Epson showcased some impressive OLED displays during SID. Epson improved the light emitting materials by developing a proprietary element structure resulting in extending the life of the OLED device to more than 50,000 hours (to half brightness). The thickness of the OLED displays that were demonstrated were just 2.8mm (0.11″) thick: extremely thin! Potential applications can range from high-end digital photo frames that can be used at home, restaurants, museums, exhibitions to portable DVD players and as the dash of an automobile.
Epson 8″ OLED for Automotive Applications, Possible UI
I was most impressed by Epson’s OLED displays. Like the company claims, the blacks were almost completely black. I could see the borders of the display but you had to look very very closely. The image above shows how dark the black portions of the OLED display is! Epson did mention that discussions are being held with automotive companies to integrate its OLED display as a dash. That certainly would be very exciting as the following video reveals:
Mr. Satoru Miyashita, General Manager of OLED Development Center, was kind enough to walk me through some of the features of Epson’s OLED displays. Miyashita-san explained that Epson’s OLED displays were manufactured at the company’s G2 R&D fab. He also shared that there are plans to expand OLED production capability by adding a line in the company’s G3 fab located in Tottori. By using a larger G3 fabrication plant, Epson can produce up to 14″ OLEDs. Although the sizes are still limited, within the proper markets, I believe OLED technology has a brilliant future.
The Epson OLED Portable DVD Player prototype was designed by a watch designer according to Miyashita-san. As you can see the design is cool and funky. With portable GPS navigation devices getting to 8″ and larger, Epson has the potential to grab the high-end portion of that market. The last time I visited South Korea, most nice taxis had 7″ GPS devices in addition to larger portable TVs. It was nice being able to watch live TV as I went from Inchon International to Seoul.
Another possibility might be a high-end OLED-based ultra-portable notebook PC! Kind of like an Eee PC but much better looking and with an OLED display instead of a LCD.
I’d like to have a portable OLED-based multimedia player or an ultraportable OLED notebook PC when it comes out. And that’s the thing about these OLEDs: when asked about when we could see these beautiful OLED displays in products the answer was, “Hopefully soon.” I hope so, too!
In the March 2008 edition of the Touch Panel newsletter from Veritas et Visus, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Mark Fihn wrote an interesting piece on the rumor regarding a MacBook with a transparent multitouch display.
Here are a few choice paragraphs in the article titled “Rumors of transparency…”
About two years ago, a friend from Taiwan passed on a rumor to me that Apple was planning to introduce a portable PC with a transparent display. He insisted that this was not just talk, but was a real product and would be released in early 2007.
Well, due to my buddy’s insistence, I went through the routine of checking with numerous contacts in and around Apple and got the usual inputs about how Apple is working on lots of interesting things and that transparent displays sound interesting. I got no firm information and dropped the investigation.
Well, one of the latest Apple rumors, fueled by a recent patent application authored by Apple, is related to MacBooks with transparent multi-touch displays. The Apple patent application apparently reveals a transparent multi-touch display that can work as a control surface on either side. Open it up in traditional laptop mode and you have a keyboard. Close it and you have a touch enabled slate. Perhaps some LucidTouch concepts will also apply, enabling touch inputs from the reverse side… The latest rumors come with some interesting concept designs:
While transparent does not describe Apple’s product development process, it is a rumor that seems to be sticking around for awhile, so who knows? Regardless, the concept of having a notebook PC with three touch enabled surfaces is quite interesting. Not just the display surface, but also the keyboard/touchpad surface, (which could serve as a second display as well), and the backside surface of the see-through display. While there are lots of design issues with a solution with three active surfaces, the concept is compelling – creating multiple input options, expanding the display surface area without expanding the device size, and changing the possibilities associated with viewability and presentation.
Even if Apple doesn’t verify the rumors, the concepts are compelling and in the not too distant future, I suspect that we’ll be seeing notebook PCs with not only multi-touch surfaces, but with multiple surfaces that can be touched.
iriver Spinn
Display Size: 3.2″ (8.2cm)
Pixel Format: 480 x 272
Display Technology: Active Matrix OLED (AMOLED)
Storage: 4, 8, 16GB
Video: Adobe Flash, MPEG4, WMV
Audio: MP3, OGG, WMA
Other: 3D GPU accelerated, Analog Controls, DAB Radio (UK), Bluetooth
Battery: 25 hours (audio), 5 hours (video), 4 hours (DAB)
Availability: August in the UK
Crave: iriver’s Spinn is a very nice looking portable multimedia player (PMP). The fact that it has analog controls is, for some reason, very tempting. I like the idea of digital superbly intertwined with analog. The digital portion is brought to you by Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode (AMOLED) display technology. The 3.2″ AMOLED screen should pop your eyes out. I am truly amazed at how beautiful some OLED screens look. I’m sure the one in iriver’s Spinn will not disappoint.
iriver P.ple P10
Display Size: 4″
Pixel Format: 800 x 480
Touch: Yes
CPU: 600MHz RMI AU1250
HDD: 33GB
OS: Windows CE
Video Support: Flash, MPEG, WMA, XivD
Audio Support: MP3, WAV
Availability: South Korea
Price:
KRW328,000 (standard P.ple P10, ~US$318)
KRW398,000 (P.ple P10 Pro, ~US$386)
AVING: The newest portable multimedia player (PMP) from iriver is its P.ple P10. That is an interesting name, to say the least. The P.ple P10 sports a 33GB HDD and is powered by a RMI AU1250 CPU running at 600MHz. The OS is Windows CE. The external design is nice and simple. The UI, from looking at the picture, seems to be a bit complicated by extensively using nested menus. I would have liked a more Apple-esque “menu” system where you simply tap on functions you need without having to dig into menus so much.
The display is a 4″ TFT LCD with a pixel format of 800×480, which is quite nice to have and seems to be becoming the standard for wide displays in the 3″ to 4″ range. I would hope that Apple’s next generation iPhone has at least a pixel format of 800×480, in landscape orientation. P.ple P10′s 4″ LCD features touch capability but it is unlikely that it will support multitouch, which would have been nice.
Samsung NT-Q45C/PINK2
Display Size: 12.1″ Glare-type
Aspect Ratio: 16:10
Pixel Format: 1280 x 800
GPU: ATI Radeon Xpress 1250
Video Out: VGA
Webcam: 1.3MP
Dimension: 299 x 217 x 26.9 – 36.1mm
Weight: 1.89kg
Samsung: The NT-Q45C/PINK2 is a cute little (12.1″ wide) notebook PC that has a very unique feature: a nano silver coating on the keyboard that maintains cleanliness! I’ve always wondered how dirty keyboards can get. I clean it sometimes but under a microscope, I’m sure it is home to a lot of dirty little creatures. With the NT-Q45C/PINK2 you don’t have to worry about that. Otherwise, the 1.89kg pink portable should be a capable travel companion.
