SID2012
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Tactus' morphing smartphone and tablet display hands-on
Tactus Technology, a small start-up out of Fremont, CA, made a big splash at this year's Society for Information Display (SID) conference. The company, which came to Boston, MA toting a single product, showcased an early prototype of its morphing touchscreen display. The screen, which looks and acts like all other smartphone and tablet displays, has a very special and unique feature: it can dynamically create and remove tactile keys on demand. Tactus utilizes a specially designed window that sits directly on top of a display's touch sensor -- which we're told can be fitted to almost any touchscreen -- that has specially designed channels. A "proprietary oil" is, at the behest of the underlying operating system, forced in and out of these channels to raise the display surface and create a tactile interface for the end-user. It's a concept that, much to the delight of ardent smartphone and tablet keyboard lovers, can provide a physical input experience without sacrificing screen real estate. Have a look at our hands-on gallery then saunter past the break to see this tactile touchscreen in action and read our impressions. %Gallery-157475%
Tactus Technology prototype Android tablet shows off shapeshifting screen at SID 2012 (video)
Typing with thumbs on glass can often prove to be as fruitful as talking to an actual wall. That is to say, both are an exercise in frustration. Yet, with smartphone adoption continuing to climb, that method of touchscreen input is only going to become more pervasive. Good thing, then, that companies like Tactus Technology are working on a scifi-seeming haptic solution that should catapult the wireless industry into true innovation and bring back some much needed tactile feedback. To spur this, the company's crafted a prototype Android slate in conjunction with Touch Revolution, shown off at this week's SID 2012, that shapeshifts from flatscreen to physical button layout and back as needed. The screen, which would reportedly add no extra thickness to future tablet or phone displays, makes use of microfluidic tech to make those disappearing UIs possible. So, forget about quad-cores and the 2GB RAM spec race, this is where those next-gen flagships ought to be headed. Click on past the break to marvel at a demo of this dynamic interface in action.
JDI debuts 2.3-inch display with a 1,280 x 800 resolution, 651ppi
Well, it looks like LG's Retina-beating 5-inch display with a 1080p resolution isn't the only screen setting some new pixel density records at the SID conference this week. Japan Display Inc. has now also announced a new 1,280 x 800 display with an amazing pixel density of 651ppi. If you're able to do the math, though, you'll realize that means the display itself measures just 2.3 inches. While it's not clear exactly what sort of devices JDI has in mind for the screen, the company says it's able to produce photographic-level images and text that is perceptibly sharper than even today's highest-resolution displays -- hopefully we'll be able to judge that for ourselves sooner rather than later.
Sharp shows off IGZO LCD and OLEDs including a 13.5-inch QFHD screen
Sharp announced earlier this year that it was starting to crank out LCD panels based on new indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) technology and now it's ready to show some off at the Society for Information Display show in Boston. Currently sized for phones and tablets, the first prototypes include a pair of LCDs, one a 4.9-inch 720x1280 display, and the other coming at 6.1-inches with a resolution of 2560x1600. As an example of what will be possible further down the line, it also has a pair of OLED panels, one 13.5-inch 3840x2160 QFHD panel based on White OLEDs with RGB color filters (similar to the LG HDTV recently introduced), and a flexible 3.4-inch 540x960 screen (shown above). According to Sharp the new tech means screens with higher resolutions, lower power consumption, narrower bezels and higher performance touch screens because it enables even smaller thin-film transistors than the ones currently in use. The Associated Press reports it expects to apply the upgrade to production lines in this fiscal year, for now you can hit the source link for a few diagrams and examples of crystalline structures or check the gallery for pics of the other displays. %Gallery-156633%
Panasonic teams up with NHK on 145-inch 8K Super Hi-Vision plasma TV (Update: video)
We thought the 8K 85-inch Super Hi-Vision LCD we saw during CES was impressive, but Japanese broadcaster NHK is already looking to surpass that by going even bigger. To that end it worked with Panasonic (above: that's Panasonic's Keishi Kubota on the left, Yoshio Ito of NHK on the right) to create this 145-inch prototype plasma, unveiled today as an example of the kind of displays we can expect to see once broadcasts jump to the higher resolution some day. The world's first self-illuminating Super Hi-Vision TV, it features every pixel of its expected 8K resolution -- 7,680 x 4,320. After working for months on smaller (only 85- or 103-inch) 4K plasmas, the two companies had to come up with an entirely new drive method for the display that works by scanning the pixels vertically to achieve a uniform picture quality. The NHK plans to show off the new display at its open house in May, although we're a bit more interested to see if we can watch the Olympics on it this summer. Check the gallery below for a few more pictures from DigInfo.TV's Ryo Osuga, or hit the more coverage link for a breakdown of the difficulties encountered in building a high resolution display that's this massive. Update: Now with video from DigInfo.tv. [Image Credit: Ryo Osuga, DigInfo.TV]
