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Mirasol showcases 4.1-inch smartphone concept at SID 2011, promises 'converged e-reader' this year (video)
Another week, another look into the wild, mysterious world of Mirasol. We met with the company for an extended period here at SID 2011, and while the smartphone concept shown above was certainly intriguing, it's the behind-the-scenes story that truly piqued our interest. If you've kept even a loose eye on display technologies, Qualcomm's Mirasol branch has no doubt caught your eye -- in fact, the company seemed overwhelmingly sure that it'd ship consumer products soon after we met with 'em at CES 2010. Yet here we are, nearly 1.5 years later, without a single Mirasol product available on the open market. It begs the question: why? We found out. As the story goes, Mirasol's been shipping displays to partners for years, and it really did have confirmation that partners would be punching products out onto the market soon after 2010 began. But then, the iPad happened. No, seriously -- that's the story. Apple's sudden and calculated tablet launch caused Mirasol's stable of partners to "reevaluate" their launch strategies, and that reevaluating led to the shelving / delaying of every single promising product in the pipeline. One angle in particular seemed to catch everyone off guard; prior to the iPad's launch, most companies (and consumers, for that matter) reckoned that people wouldn't even consider reading on an LCD. Digital bookworms would want E Ink, or better still, a colorized alternative like Mirasol. Come to find out, people actually don't seem to mind reading on LCDs, and in fact, they seem downright appreciative of the extra functionality baked into modern day tablets. As you can imagine, all of that spelled trouble for a display technology like Mirasol. So, where do we sit today? Read on to find out. %Gallery-123860%
Toshiba Write-Erasable Input Display hands-on at SID 2011 (video)
Sure, we've seen oodles of light pen drawing boards, and e-readers that support doodling, but Toshiba's "R&D project" at SID Display Week just... struck us. Weighing far less than the notepad used to jot down notes about it, this encapsulated device evidently sports a built-in battery, E Ink tendencies, a microSD card slot, proprietary charging port, an on / off toggle switch and support for stylus input. Drawing on it was both enjoyable and simple, and we were actually able to erase our typos with the press of a button (and a bit of eraser work with the pictured pen). Enough chatter -- have a look yourself in the video past the break. %Gallery-123871%
Samsung and Nouvoyance show off power-sipping, pixel packed Pentile display (video)
Samsung is seriously stepping up its slate screen game with its 10.1-inch 300ppi panel that we told you about last week. We just got to see the display in person at SID 2011, and can confirm that the presence of Pentile pixels should no longer be a cause of concern. Nouvoyance, who designed the display, told us that the panel's RGBW pixel configuration makes your whites whiter and brights brighter (up to 600 nits worth), while consuming 40 percent less power than conventional LCDs. The company also told us the tech's been around for awhile, but that market forces conspired to keep it concealed -- though after seeing it in person, we can't fathom why it didn't make it into Sammy's stellar new slate. Pixel-density people shouldn't pout, however, as devices packing the display will drop by Q4 of this year or Q1 2012. Video explaining why you should join the RBGW revolution's after the break. %Gallery-123857%
Toshiba's tablet-ready, glasses-free 3D display debuts at SID 2011 (video)
The T-Mobile G-Slate may have a jump on the (red and cyan) 3D tablet market, but we can do better, and while strolling past Toshiba's SID 2011 setup, we may have found the slate of the future's killer component: an 8-inch, glasses-free 3D display. Tablet sized? Yes, indeed. We couldn't get a Toshiba representative to admit the depth perceptive display was destined for any upcoming devices, but we were told that the screen certainly "made sense" for a tablet device. The technology seems to be designed with a smaller form factor in mind, as the firm warned that larger versions of the screen, while possible, would suffer a drop in image quality. At 8-inches however, it looks mighty fine -- although you'll still need to look on from a centered sweet-spot to catch the 3D effect, a plague it shares with its glasses-free brethren. Check out our hands-on video (sans 3D, of course) after the break. %Gallery-123861%
Nanosys QDEF screen technology ships in Q4, slips into iPad at SID 2011 (video)
We dropped by Nanosys' nook at SID 2011, and not only was it showing off its new Quantum Dot Enhancement Film, but had hacked the tech into an off-the-shelf iPad. A company representative presented the modified slate as an example of how quickly QDEF's high color gamut magic could be integrated into existing devices, offering "OLED color depth without OLED power consumption and OLED price." Sure enough, we were told to expect to see QDEF in a "mobile device," probably an Android tablet, sometime in Q4; when pushed for details, our rep could only tell us that the device would come from a Korean firm. (LG or Samsung, take your pick.) Integrating QDEF into new devices may be a snap, but company representatives told us the film could add as much as 100 microns to a screen's thickness, suggesting that smartphone manufactures aren't too keen on the idea of a thicker display. Still, Nanosys has high hopes for the new film and told us that it expects high-color QDEF to become an "ecosystem changer," as industry-altering as HDTV. The firm even suggested "wide color gamut" apps could be in our near future -- we love our color depth here at Engadget, but somehow it's hard to see Angry Birds: High Color (its suggestion, not ours) taking off. Check out our hands-on after the break. %Gallery-123854%
Toshiba declares victory in pixel density war: 367ppi coming to a phone this year (video)
We got the lowdown on Toshiba's latest four-inch LCD a couple of days ago, and today at SID 2011 we got up close and personal with the pixel-packed display. It's one thing to read about a 367ppi screen that shows native 720p video, and it's quite another to experience it in person. We can report that it is, in fact, as awesome as it sounds -- onscreen images were clear, crisp, and chromatically brilliant. Pixel density enthusiasts will also be happy to hear that Toshiba confirmed the display will make it to market this year. Of course, the rep wouldn't tell us which phone will take the iPhone 4's crown as the ppi champ, though we imagine it'll be something powered by little green bots. See the new king in action in the video after the break. %Gallery-123856%
E Ink and Epson to co-develop 9.7-inch high-res 300ppi electronic paper display
It's pretty obvious that this year's SID Display Week is shaping up to be a stage for the 300ppi extravaganza -- Samsung and LG were first to announce their latest high pixel density LCDs, and then Toshiba chimed in with its 367ppi LCD for cellphones. Fortunately, fans of ePaper will also have something to look forward to here, as E Ink Holdings and Epson have just announced the co-development of a 300ppi ePaper display. To be exact, E Ink will be in charge of producing the sharp-looking 9.68-inch 2,400 x 1,650 display panel, whereas Epson will take care of the high-speed display controller platform to go with E Ink's part. No availability has been announced just yet, but stay tuned for our eyes-on impression at the show.
Toshiba enters pixel density fray with 367ppi LCDs for cellphones
Toshiba just fired its own salvo in the pixel density wars at SID 2011. The company is showing off a range of LCDs for cellphones that top out at an almost imperceptibly fine 367ppi on its 4-inch HD (720 x 1280) model. Beyond just cramming more red, green, and blue dots in each inch, these panels also top the bar-setting Retina Display in the contrast department with an impressive 1,500:1 ratio. The company also brought a smaller 3.3-inch screen with a resolution of 480 x 864 to Display Week that hits a respectable 300ppi. They're not quite as impressive as these HAST LCDs, but who really needs to put 1080p in their pocket? (Want is a different story.) Of course, Engadget is on the scene and, if you're lucky, we'll let you live vicariously through us as we tour Toshiba's booth -- you know, as a reward for your loyal readership.
Samsung, RealD announce licensing agreement for new LCD-based 3D panels
Remember that 3D display technology that Samsung and RealD were working on at CES? Today, the two companies announced that they've struck a licensing deal for the panels, which promise to deliver full resolution HD images to each eye by integrating active shutter technology directly within an LCD. This approach differs from the passive film patterned retarder (FPR) technologies that you'll find in Vizio and LG displays, which cut image resolution in half for each eye. The new panels will also be compatible with RealD's lightweight 3D glasses that are used in movie theaters. The technology should be available for 23 and 27-inch PC screens by early 2012, later making its way to 55-inch TV displays. No word on pricing or compatibility with other screen sizes, but expect more details to emerge at this week's SID Display Week in Los Angeles. Full PR after the break.
Samsung and LG to showcase high pixel density LCD panels for tablets at SID 2011
It's a well-known fact that LG's already dominated the pixel density race in the smartphone market thanks to the Retina Display inside the iPhone 4, but we've yet to see similar technologies making their way to larger devices. That could change very soon, however, with Samsung and LG both announcing larger high-density panels to be showcased at SID 2011 next week. From Samsung we'll be seeing its 10.1-inch 300ppi prototype LCD panel, which rakes up an astonishing resolution of 2,560 x 1,600 under the battery-friendly PenTile RGBW matrix (not to be confused with AMOLED and Super AMOLED's RGBG arrangement). What's more, Samsung also teases "commercial availability" for this technology later this year. Things are a bit vague with LG -- no specific resolutions are mentioned in the pre-show announcement, but we're told that the company will introduce "a full line-up" of "ultra-high resolution" Advanced High Performance In-Plane Switching (AH-IPS) products, including 3.5-, 4.5-, 7-, 9.7, 55-, and 84-inch panels, with a "greater number of pixels than the PPI that can be recognized by the human eye at a typical distance" -- a proclamation typically reserved for the iPhone 4's 326ppi Retina Display. Of course, LG could be misleading here -- the 9.7-inch panel brought up in the press release could just be the exact same 1,024 x 768 IPS display on the iPad, but we'd be surprised if LG doesn't have a similarly-sized prototype to fire back at Samsung's 10.1-inch 300ppi panel. Well, keep an eye out for our SID 2011 coverage next week and we'll let you know what goodies we find.
Asahi's new slim glass substrate for touchscreen displays gives smartphones svelte silhouettes
We all want our handhelds to have copious computing power and bountiful battery life, but thin is in, and most users are looking for a device that's less Marilyn Monroe and more Kate Moss. To keep new phones and tablets runway-ready, Asahi developed a thinner glass substrate for use in touchscreen displays. This new 0.28mm soda-lime glass is 15% thinner than the company's existing offerings, and Asahi will begin mass producing it by the end of April. The skinny new substrate will strut its stuff at SID next month -- paired with some durable Dragontrail, no doubt -- so we're looking forward to getting handsy with the company's new slim and trim displays. Mostly, we're just thrilled that our future phones won't look as fat in our jeans. PR's after the break.
Eye-tracking microdisplay delivers Terminator vision, distracts joggers
The folks at Fraunhofer IPMS have done it! After years of tireless research and promises of Borg-like eyewear, the group has delivered a prototype of the world's first bidirectional, eye-tracking OLED microdisplay (got all that?) at SID 2011. The rig is much like a monocle, except with a transparent OLED display inside, which overlays digital information on top of the reflected light that usually hits your eyeballs. What's more, there are integrated photodetectors inside and special software to monitor the direction of your gaze, allowing you to interact with your newfound augmented reality using only the flick of an eyeball. Fraunhofer foresees joggers taking in movies while out for a run, which sounds more than just a little dangerous. We, on the other hand, envision a world in which the first thing anyone does upon meeting someone new is discreetly check their relationship status on Facebook -- finally fulfilling the social network's full creep potential. One more pic and the poorly translated PR after the break.
Toshiba flexes its paper-thin LCD muscle, moves the world (video)
Toshiba's found an interesting use for flexible LCD technology: user input. At SID 2010, the Japanese display manufacturer showed off an 8.4-inch wide, 0.1mm thick SVGA panel that could be grabbed and physically bent to zoom in or out using Google Earth. While it's a far cry from 6DOF and perhaps not as entertaining as controlling the time-space continuum with forefinger and thumb, the bend sensor seems like an obvious addition to the gamut of crisp, rollable, data storing, energy generating flexible tech already in development. It's also worth noting that Toshiba isn't the only one working on the idea; IBM filed a patent application for "flexible displays as an input device" back in 2006. Video after the break. [Thanks, Lennart]
Hitachi working on cheaper, higher quality IPS touchscreens for cellphones
In case you haven't heard, IPS panels are making inroads into the lucrative mobile market this year, and Hitachi's been working behind the scenes on something that should keep that momentum going. In the mainstream, touchscreen IPS displays are currently only available on Apple's iPad (and expected to show up in its next-gen iPhone), but should Hitachi's new production technique pan out, we might be seeing this screen tech in much more affordable devices as well. The company has fiddled with the arrangement of the touchscreen elements inside the panel, which it argues has made them cheaper and easier to produce and replace. All good news, but these things do take a while to filter through into reality, until which time you might wanna sate yourself with the latest desktop IPS displays, those ain't too shabby or expensive either.
Sony's new 11.7-inch OLED panel boasts better colors, longer lifespan
Sony may have killed production of its groundbreaking XEL-1 OLED TV, but that doesn't mean it isn't necessarily working on a followup -- it's just unveiled a new and improved, and similarly sized OLED panel at SID 2010 last week. Apparently, the big advance with this display comes courtesy of the oxide semiconductor TFT (also known as IGZO) used for the OLED panel, which Sony was able to tweak enough to deliver a ten year lifespan -- with average use, we presume. What's more, while the panel still packs the same 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio and 960 x 540 resolution as the XEL-1, it does increase the brightness to 600 cd/m2 (up from 200 before), and Sony says it has a significantly improved color gamut as well. Of course, it is still just a prototype, and it's not 3D, so any eventual products using it might not be Sony's top priority at the moment.
E Ink shows off brighter, crisper, more flexible displays
It's easy to forget that E Ink is an actual company and not just a display technology, but the company was out in full force at the recent SID 2010 conference to remind folks of that fact, and show off some of its latest and greatest prototype displays. Chief among those is a new color display that promises crisper, brighter colors, though still not quite full color -- something that's apparently achieved by applying a filter on top of a regular black and white E Ink panel, which itself has blacker blacks and whiter whites than before. Also on display was a new "fully flexible" display (not color), and another black and white display that was apparently able to playback Flash video -- although E Ink curiously wasn't allowing anyone to film it in action. The folks from MIT's Technology Review did manage to capture a brief look at the rest of them on video, however -- hit up the link below for their report.
Newsight 3D photo frame promises to let you 'see around' images without glasses
A 3D digital photo frame may seem a bit excessive for even the most all-compassing technology bandwagon, but the folks from Newsight have managed to put a somewhat unique spin on the idea with this frame recently on display at SID 2010. Like some of the company's other displays, this 3D LCD is auto-stereoscopic -- meaning you don't need any pesky glasses -- but it also takes things one step further by supporting what's known as "motion parallax," which effectively means you can "see around" an image. As you might expect, that involves a bit of trickery, but Newsight says its image processing software can take any traditional 3D (or even 2D) image and create five separate images out of it that let you see the same image from different angles. Unfortunately, that image processing must first be done on a PC with the current model, but Newsight promises that the next model will have built-in processing, and it's already talking about a third version that will let two frames send images to each other.
Sony's rollable OLED display can wrap around a pencil, our hearts (video)
Nothing says "future" quite like a rollable display. Today Sony's giving us a glimpse into what will one day be with its 80μm-thick organic TFT-driven OLED display. The 4.1-inch display integrates Sony organic thin-film transistors and OLED technology onto a flexible 20μm substrate lacking any rigid driver IC chips. As such it can be wrapped around a cylinder with a 4-mm minimum radius. Display specs include a 432 x 240 pixel resolution (121ppi) supporting 16M colors while exceeding 100nits brightness and a 1,000:1 contrast. It's still research, but it's clearly advancing towards product... someday. See it in action after the break.
Toshiba's latest use for OCB LCDs: 3D glasses
Even after years of demos, we're not aware of Toshiba Mobile Display's OCB (Optically Compensated Bend) LCD panels actually making their way into shipping products, so here's hoping these large-bezeled 3D glasses on display at SID 2010 will be the ones to break through. Sure, the last time we saw OCB it was supposed to show us the way towards no-glasses-needed autostereoscopic screens but that was in 2009, when Law & Order was on, prototype iPhones weren't floating all over Korea and the company was called Toshiba Matsushita display. In this iteration the high speed, high contrast characteristics of the curiously aligned crystals in those LCDs are claimed to make the ideal 3D glasses technology with brighter images, less crosstalk and a wider field of view, but with similar specifications to existing hardware from RealD and others we'll probably be in for another all new / all old tech demo and more vapor in 2011.
Flexible organic display brings PIP-Boy one step closer to reality
We've seen the occasional PIP-Boy-esque wearable in the past, and now more details have emerged on this flexible OLED that we first peeped at CES in January. The 4-inch organic electroluminescent display sports up to 1.67 million colors, QVGA (320 x 240) 100ppi resolution, and can be bent to a curvature radius of about 2 inches. Hopefully, this doesn't become a must-have fashion accessory any time soon: while it's perfectly appropriate attire for post-apocalyptic wastelands, we don't know how well it'll fly at the sorts of high society social events we normally frequent. We got one more pic for you after the break. [Via Ideaity]
