Posted 10/30/09 at 12:45:57 PM by Paul Lilly

During the FPD show in Japan, LG laid out its future plans for OLED displays with a roadmap that extends into 2016. And according to Wom Kim, LG's sales and marketing VP, that's the year OLED panels will cost less than LCD displays, providing it can leap over a handful of technological hurdles.

"We will be able to use a lwo-temperature polycrystal silicon with the sixth-generation size glass substrate," Kim said. "However, for 40-inch and larger panels, we have to use the eight-generation size glass substrate.Therefore, we have to develop equipment that can deal with an SPC process at a temperature of more than 700C."

Despite the challenges facing low-cost OLED displays, Kim believes his company will be able to transition from 50 percent higher material costs and 30 percent lower yields compared to LCDs in 2012, to a 20-30 percent lower material cost and equivalent yield in 2016.

Up until then, don't look for too many deals when it comes to OLED.

"Forty-inch and larger OLED panels will be fairly expensive in 2012, but they will be available in the market," Kim added.

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Posted 10/26/09 at 02:00:12 PM by Paul Lilly

There's slender, and then there's Samsung's disgustingly thin 40-inch LED TV panel measuring just 3.9mm thick, or a third the size of the company's previous panel. We say "disgusting" only because some of us are still bitter over dropping a couple grand on a bulky rear-projection earlier in the decade.

The super-slim backlit LED display boasts a 120Hz refresh rate, full HD resolution support, and a 5000:1 contrast ratio. It's also the world's thinnest LCD panel, measuring 7mm slimmer than Samsung's full production LED TV panel and about 45mm thinner than conventional LCD displays. Prior to today, LG held the title with its 5.9mm LED TV.

So when and where can you buy one? Good question - Samsung hasn't released the 3.9mm panel yet, but according to Akihabaranews.com, the company hopes to do so very soon.

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Posted 10/22/09 at 08:13:17 PM by Paul Lilly

AT&T has a bone to pick with several big-name LCD makers, and it will do it in court. The telco has sued a number of display manufacturers over allegedly fixing the price of more than 300 million mobile LCD screens.

Those on the receiving end of the lawsuit include Samsung, LG Display, Optronics, Sharp, and Chungwa. According to the lawsuit, the display makers "formed an international cartel illegally to restrict competition in the United States in the market for LCD panels."

AT&T called the whole situation a "conspiracy," accusing the defendants of agreeing to eliminate competition and fix LCD panel prices that they knew would be incorporated in LCD products and sold in the U.S.

This isn't the first price fixing scandal to hit the LCD industry, nor is it the first time LG, Chunghwa, and Sharp have been tied to price fixing allegations. All three agreed to plead guilty to similar charges in November 2008 and to pay $585 million in criminal fines.

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Posted 10/22/09 at 08:24:21 AM by :Paul Lilly

Almost as a side note, HP today announced its new Compaq L2105tm touchscreen monitor, dedicating just a few lines to promoting the display in a press release which covered several items.

The 21.5-inch, 1080p display sports a multitouch panel with one finger scrolling and two finger mousing capabilities.. But if you prefer to roll with a stylus, you'll find one jammed conveniently into the side of the monitor. You can even use a gloved finger, says DisplayBlog.com, who points out that the two cameras, infrared light, sensor, and reflective film create a rugged light field capable of detecting just about any type of object.

There was a little bit of marketing glitz on HP's part. According to the OEM, this is the world's first Windows 7 certified monitor, which you means you can plug it in groove to your newly acquired copy of the just-released OS.

HP says the L2105tm is available now for $299.

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Posted 10/20/09 at 09:29:24 AM by Paul Lilly

The e-book reader market is fast becoming a crowded niche, so in order to stand out from the competition, some manufacturers are taking liberties with the basic design. Take Spring Design, for example, who on Monday announced a dual-screen e-book reader built around Google's Android platform.

"This is the start of a whole new experience of reading content on e-books, potentially igniting a whole new industry in multimedia e-book publishing for secondary authors to create supplementary content that is hyper linked to the text," said Dr. Priscilla Lu, CEO of Spring Design. "We are bringing life to books with audio, video, and annotations. This gives readers the ability to fully leverage the resources on the Web, and the tools available in search engines to augment the reading experience."

Called 'Alex,' the new e-book readers sport a 6-inch e-ink EPD display on the top portion and a 3.5-inch color LCD on the bottom. Spring Design says Android has been optimized to support integration between the two displays to prolong battery life. But what exactly is the point of the color display?

Apparently Alex owners are able to capture and cache Web content on the color display and toggle to view it on the EPD screen without taxing the battery. Users can also create their own images and notes to augment the original text.

Spring Design says it is still talking with "major content partners" and hopes to release Alex into the wild by the end of the year.

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Posted 10/19/09 at 09:58:46 AM by Paul Lilly

Boy oh boy has 3D technology come a long way since the advent of those horrendous blue and red glasses that are still around today. Taking the technology to a new level, Sony says it has developed a 360-degree 3D display, which it plans to show off during Tokyo's Digital Content Expo 2009 this Thursday.

Sony says no goofy glasses are required to view the stereoscopic, 24-bit color image, which measures just 96 x 128 pixels. The image is viewable from all angles, but Sony didn't say if you'll be able to see the side of the image, depending on where you're oriented in relation to the display.

It's just a novelty at this point, but as research and development continues, Sony said it could see this technology being used as a 3D photo frame or in videophones.

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Posted 10/15/09 at 10:45:20 AM by Paul Lilly

Remember when notebooks were simple portable PCs? That's not the case anymore, and today's units boast all kinds of tricks, whether it's multitouch capabilities, or unveling the "world's first" 3D laptop, as Acer has done with its Aspire 5738PG.

Acer unveiled the 3D-capable laptop during a press conference on Tuesday. The lappy uses a combination of in-house software, a special screen coating, and polarized glasses to achieve the 3D effect.

"The display has been coated with a special 3D film that clings to the panel pixel by pixel, enabling the LCD technology to deliver a 3D visual feast," Acer stated. "Slip on the cool polarized eyeglasses that filter the images and you're ready to dive into an extraordinary 3D adventure."

According to Acer, its TriDef 3D Experience software makes it possible to view all of your 2D videos and photos in 3D. Moreover, it comes with a tool that enables 2D to 3D conversion for games and apps supporting DirectX 9 or above, the company said.

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Posted 10/15/09 at 08:34:06 AM by Paul Lilly

It's official - the touch revolution is in full force and you can expect to see several product announcements from companies jumping on the multitouch bandwagon. The latest is from Acer, who announced its sleek looking Aspire Z5610 all-in-one PC.

The touch-enabled Windows 7 PC sports a 24-inch high-def touchscreen with full multitouch support, and its backed by a spec sheet that's at least serviceable. The all-in-one's DNA consists of an Intel Pentium Dual Core E5300 processor, ATI Mobility Radeon HD4570 graphics, 4GB of RAM, and a 320GB hard drive. So while you probably won't be playing Crysis, there's enough muscle to handle some casual gaming when you take a break from groping the display.

Look for the all-in-one to ship in time for the holidays at just $900.

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