Display Technology News Roundup 1.15.2013

Image via PC World

Displair gives you a touchscreen out of thin air "Air flows out of the device, interacting with water drops to form a screen where you can beam images from a computer or tablet. But this is no mere projection screen, it's a fully interactive display, as I found it when I was able to play a game of Fruit Ninja just by waving my hand across the Displair's virtual screen." via PC World

CES 2013 OLED summary "But the most interesting OLED TVs didn't come from LG and Samsung this time - but from Sony and Panasonic. Both companies unveiled 56" 4K OLED TV prototypes. The two companies are collaboration on OLED technologies, and Sony made the TFT on Panasonic's set - which probably explains why both unveiled TVs in the same unique 56" size." via OLED-Info

It's official: 3D is dead "There are no more 60-foot posters with people exploding out of flatscreen televisions. The super glitzy marketing videos now relate to the far more tangible benefits of higher resolutions, curved displays, and the beauty of OLED. The show floor space dedicated to three-dimensional imagery has been decimated, relegating a dubious technology to its proper position as a sideshow rather than a leading cause to upgrade your TV." via The Verge

Display database for engineers Search thousands of display panels by multiple characteristics and compare results side-by-side using the display database multisearch.

Show envisions curved displays, controls "Given enough imagination, engineers could figure out how touch controls or displays could be helpful on the curved handle of a cup of coffee, said Mariel van Tatenhove, marketing director for touch materials for San Jose's Atmel Corp., a developer of microcontrollers, capacitive touch controllers and touch sensors. "We used to think the world was flat, but it's not," said van Tatenhove, who was showing off the company's paper-thin and bendable touch sensor called XSense. "Why shouldn't devices be either?"" via SFGate

Harman Wants to Put an Augmented Reality Display in Your Car’s Windshield "Harman has developed an augmented reality display technology that give you real-time information in your windshield while you drive. It's like Google Glasses for your ar except that the product is actually about to launch it (or so they say...). And Harman promises you won't crash while using it." via Gizmodo

Two Advanced LCD Technologies Appear in Soon-to-Ship Consumer TV Sets "Sharp didn’t really try in its big press conference, simply saying that in addition to its coming 4Kx2K TVs, the company was introducing an FHD Quattron TV that produced images with close to 4Kx2K sharpness. ...Very briefly, because a Quattron pixel contains four subpixels (red, green, blue, and yellow) instead of three, any given color can be created with more than one combination of primaries. This redundancy can be used to create two luminance peaks per pixel instead of the traditional one luminance peak per pixel. Thus, the panel can produce a true 4Kx2K image even though it contains only 2Kx1K (four-primary) pixels." via Display Central

Do you have content to share with Display Alliance? Anyone can post press releases, white papers, commentary, videos, and more in the open section.

Tactus tactile LCD "It’s a flexible panel sandwiched atop a touchscreen that uses liquid to inflate and deflate buttons that provide actual tactile response on devices like smartphones, tablets, and kiosk computers. Fast forward to this week and Tactus is on hand at CES 2013 where it’s showing off a 7-inch reference tablet that features the slick morphing keyboard. Like an e-Ink display, the Tactus buttons only require power during state changes." via Geek.com

How to deploy digital signage in transit "Solar Clearing of the LCD screen also is a concern. With direct sunlight and a backlight at full brightness, the LCD crystals receive a large amount of heat and could go through a phase change causing black blotches on the screen. This solar clearing will cause degradation in the display, thereby reducing the operating life." via Digital Signage Today

Flat panel makers safe from rising NTD "Chang said the near term foreign exchange rate fluctuations are unlikely to hurt Taiwanese screen makers badly, but he is more concerned about long term movements if the local currency continues to climb. Chang said another silver lining is that the weakening Japanese yen has served as a factor to reduce the impact from a rising New Taiwan dollar as local flat panel makers are able to take advantage of a cheaper yen by importing components from Japan." via The China Post

Are you an engineer or have display expertise? Email jason@displayalliance.com to be featured in the interviews section.

DNP creates bezel-narrowing LCD cover "InvisiBezel can be mounted on top of standard “narrow-bezel” LCD panels. The edges consist of prisms that optically stretch the pixels at the edge of the LCD panel to conceal the bezel. It also protects the panels from scratches." via InAVate

Samsung Again Teases Flexible Displays, But Will Anything Come of Them? ""Samsung and a few other vendors have been teasing the market for some time on flexible displays but so far as I can see, their yapping hasn't done much to create buzz around the idea, let alone actual demand," said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT. "The more attention they receive, the more flexible displays look like a classic 'solution in search of a problem.' Unless Samsung and other involved parties can define some compelling need or use case, flexible displays are likely to become one of those long-discussed yet quickly forgotten misadventures."" via Sci-Tech Today

This Vomiting Robot Is Really A Next-Generation Display Technology "Petman, the eerily lifelike walking droid manufactured by Boston Dynamics, may look like a Terminator prototype, but it’s actually designed to test chemical protection clothing for humans. ECCErobot began as a testbed to study how our brains control our floppy, fragile bodies. And Larry, god bless him, is basically a display technology for studying the contagious properties of aerosolized norovirus (a nasty bug that spreads from projectile vomiting). " via MIT Technology Review

What did you think about today's news? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.