Image via Hagley Museum and Library / ieee spectrum
How RCA Lost the LCD "Today, liquid crystals are one of the most widespread technologies of the information age and the foundation of a multibillion-dollar industry. Nevertheless, RCA’s abrupt exit from the field has largely obscured the pioneering contributions of its chemists, physicists, and electrical engineers. The events and decisions that drove the company to abandon its efforts are worth revisiting for what they reveal about the unpredictable nature of innovation—and about the tendency of large corporations to fail to capitalize on it." via ieee spectrum
Sony unveils a new monochrome 20.5" OLED monitor for the medical industry "Sony unveiled a new 20.5" monochrome OLED monitor for the medical industry. This monitor offers 2048x2560 resolution, high luminance, wide viewing angle, high contrast and deep, rich black reproduction (the black level is less than 0.001cd/M2 and 500 cd/M2 luminance)." via OLED-Info
Growing pains for new touch-sensor technology in latest iPhone, iPad "DisplaySearch said that there were production issues with the DITO film and lamination. In addition, aligning the sensors on film is more difficult than with glass, the report says. The iPad mini is the first tablet to use the DITO film touch sensor." via ZDNet
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Head-mounted displays for reality augmentation: a survey "One question worth keeping in mind when evaluating the new crop of head-mounted devices is whether they will end up broadening the augmentational capacity of the human eye or narrowing it." via Rough Type
Knuckles and nails get invite to the touchscreen party "A modified Samsung Galaxy S3 smartphone, fitted with a small vibration sensor and running Harrison's FingerSense software, listens for the acoustic and vibrational differences between the three different types of touch. A fingertip could select an object while a knuckle tap could work like the right-click on a computer mouse and open up a submenu, for example." via NewScientist
A New Chip to Bring 3-D Gesture Control to Smartphones "The controller works by transmitting an electrical signal and then calculating the three-coordinate position of a hand based on the disturbances to the field the hand creates. Whereas many camera systems have “blind spots” for close-up hand gestures and can fail in low light, the Microchip controller works well under these conditions and doesn’t require an external sensor (its sensing electrodes can sit behind a device’s housing). " via MIT Technology Review
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Sharp wins customers for new display technology "It is important for Sharp - and its deepening partnership with Apple - to keep innovating in LCD, since so many mobile display advances are centering on the alternative AMOLED technology, which is dominated by Samsung. Sharp's future success depends heavily on reducing the market power of Samsung and LG in screens, while fending off the rise of low cost Chinese suppliers." via Rethink Wireless
Chinese panel makers lobbying for higher import tariffs "Panel import tariffs are currently 5 percent, but tariffs on panels 32 inches or larger may increase to between 8-12 percent." via Morning Whistle
Flexible AMOLED display development still possible in Taiwan "ITRI said that between its upstream and downstream resources, Taiwan could have a sufficient supply chain for developing flexible AMOLED displays and could compete with Korea-based panel makers. However, that largely depends on whether upstream suppliers can boost production facilities and material amounts to create the technology, added ITRI." via DigiTimes
Taiwan touch panel suppliers pursue single-glass solutions "iDTI’s in-cell panels incorporating photo sensors in the TFT array substrate between the color filter and the polarizer can be applied to LCDs up to 100in and with 1920x1000-pixel resolution. The company is among the few that can manufacture such products using the hydrogenated amorphous silicon process. The last is compatible with current display production techniques, enabling fabrication on a mass scale." via Global Sources
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Next-Generation Anti-Reflective Coatings "The next generation of antireflection (AR) coatings has arrived and could help bump solar cell efficiency considerably by employing a promising new class of optical nanomaterials that allow for near-arbitrary control of the refractive index, conceivably the most important materials constant in optics and optoelectronics." via Solar Novus
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