Our hats go off to Sharp for this one. We
wrote about this display in late August, but sometimes seeing really is believing. Today at CEATEC Sharp showed off its optical scanning LCD -- a 3.5-inch 320 x 480 portable display with an optical scanner integrated into each pixel, making the screen capable of scanning business cards and other visual information placed on its face. Unfortunately, the early version we tested couldn't read our lower contrast Engadget-blue biz cards, but clear black and white cards scanned quickly. The pixel-integrated optical scanning technique is also able to be used to enabled more robust multi-touch interfaces; instead of a touch-sensitive film (like most touchscreen phones) or a capacitive display (like on the iPhone), these future Sharp displays literally constantly scan for finger touches, enabling multi-touch input with all five fingers simultaneously.
posted October 2nd 2007 10:48AM
I guess one day these will become high enough resolution to be the sci-fi palm scanners we see in all the movies.
These would make a great addition to voting machines as they could be used to verify the identity of the person casting the vote and would thwart most attempts at trying to hack (sway) the outcome of an election.
Please put the business card!!
Put it!
Where?! WHERE!??!
I put the card. Now what?
All your base are belong to us.
this bottles my mind.
It bottles mine, too!
It knocked me on my can.
What a lot of technology just because people want to print their names on dead trees. Why can't they just send their details over bluetooth (for example)?
Next they'll be coming up with some gizmo for digitizing the sounds made when caveman chums turn up and bash their addresses out with sticks on a lump of rock.
Stop living in the past people!
You realize this scans the cards right?
It has nothing to do with printing business cards.
In fact, it digitizes the information on the card.
Effectively not "living in the past".
@matt
I think you are missing the point. Imagine this as the screen on your smartphone, iphone..etc. Now you have the added feature of being able to scan business cards in and what ever other surface type apps they come up with. Sounds pretty neat.
..ummm I'm pretty sure this one here is a troll.
Remember: Don't feed the trolls. They tend to follow you home. If they do they tend to scratch at your back door and poop in the yard.
Um yes. I do realise it doesn't _print_ the cards, yes I do realise it _scans_ the card.
Why are people still giving me bits of paper that I need to scan in? i.e. This is a bit of technology that I would need because _other people_ are still living in the past. They should shape up - buy some tech.
Hmm. In fact maybe it should print as well. Because the aforementioned neanderthal handing me bits of dead tree with his address on would probably want a similar bit of dead tree back from me with my address on it. No point me trying to bluetooth it directly into his skull.
Matt. (trolling for fun and profit since '72)
p.s. The other surface type apps. are a cool idea though.
I hope someone other than Apple licenses it! That way we can have multi-touch PMP's with more than 16GB of storage. 80GB or 160GB would work for me :)
See my post, you're out of luck.
If Apple did it, they'd only allow scanning of the cards of Apple-affiliated businesses.
Nah. They'd put it in alright, they would just refrain from putting in any software to allow you to actually use it, Then destroy your phone if you tried to do it your self.
Hmm, geek knowledge. Back in the day Apple had the Knowledge Navigator concept (involving exactly such a type of display) and Sharp produced some of the Apple Newton MessagePads... it all comes together. Check it out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Navigator
"In the year 2010".
I have 10 fingers to use the touch screen with... I'm sorry for your loss of one hand.
So you're holding it with your third hand?
It does present some opportunities for security through obscurity as well. If it got the rez down to 300 dpi data glyphs could be embedded onto an ID, making it very hard to copy unless someone knew they were there. For that matter you could use any random thing in your pocket such as a regular metal key pressed against the glass.
But with that resolution, wouldn't the key look different every time it got a new scratch (ie every time it was put in a lock). Same'd be true with almost anything in your pocket. I can see the wear and tear on everything with my naked eye.
You'd need some edge recognition software, but it's very available. Almost any OCR program could probably be tweaked to do it.
Please put the business card
...or it gets the hose again.
The logical extension of this seems like it could make a screen that is also a video camera. That would enable the holy grail of video chatting/conferencing, namely, being able to look the person one is talking to in the eye and have it appear that way on the other end. (Right now, if you are looking at the person you are talking to, the person on the other end sees you looking somewhere below their eyes, because that's where you are looking in relation to the camera.)
Sounds good...maybe this will appear in tablet PCs soon?!
OMG! Please tell me this is for PSP2 / Sony Erricson/psp/phone. Crap would that rock my world. Nobody else put this 2 and 2 together?!?
i think sharp made the first psp screens btw, and these are the same size and resolution... strange? NO ITS REALITY! any psp2 would most likely be backwards compatible.
yay i win
No you lose.
I guess the idea with it being wasteful of paper is that it supports the use of business cards by making them easily assimilated with digital data rather than awkward and undesirable. With this, a digitally oriented person might more readily accept a business card, knowing that scanning it in would be so effortless, rather than only accepting digital information which would help lead to people distributing electronically. On the other hand, if this is easy and quick enough, someone could grab a card, scan it, and give the card right back. Maybe...
Also, what is the power usage for the scanning?
OMG YOUR LCD IS WATCHING YOU!!!!
They were right all along!
twister (finger edition)
pinky to blue... index to red... thumb to yellow...
awesome.
Sounds like the Apple patent for an LCD with a small camera intergrated with each pixel. Maybe apple will sue them for patent infrigment.
this technology would be incredibly awesome for tablet computers, especially for students. imagine being handed a worksheet, pressing up against the screen, then, blam-o digital version.
i also want to know how much power it takes to drive it. that could limit its use on mobile platforms
Hello telescreens!
But in all seriousness, this would rock. And look, REAL innovation, instead of the iPhone multi touch.
Since Sharp manufactures sidekicks, maybe we'll be seeing some touchscreen sidekicks in the future?