The first generation of the LPD (also called the TD1) consists of a rectangular glass screen 63 centimeters in the diagonal (25 inches). Tiny patterns of phosphors are layered on the inside surface of the glass (or polymer), and these emit red, green or blue light when excited by a soft UV laser, to produce brilliant, high quality images. Since the phosphors are extremely close to the surface no image filtering is needed. The display can also be modified to suit specific viewing needs by using special coatings or substrates.

The solid-state laser are mounted behind the screen and point up at bank of minute, rapidly moving mirrors. The mirrors reflect the laser light across the screen to produce the necessary number of image lines and create the picture. The resultant images have no motion blur or flicker. The processor managing the laser varies the light intensity and turns the laser on and off, which means that when the display is dark the lasers are turned off to further reduce power consumption and increase the lifespan of the display.

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The described mechanism unfortunately influenced the design, making the display that is currently 36 centimeters thick. However, according to its inventors, it has a greatly reduced power consumption – a quarter that of LCDs and only one tenth of plasma televisions. The sets can be built with existing technology and there is no requirement for clean rooms in the manufacture of the screens, which considerably cuts the expense.

The TD1 does not suffer the problem of low brightness, which is suffered by rear projection sets. It also has the advantage that the displays are highly configurable and can be stacked seamlessly to create large high-resolution video walls of almost any size or shape. The display has a brightness of 800nits, an optical seam of .25mm, and the viewing angle is almost 180˚. The fast response time of 240 Hz and the 1.6 mm dot pitch also both exceed competing technologies such as LED.

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Powered by LPD’s solid-state components, the display solution offers an internal health monitor and auto-calibration system for 24/7 continuous operation and stable performance over the life of the application. However, it’s a question will the whole mechanism withstand the test of time and long-term usage.

Folks from Prysm stated they are dedicated to what they call “ecovative” technology – technology that is eco-friendly throughout its manufacture. Aside its greatly reduced power consumption, the TD1 does not contain toxic components, has no consumables, and generates little heat. They also claim their HDTV television will be competitive with LCD and plasma televisions within three to five years.

In order to demonstrate the potential of the technology, the folks from Toshiba developed software that zooms in and out images in accordance with the change in the resistance value of the bend sensor. At the conference, Toshiba actually zoomed in and out an aerial photograph of Google Earth displayed on the screen by bending the LCD panel. The display used at the conference had  a commercially available bend sensor whose resistance value changes by bending it. The sensor was equipped at the end of the backlight unit.

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To realize this LCD panel, Toshiba developed a thin backlight unit that can be bent to a curvature radius of 50mm (where Sony’s OTFT-driven OLED display beats it at only 5mm). It is an edge-lighting LED backlight unit whose light guide plate is as thin as 0.4mm. The screen size and resolution of the LCD panel are 8.4 inches and 800 x 600 pixels (SVGA), respectively. The thickness of the glass substrate used for the LCD panel is 0.1mm.

If they combine this input with the multi-touch controls found in many devices, it could bring the information interaction to a higher level, where you could pan/rotate/tilt with your thumbs, and zoom by bending the screen. Since there are many technologies related to information interaction, we believe this tech will find its use in a narrow niche, rather than appearing in every device out there.

To create the display, Sony developed OTFTs with an original organic semiconductor material (a PXX derivative) with eight times of the current modulation of conventional OTFTs (comparison between OTFTs with pentacene (C22H14) and PXX derivative). This was achieved due to the development of integration technologies of OTFTs and OLEDs on an ultra-thin 20 μm thick flexible substrate (a flexible on-panel gate-driver circuit with OTFTs which is able to get rid of conventional rigid driver IC chips interfering roll-up of a display) and soft organic insulators for all the insulators in the integration circuits.

By combining these technologies, Sony successfully demonstrated the OLED panel which is capable to reproduce moving images while it was being rolled-up and stretched around a cylinder with a radius of 4 mm (current minimum bending radius). The OTFT-driven OLED display measures 4.1-inches wide and just 80 micrometers thick. It has a resolution of 432 x 240 pixels at 121 pixels per inch (ppi), which Sony says makes it the world’s highest-resolution OTFT-driven OLED display. It can produce 16.8 million colors with a peak brightness of over 100 cd/m2 peak and contrast ratio of greater than 1000:1.

In order to enhance flexibility of the display, Sony has developed organic insulators for all the insulators in the OTFT and OLED integration circuit. These organic insulators can be formed with the solution process in the atmosphere which is requires fewer steps, and consumes materials and energy more efficiently – thus has a smaller environmental footprint – compared to the conventional high temperature vacuum semiconductor process which use inorganic, silicon materials.

Folks from Sony claim that there was no clear degradation in the display’s ability to reproduce moving images even after 1000 cycles of repeatedly rolling-up and stretching the display. They will continue to improve the performance and reliability of the flexible organic display because they plan to incorporate these displays into upcoming thin, light-weight, durable and mobile devices with enhanced form-factor.

Its dimensions are 24.3 x 19 x 1.3cm (9.56 x 7.47 x 0.5 inches) and it weighs less than 0.7kg (1.5 pounds). iPad’s responsive high-resolution Multi-Touch display lets users physically interact with applications and content, in a similar manner you could see in their previous gadgets. Its LED-backlit display has a diagonal of 9.7 inches is capable of 1024-by-768-pixel resolution at 132 pixels per inch (ppi), and features IPS technology to deliver crisp, clear images and consistent color with 178 degrees of viewing angle.

Fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating was applied to the display in order to make it readable without the need to clean its surface every time you want to use it. Regarding the materials, Apple tried to be greener by using the arsenic-free display glass, mercury-free LCD display, and by making it BFR- and PVC-free too. The rest of the casing is made of recyclable aluminum and glass enclosure.

Regarding the memory, iPad comes in 16, 32 and 64 GB of flash memory. It has an ambient light sensor and an accelerometer which helps finding the right content orientation or interaction in games. iPad has a virtual touchscreen keyboard and the ability to attach to an external physical keyboard (Keyboard Dock). The usage of external keyboard will prove much useful since the usage of almost full sized touchsreen keyboard seems a bit unnatural, since Apple introduced a new version of iWork for iPad. By using Pages, Keynote and Numbers you can create beautifully formatted documents, stunning presentations with animations and transitions, and spreadsheets with charts, functions and formulas. The three apps will be available separately through the App Store.

It has a 30-pin connector on the bottom of it which allows you to dock and charge it. It also lets you connect to iPad accessories like the Camera Connection Kit and the Keyboard Dock. The built-in speaker produces full sound (20 Hz to 20 KHz) perfect for watching a movie or listening to music. Since it has only one speaker, you reckon the ability of the device playback. iPad also comes with a built-in microphone and a headphone jack which brings back the sound stereo experience. Besides the mentioned purposes, the speaker is there to help since the device has a VoiceOver screen reader. It also has the full-screen zoom magnification and the white on black display mode in order to help the people with weak or damaged sight.

It is powered by A4, Apple’s next-generation system-on-a-chip. Designed by Apple, the new A4 chip provides exceptional processor and graphics performance along with long battery life of up to 10 hours of continuous usage. Apple claims that their advanced chemistry and Adaptive Charging technology can deliver up to 1,000 charge cycles without a significant decrease in battery capacity over a typical five year lifespan. Unfortunately, although it’s able to perform faster on a larger display, one of the most missed capabilities of iPad is multitasking.

So, despite the fact it is able to use almost all of over 140,000 apps in the App Store and 12 new apps designed especially for iPad, it isn’t able to multitask those. Sure it saves battery life and resources but some of their previously released competition is able to do this. However, you will be able to fully enjoy YouTube, all in HD (up to 720p) or flip through pages of an e-book you downloaded from Apple’s new iBookstore while listening to your music collection (from your own stash or the iTunes, naturally).

Due to disagreement between Apple and Adobe (or desire of Apple to control the availability of the content), the iPad also isn’t able to run flash for now. Although Apple would lose a part of their sales for videos and apps, with the integration of flash they would attract a lot more people to buy the iPad.

Regarding its connection, iPad comes in two versions – one with Wi-Fi and the other with both Wi-Fi and 3G (which has an additional slot for the SIM card tray). iPad includes the latest 802.11n Wi-Fi, and the 3G versions support speeds up to 7.2 Mbps on HSDPA networks. Apple and AT&T announced their 3G pre-paid data plans for iPad with easy, on-device activation and management. Depending on the model you get, you receive different features. The Wi-FI model has the ability to provide a digital compass, while the model with additional 3G has the ability to provide assisted GPS and cellular services.

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Apple also released a new Software Development Kit (SDK) for iPad, in order to encourage developers to create new applications designed to take advantage of iPad’s capabilities. The SDK includes a simulator that lets developers test and debug their iPad apps on a Mac, and also lets developers create Universal Applications that run on iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.

We support their attempt to be greener by recycling and selecting materials, the fact that similar devices reduce paper consumption, as well as the SDK they released in order to make the platform more useable. On the other hand, the device itself isn’t quite as groundbreaking as most of us expected and its price is not competitive to other tablets (and it goes up with larger memory or 3G feature). Unless they make it more affordable (or implement better features and software in its new iterations) the iPad simply won’t be able to compete with its opponents.

DisplayPort v1.2 was designed to be compatible with existing DisplayPort systems and cables. To take advantage of the new capabilities, a PC will need to be DisplayPort v1.2 enabled. However, existing standard cables can still be used, including those with the new Mini DisplayPort connector. To achieve the 21.6 Gbps rate, the per-lane data rate is doubled from 2.7 Gbps to 5.4 Gbps, over the four lanes that exist in the standard cable. For a single display, this enables up to 3840 x 2400 resolution at 60Hz, or a 3D display (120Hz) at 2560 x 1600.

DisplayPort v1.2 supports “multi-streaming”. the ability to transport multiple independent uncompressed display and audio streams over a single cable, supporting protected content and high performance applications such as 3D gaming. This enables the use of multiple monitors connected by cable in a daisy chain or hub configuration. Whereas the current Display v1.1a standard can support one 2560 x 1600 monitor at 60Hz, DisplayPort v1.2 can support two such monitors with one cable, or four 1920 x 1200 monitors. Many other combinations are possible, including multiple video sources, multiple displays (even at different resolutions) and multiple audio speakers.

Another new feature is the ability to support high-speed, bi-directional data transfer, allowing USB 2.0 or Ethernet data to be carried within a standard DisplayPort cable. For DisplayPort v1.2, the maximum data rate of this “AUX” channel has been increased from 1 Mbps (Mega-bit-per-second) to 720 Mbps, providing suitable bandwidth for USB 2.0. The DisplayPort cable can therefore support USB data to/from the display to support Display USB functions, in addition to sending the video and audio information. Standard Ethernet and audio data can also be transported in the DisplayPort cable.

DisplayPort v1.2 also includes improved support for Full HD 3D Stereoscopic displays. It is able to provide life-like motion using up to 240 frames-per-second in full HD (providing 120 frames-per-second for each eye), 3D Stereo transmission format support (field sequential, side by side, pixel interleaved, dual interface, and stacked) and 3D Stereo display capability declaration Mono, Stereo, 3D Glasses

“DisplayPort is a truly open, flexible, extensible multimedia interconnect standard that is ubiquitous in the PC, notebook and display markets and is rapidly gaining traction in consumer electronics applications,” said Bill Lempesis, VESA’s executive director. “DisplayPort Version v1.2 offers a complete set of benefits and capabilities that no other standard can provide. It is completely backward compatible with DisplayPort v1.1a and requires no new cables or other equipment, making it the standard of choice across the industry.”

The first product sold under the Improv Electronics name, the Boogie Board Paperless LCD Writing Tablet, was released several days ago and the US stores are out of stocks. This product is the first paperless writing tablet to utilize a pressure-sensitive Reflex LCD for the writing surface. While most other LCDs are made on glass, the Reflex LCDs used in Boogie Board tablets are made of impact-resistant, flexible plastic. Its dimensions are 22.3 x 14.2 x 0.5cm (8.8 x 5.6 x 0.2 inches) and it weights only 120 grams (4.2 ounces).

Because all Reflex LCDs are reflective and bi-stable, the Boogie Board tablet requires no power to generate or retain an image, and only a small amount supplied by a small watch battery to erase the content. You can erase the content with a simple press of a button located at the top of the device and it should execute over 50,000 times for one battery lifetime.

Written and graphic images are created with an included stylus or any other instrument that will apply the desired pressure (even a finger nail). Unlike traditional LCDs that have a poor response to pressure, the Boogie Board’s Reflex LCD is highly responsive to variable amounts of pressure. This allows different line thicknesses to be easily created (great for sketching) and provides a writing experience very similar to paper and pencil.

Part of Kent Displays’ Push Green initiative, the Boogie Board tablet provides a highly-effective vehicle to reduce everyday paper consumption. The paperless Boogie Board tablet can be used for all these activities, replacing memo/note pads and sticky notes in the home, office, school, car and field. It also replaces chalk, magnetic and dry erase boards. Like all the above writing and drawing mediums, the Boogie Board tablet consumes no electrical energy to produce an image.

Although the device is greenish, since it tries to reduce paper consumption, there are a few issues that need to be solved. In order to increase the Boogie Board’s usability, they would have to add memory in order to store the pages user needs later. That feature will almost certainly increase the price as well as the need for power (unless we witness a major breakthrough in power technology). The device could also ditch the replaceable battery usage, as the light/solar power should be sufficient to perform the erasing operation. Although the device mimics magic slates successfully, the erasing operation itself would be much more useful if it could be done partially instead in whole.

Despite all the “flaws”, the Boogie Board performs perfectly and it’s very affordable. Although it may not find its place in idea development and presentations as its developers envisioned, it will most certainly find its place among the to-do-lists, family memos or coach diagrams.

“The principle is similar to the virtual shoe-fitting mirror that we developed last year for the Adidas flagship store in Paris,” said Anna Hilsmann of the HHI. “But it is somewhat more difficult to create a realistic impression of T-shirts, shirts or sweaters in a virtual mirror. These items of clothing develop folds that partially distort the image depending how the wearer moves about.”

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The customer stands in front of a display that has a camera mounted above it. By filming the person, the camera registers the way their clothing flows and moves. To change clothes, the logo on a T-shirt might be replaced with a different, virtual design, for example. To make the image in the magic mirror appear as realistic as possible, the folds and creases in the clothes actually worn by the user are reproduced in the virtual representation, even when the user is moving about. The shadows and lighting effects seen in the virtual mirror are also identical to those on the real person.

That effect is possible by an algorithm calculating the spatial parameters of the projected image on the basis of a two-dimensional model. This reduces the number of dimensions needed to simulate the image and allows us to rapidly evaluate any movements. The 2D model consists of a closely meshed network of triangular fields. This is sufficient to predict any changes. The system is also capable to predict the direction in which the fabric is capable of stretching or flowing. To allow the virtual image to reflect these changes as realistically as possible, the apexes of the triangles can be displaced independently of one another.

The camera shoots frames at intervals of a few milliseconds and transmits them to a memory unit. Here, the images are analyzed to determine what changes have taken place between successive frames. To do so, a triangular meshwork is superimposed on each frame, employing a technique commonly used in computer graphics. Since the content of the triangular fields doesn’t necessarily change from one frame to the next, the system only compares those fields where changes have actually taken place. This information is used to create a new virtual image of the item of clothing, incorporating the new logo.

Consequently, users have the impression that the image reflected in the display follows every movement they make, including the way this affects the folds and creases in the clothes they are wearing, just like a real mirror. A touch screen allows shoppers to choose different styles and colors of the garment they have selected, helping them to decide which color or design suits them best. “Shoes and clothes are just the first stage,” remarks Anna Hilsmann. “The virtual mirror could also be used to help customers select eyewear or jewelry.”

Unlike Magical Mirror, the Virtual Mirror processes images in real time, thus offering true Augmented Reality. However, the same advantage is its downside, since you have to wear the green fabric shaped as the shape of the clothes you would like to try on (imagine all the clothe sizes and various clothing shapes needed in real world application). Future algorithms ought to be able to overcome this problem

With the usage of these sorts of systems many reluctant shoppers are likely to be relieved by the simplicity this brings to the task of buying new clothes. Only time will tell which companies will become dominant in this promising and yet unexploited market.

Mirasol technology, formally known as interferometric modulation (IMOD), uses electrically charged, tiny flexible membranes overlaid onto a mirrored surface to mimic the reflective properties of biological crystals. Mirasol displays require virtually no illumination or backlighting, a power sucking requirement of LCD screens, resulting in significant energy savings. Pike Research estimates (PDF) that IMOD displays consume 33.7 percent less energy and emit 94 percent less carbon dioxide while active than an LCD display of the same dimensions.

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Additionally, Mirasol displays fabricated to use IMOD technology have shown reflectivity greater than 60 percent, contrast ratio greater than 15:1 and drive voltage as low as 5 volts. Qualcomm claims Mirasol displays have approximately the same contrast ratio and reflectivity as a newspaper, making it easy and natural to read in almost any lighting situation.

Though simple in structure, IMOD elements provide the functions of modulation, color selection and memory while eliminating active matrices, color filters and polarizers. The result is a high-performance display capable of active-matrix type functionality at passive-matrix cost. Qualcomm’s Mirasol displays are a strong contender in the display industry, with the potential to offer many of the benefits of ink and paper.

Traditional STN- or cholesteric-based passive matrix displays have switching speeds as slow as tens or hundreds of milliseconds. An IMOD element’s switching time is 1000 times faster than traditional displays. In addition, switching speed of Mirasol displays is maintained across a wide temperature range, unlike organic liquid-crystal-based displays, whose switching speeds decrease as temperatures go into low environmental ranges.

The speed and image quality would allow a Mirasol-equipped e-reader to double as a media player for video and games. Viewing video on an ordinary device can quickly drain the battery, but Mirasol display video capabilities require no significant sacrifice in battery life.

The Qualcomm e-reader prototype made by Foxlink caught media attention for its obvious advantages over available e-readers like Amazon’s Kindle and the Barnes & Noble Nook. “The displays use ambient light in order to create color,” said marketing director Cheryl Goodman at Qualcomm MEMS Technologies. “It is a nature-based design and it is a significant innovation that no one has done before.”

Qualcomm estimates battery life prolonged to last for days or even weeks. Its characteristics make it ideal for next generation of e-readers, but Qualcomm envisions a much wider application of its technology. Without the need for backlighting, Mirasol displays can be even thinner and lighter than their LCD counterparts. According to Qualcomm, the technology is scalable and can be adapted to larger applications such as TVs and outdoor digital signs, thinner versions of digital cameras, cell phones, gaming devices, and GPS units.

Qualcomm claims Mirasol Color Video e-book readers will ship in late 2010. Until then, they can hope their competition won’t beat their product with significantly affordable or advanced technology.

The Christie MicroTiles system represents a huge step forward in large-format digital display technology, offering superior color and image reproduction, the widest possible viewing angles, and a near absence of seams on display walls, with only a 1mm gap between the tiles. The groundbreaking LED- and DLP-based system is designed for long, reliable commercial use in public areas, with no lamps or other consumable parts to replace. The LED light engine, a key component of MicroTiles, is rated at 65,000 hours to half brightness usage, or nearly 7.5 years of continuous operation.

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With a screen size of 408mm x 306mm (w x h), the tiles also feature a shallow depth of only 260mm and require just 50mm of minimal clearance for rear ventilation. Christie engineers designed the MicroTiles to be fully and easily serviced from the front. The tiles are “self-aware”, so the time-consuming and costly color calibration needed to keep conventional “video walls” looking uniform is automatically completed by the sensors built into the MicroTiles.

While the engineering behind the display tiles is extraordinarily sophisticated, walls of tiles are controlled by a simple unit that processes the signal from the most popular digital signage and media players.

“MicroTiles represent a distinct revolution in display technology, that allows users to create their own digital canvas or digital wallpaper,” said Bob Rushby, the co-inventor and chief technology officer at Christie. “With MicroTiles, users can express their creativity and vision, and assemble the displays in ways that have previously been unattainable using current flat panel LCD, plasma or LED walls.”

“Assemble the tiles any way you like, take them apart and re-assemble them in a new configuration, and they ‘recognize’ each other every time and adjust the image automatically,” Rushby added. “Our partners are discovering new ways of using digital display that would have been impossible or impractical before MicroTiles.”

The good image quality and modular flexibility of the MicroTiles system opens up wide possibilities for companies charged with designing and creating large, vivid visual displays for architectural installations, out-of-home advertising, event centers, command and control facilities and retail environments. When combined with RFID technology the system can recognize a person in front of it and respond to the movement of the person, thus encouraging the interactivity. The MicroTiles are also RoHS compliant and have built-in eco-power consumption modes, thus making them an ideal choice for LEED projects, and for any building where environmental standards must be met.

Both LG Display and Samsung Mobile Display have been showing-off their respective transparent OLEDs, LG presented a full 15” OLED panel ideal for notebooks, while Samsung presented a 2” OLED panel meant for cell phones. While OLED displays usually emit light either from the positive or negative electrodes (making them viewable from a single side), these new panels emit light from both electrodes simultaneously, and are encapsulated in a transparent casing.

Transmittance for both is 30-percent; it’s unclear what resolution the LG Display OLED is running at, but the Samsung Mobile Display OLED offers 176 x 220 with 144ppi.  No word from either company as to when we might see commercial releases of the transparent OLEDs.

How will this new and wonderful technology be used? For advertising, of course! LG envisions its display in public places, being used as a billboard or street sign that can be viewed from both sides, However, LG hasn’t decided when to commercialize the technology. Transparent display could be seen on some consumer devices, as e-readers, transparent clocks, phones with a transparent keypad, or even in gaming where new games could benefit the fact the display is viewable from both sides (two players could face each other while they watch the game enroll between them).

With advance of the technology, production of devices with more transmittance and better image quality will be possible. That will create various opportunities for the usage of these displays in advanced gaming, as replacement for current head up displays in cars, fighter pilot cockpits embedded with transparent displays, and transparent display integrated helmets which could provide additional information to racing drivers, policemen, firefighters, medics and soldiers. On the other hand, this could be another “laser disk” product that could be replaced with some more innovative technology.