't mean its power efficient. I would think the contrary would be true.

    An EE friend of mine told me that if you made the emitting part of an LED the same size as a neon tube (the emitting plasma part that is), both would use equivalent power. Unfortunately I am unable to confirm this. But if you follow this logic, an LED display panel will use as much power an equivalent plasma display. And if memory serves they stopped using plasma displays years ago due to the power they consumed.

  • How many more people need to post something about the high power dissipation of LEDs?

    "Diodes have several major advantages over liquid crystals in that they emit their own light so they don't have to be backlighted, thus reducing energy requirements substantially..."

    It's all about the backlight.

  • your numbers may be right for your Panasonic blue LED, but that LED is a *lot* bigger, and brighter than what you'd use for a computer screen....

    I've got some ultra-bright blue LEDs (from Hosfelt.com) sitting on my desk. they've got a very similar power profile to yours: 3.5Vx20ma, bright enough that you don't want to look right at them unless you enjoy seeing blue spots for a while afterwards.

    they're 5mm in diameter, so a 1024x768 screen of them would be roughly 5 meters wide by 4 meters high! (roughly 15'x12'). and that's just the blue ones; you'd really need room for the red and green ones too for a display.

    anyway, you'd probably end up with a screen around 20'x15', and bright enough to be seen the better part of a mile away. at which point you put it in a baseball stadium, not a laptop, and using 150 kW or so to power it begins to seem reasonable.... (if you own a baseball stadium, and want a big, bright, video screen in it, that is)

  • Organic foods also can be more dangerous because they use manure as a fertilizer for them, and that can lead to E.coli and whatnot infecting your food.

    In Australia there is a company that is/was offering to do a soil test for the quantity/quality of the natural nutrients and trace elements, they would then be able to tell you and sell you a mix of certain crushed rocks, that contained the nessesary trace elements that the property was deficient in.
    When we had a fruit block we DID use manure on our organic property (my parents went orgainc to get more money when they sold the place, takes approx 5 years to achive this goal), we used chicken sh*t, that had been "rotting" for ages so that it was safe to put out on the block, I cant see how our apricot trees got e-coli infected, and our yeild's and soil quality increased too!


    How every version of MICROS~1 Windows(TM) comes to exist.
  • Obviously the LEDs aren't actually alive. It would be a little absurd to have a bunch of little glwoing bugs running around in your monitor. But on the plus side of all that your monitor wouldn't have to be plugged in. you just have to feed it a cup of simple proteins each day. Then there is the problem of your monitor evolving into some new form of life. Theoretically if you left your monitor going for long enough it might be become an ape or a fish or something.
  • I was kind of figuring and hoping that they'd be different tecnologies. I mean $7k for a display would be twice what I paied for my laptop that I have. :)

  • Ummm.... no. There's a big problem I see with your logic here. When you minituarize components, they draw less power because their operating voltage decreases. Since your calulations are based an a silicon based LEDs which are mm's in size, and since OLED's are um's in size and ORGANIC, your power number are off by order's of magnitude at LEAST.


    -----
    "People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them"
  • This is something that really irks me about science. I paid attention in Chemistry class, and I learned that definition of "organic".

    However, you should know that the word "organic" predates the our knowledge of atoms by several centries (No doubt because you were misinformed by junk science; or at least by scientists who were racing to "discover" shit that was already there (Hey, happy Columbus Day).

    Atoms were first 'discovered' about a century ago, but the word organic is at least 500 years old. It's original meaning *was* somethign like "Derived from the organism". The definition of "organic" had nothing to do with "Carbon based", because we had no idea that the universe existed on an atomic level.

    You doubt my word? Here, check out the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition [britannica.com]
    the word 'organic' is about 500 years old.

    Scientists discovered the word organic in much the same way that they 'discovered' carbon atoms. The matter was already there, scientists were trying to make heads-or-tails out of it these new things which they were calling 'atoms' (Which means "Cannot be cut"), and so they appropriated the word 'organic' to mean 'carbon-based', because as far as they knew, everything that was "carbon-based" was "derived from living organisms".

    Then came petroleum byproducts like Gasoline and Plastic (BTW, plastic is *another* old world which was "redefined" by science. plastic [britannica.com] used to mean "pliable"), which are technically "carbon-based", but unless you trace their root back for many eons. But the "Carbon based" definition stuck.

    So next time people like me talk to you about "Organic veggies", there's a reason why we use that word.
  • >One of the problems with LED's is they draw a lot of power. Ever wonder why wristwatches use LCD instead of LED? It's the power draw. Let's do a little convoluted math:

    He he. Convoluted mathematics - I think of Hamiltonian dynamics, not 5th grade arithmetic.

    First, LCD's need a backlight in laptops - hence the high current draw. LED's are quite efficient, somethign like 10%?

    > 20ma X 3.5 volts = 70mw per LED
    These LEDs are tiny - do you think somehitng 1/4 mm across can draw 20mA, and not burn up? BTW - 3.5 volts is only for blue, red is 1.6 volts (remember, voltage required = E = h\nu = hc/\lambda)

  • Wouldn't take long with me driving...

    "Yes officer, I was on IRC doing a little cybersex. Didn't realize I was speeding, and weaving all over the road"

    Heh, nuff said.

  • "If washing removes pesticides ..., I would think it would remove E.coli"

    it does but pesticides don't grow, reproduce and multiply after the foods are washed. even if you wipe out 99% of the micro-organisms, the 1% left can still continue to multiply and in less than 7 generations they will be back to 100% and still growing.
  • Bitch got trolled!

    Or maybe is just trying to keep it going...
  • The current scientific definition of organic is "containing carbon", meaning Carbon == Organic, while Carbon != Coming from something alive.

    Organic LEDs could concievably be a product of bioluminescent creatures, but they aren't. They just happen to use carbon, instead of silicon/germanium, etc.

    The nick is a joke! Really!
  • I was just about to ask the same question when I read kilonad's post.

    Where is the previous post with the answer?

    --

    "I'm surfin the dead zone

  • Nope.... (Score:3)

    by BadlandZ ( 1725 ) on Monday October 09, 2000 @05:11PM (#720112) Journal
    Sorry, as a chemist, who has seen several talks on LED technology as it applies to both inhanced fiber optic data transmission and display tech, I have to say, your wrong, it's not "plastic" that they are talking about.

    First off, I'm going to have to qualify this with "I have no idea what the LA Times is talking about, because they really don't mention any science"

    But the trick is SAMs (self assembled mono-layers). If you start with molecules that will direct light, transport electricity, and/or convert electricity (often in the case of single electrons) into light, that's a big step. There is a lot of synthetic work that goes into finding the right molecules. And then, the hard bit, is creating them in such a way that they will densely pack onto a surface, by themself.

    The cool thing about SAMs is the S and the A. They assemble themselfs. You just put the right concentration of these molecules in solution, and then create the right conditions for them to drop out of solution and onto a surface. This is done with a small electric potential on the surface, adding another analyte to the solution, or simply evaporating some of the solution away... ;-) And poof... a nicely coated surface with your magic molecules. Of course, it's a bit more complex and involved than that, but, that's sorta the basic idea.

    These things will not only make cheaper, sharper, brighter displays, but they will improve communications as well. As it turns out, fiber optic communications is not limited by the speed of light, we're communicating no where near that fast in the real world. It's limited by the speed we can accurately create a "pulse" of light to funnel down a fiber. And these cool little SAMs can be turned "on and off" faster than the current switches and relays that we use in fiber optic communication today... So, they will speed up data transmission too someday in the future.

    My two cents... It's been a few years since I looked into this, and I'm sure I might have SOME of the details muffed up.... But that's a lot closer to what's going on than "they are just making better plastic."

  • Let me be the first to flame my spelling ;-) my fingers have a mind of their own...
  • That's it!! I'll need some fireflies, sheets of plastic, a jackknife, superglue, a bit duct tape...

    I'll be right back. I have to make a run to the patent office.
  • ... http://commerce.motorola.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/Pr oductDisplay?prrfnbr=217948&prmenbr= 126& phone_cgrfnbr=1&zipcode=

    (slashcode mangles this URL, remove spaces)

    Bluetooth + Organic Electroluminescent screen..

    Now if I could get one in a 3G V-series.. *envy*

    Your Working Boy,
  • The pessimist in me sees this pathetic article as something that USA Today might publish. Do only dumb people read newspapers? Surely smart people read papers and can understand technical issues. Oh. Wait. It's just the editors and writers who haven't got a clue.

    OLEDs have been mentioned for a while: 1998 by Compaq [compaq.com], lightly technical [chemsoc.org] discussion from chemsoc, a view [eb-asia.com] that says OLEDs complement rather than replace TFT-LCDs from Electronic Business-Asia (August 2000), January of 1999 shows that Idemitsu Kosan, a Japanese chemical company, has demonstrated [eurodisplay.org](search for "organic") 640x480x16mil with OLEDs.

    Some US patents of interest: US05965901 [delphion.com] (Cambridge Display), US05247190 [delphion.com] (a 1993 Cambridge Patent), US04539507 [delphion.com] (a Kodak claim geared towards reduced power consumption).

    And so on.

    Two fellas at Eastman Kodak who are real important on this issue are Steven A. VanSlyke and Ching W. Tang, both of whom have were sent in 1995 to give lectures [atip.or.jp] in Japan on OLED technology.

    My two cents says, it's about time companies stopped hyping this to the press in underdetailed press releases and actually start showing something for all their R&D efforts. Quit trying to make it the be-all end-all product the first time and get us cheaper, less power-hungry displays. When tube manufacturers realize their goose is cooked, prices will plummet for Digital TV in the US and OLED manufacturers will be handed the display market on a silver platter.

  • Red and blue are okay, but OLED green is people! It's people I tell you! OLED GREEN IS PEOPLE!
  • I was working on electroluminescent organic polymers back in 1995 at livenomore. We mostly used MEH-PPV. Back then the goal was flatscreens, but the polymers degraded too quickly in an oxygen environment to be useful. Which i personally confirmed by twisting knobs in a dark room for what seemed to be eons on end.

    I soon after left physics and left to roam developing parts of the world. Oh had I had known. (sic).
  • One thing that is nice is that they use a LOT less power than conventional LCD's. Also, there is no ghost when animation occurs like in conventional LCD displays..

    Do they really use less power than reflective LCDs ? I somehow doubt this. Probably they use a lot less power than LCD + Backlight, which is a big difference.

  • I was studying in Braunschweig, Germany last year and one of the research professors there that works on oleds told me we should probably expect them to be in general circulation in around 5 years.

    Roger
  • Of course, those LCD panels you can see in watches and Palms draw quite small electric power. Unfortunately, such LCDs have very limited maximal brightness (let alone color). This is because they use polarisation properties of liquid crystals. Incoming light goes thru a polarizing plate, then thru the liquid crystal layer, then reflects from a mirror and goes backward (to the observer). Liquid crystals rotate light polarization when voltage is applied, so reflected light may come out (we see gray) or not, when liquid crystals change its polarization to orthogonal to such of the polarizing plate (we see black). Since ambient light has rays of all polarization directions, the polarization plate can only allow to pass not more than 50% of light, so, we can only see gray colors (50% or darker). Also, such displays require external light and are useless in the dark.

    That's why notebook screens are backlit by a white lamp, that allows to display bright shades/colors, and this lamp does draw a lot of power. An LCD(TFT) matrix that lies above the lamp only makes certain areas darker (up to black). A LED screen of comparable size would draw definitely less power, due to higher efficiency and because darker areas would require less power.

    Many mobile devices, like watches and cell phones, use LEDs to backlight LCD displays. LED backlight is nice and battery-friendly, but it is colored (green, or amber, or red). Lack of reliable blue LED material effectively prevents white LED light sources from creation; same applies to full-color LED displays. Current blue LEDs last orders of magnitude less that red/amber/green LEDs.

  • There's a some-years-old, commercailly-approved [color] organic display technology: CDT aka LEP [cdtltd.co.uk]. The best thing about LEPs is that one can use ink-jet process to produce them (no joke) :-) So, they're relatively cheap and will only become cheaper as the technology matures. Mostly such screens are used in digital cameras' viewfinders and cellphone displays, though bigger screens were demonstrated.

    Does the original article talk about this thing, or some another development?

  • The hyperlink provided by alacrityfitzhugh contained a space, so here's a link without the space.
    This really is the 'real thing' [kodak.com]
  • > In the context of chemistry and materials,
    > organic refers to a materials based on carbon
    > (an element abbreviated as C).

    And since plastics are built on hydrocarbon
    chains, all plastics are, by definition,
    organic.

    Chris Mattern
  • Offtopic this, but thinking about yet more advances for 'our armed forces fighter planes' makes me wonder if the military will ever just forget about putting pilots in harm's way and just invest in high speed/high bandwidth wireless (duh) communication (obviously well encrypted) between a bunker and aircraft so pilots could fly them like playing a game of Falcon4.0 .. I'm SURE they have already started doing it.. just a matter of time I think. Of course it's not just planes that could benefit. Any hazardous transport/occupation you care to think of.

    Of course you can make a realistic 'cockpit' with surrounding monitors/image panels. even with 'force-feedback' (in the whole cockpit if you like) to help the pilot control the aircraft. Then the actual 'fly-by-remote' aircraft would be able to outmaneuver anything else around AND you'd save pilots lives. Got shot out of the sky or crashed? .. darn.. Never mind though, we'll just connect you to another plane and off you go again. Don't make the same mistake twice. "Oh, THAT hill.." .. difficult to do otherwise.

    Plus there would be the obvious benefits that the military funded wireless communication technology would 'trickle-down' to consumer equipment.

    --
  • Kimchi is a plan and a half ... http://www.tiac.net/users/reilly/levd-page.html
  • Idiot, organic foods have long chains of carbon molecules.

    Do you drink gasoline? How about a little hexane on that ear of corn? It's much tastier than butter.
  • hence fast switching hence....no ghosts.

    It's not as noticable to you but it's still there. I've worked with many high end TFT displays and they still have some ghosting, just not nearly as much as dual scan displays. It is especially noticable on full-screen high-spped animations (such as playing an FPS). You may not notice it but the type of people that can tell the difference between 40 and 60fps can.

    -Zane

  • This exact technology was just on /. not long ago...

  • There are white leds now... but like the blue they draw an order of magnitude more power.

    "Free your mind and your ass will follow"

  • Gus? Is that you? Gus fil-Tanga? fil-sidi hosni? shfar tim fil marrakch
    --
    .:.
    :tedd
  • farmer ted you scrubber! where the heck are you. and why are you wasting your time reading slashdot?

    me forgetty my arabic cuz brain filled with other language.

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