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Today's LCDs are the culmination of about 40 years development, from research into liquid crystals from about 100 years ago. These things take time! Getting from announcement to prototype in a year is actually very good.
A current area of research in LCDs which would make things like this much easier and at far quicker response time is to make them "driven" in both directions. At the moment the default alignment of the crystals is defined by etching on the glass on either side, and applying an electric field causes the alignment to shift rapidly, blocking light from getting through. The reverse process is driven by the diffusion of crystals back to their original configuration, which is much slower. Unfortunately there's no simple way of doing this with the current arrangement of etching-based alignment. A possible candidate is a helical arrangement along the axis of the display (as opposed to out of it) which can be made to move in both directions, but this makes alignment very difficult as the shape can not simply be defined by such straightforward etching on both surfaces.