Asus 17-inch 3D Notebook: Asustek’s 17-inch 3D notebook PC will launch in Q3’10. Chimei Innolux Corporation (CMI), LG Display (LGD) and Samsung are competing for the opportunity to supply 3D panels for the project. This goes without saying: Asustek’s decision will be based on the quality of the 3D displays. I sure hope so since the only thing that matters on a 3D display is the quality of the 3D effects. Another display manufacturer, Chunghwa Picture Tubes (CPT) is a major supplier of 3D LCD panels for notebook PC applications and I’m willing to bet CPT also wants a part of the action.
Worldwide PC Shipments Up 27.4% Y/Y in Q1’10: Worldwide PC shipments increased 27.4% Y/Y to 84.3 million units in Q1’10 according to preliminary results by Gartner. The market research firm expected growth in Q1’10 to be 22%. What happened? A robust recovery, in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. On the other hand, US and Latin America came in at slightly lower than expected. Gartner pointed to a gradual pick up of the professional PC market, PC replacements in mature markets, relatively positive macroeconomic outlook, and demand driven by Windows 7. HP, Acer and Dell were the top three PC vendors worldwide in Q1’10.
Apple Needs Time to Ramp iPad Production: Apple has delayed the international release of its iPad. The company cited higher-than-expected demand for the iPad than expected. That would be code word for: we need more time to ramp production, including LG Display (LGD) who is the sole supplier of the marvelous 9.7-inch IPS LCD panel. The custom Apple-designed A4 CPU would also require some additional time to ramp to meet demand on a worldwide basis.
Palm’s Michael Abbott Leaves: Abbott, SVP of software and services, is largely responsible for the webOS mobile operating system, and the Mojo and Ares SDKs. Palm will lose him as of April 23rd. Stock packages and US$250,000 cash incentives convinced Jeff Devine, SVP of global operations, and Doug Jeffries, CFO, to continue working at Palm. The person who had the most input in developing a completely new mobile operating system is leaving. In some areas webOS is more advanced than even the mighty iPhone OS and without doubt more fine-tuned than Android. This is a huge loss on the part of Palm. It is most unfortunate because I think the Palm Pre Plus is marvelous with a real workable keyboard (Motorola’s Droid could have used some of that expertise), a mobile hotspot (allows five WiFi connections and is free from Verizon), a great price (just one cent at Amazon), and a very solid combination of great hardware and software. Where did Palm go wrong? I think the simple answer is that Palm wanted to be like Apple and control the entire hardware, OS and software but did not have the support of a money-generating machine like iTunes. I think it would be a great move for Motorola, LG or HTC to take a close look at integrating Palm into its fold.
Sprint 4G Case for iPad and Overdrive: This is an interesting move by Sprint. The 4G Case by Sprint is to carry both the iPad and the company’s Overdrive mobile hotspot. There is a pocket where you slide in the Overdrive, which connects to Sprint’s 4G network that is 10x faster than 3G according to Sprint. That is if you have 4G at all. I live in San Jose, California. There is no 4G in San Jose, let alone in the entire state of California at the moment. The irony is the iPad’s popularity is probably the strongest in California.
Dell Streak Tablets in 7-inch and 10-inch Sizes: Dell will be entering the tablet game with its Streak slate tablets, which look remarkably similar to Apple’s iPad with a fairly thick black bezel and a glossy cover glass. The only thing that ruins the external design is the Dell logo. Oh, these have not been officially announced by Dell yet.
HP Mini 5102 Review by Engadget: The Mini 5102 sports a capacitive multitouch 10.1-inch matte LCD with a 1024×600 pixel format. Here’s the final word:
We love a lot of things about this business and education aimed laptop, but not enough to spend $668 on the configuration we were given. Heck, at that price we’d pick up an entry-level ProBook that has a similar chassis, but way more powerful processor options.
Prad.de: NEC introduced several energy-efficient AccuSync monitors: AS171 (5:4 17-inch), AS191 (5:4 19-inch), AS191WM (16:9 19-inch), AS221WM (16:9 22-inch), and AS231WM (16:9 23-inch). All have garnered EPEAT Silver, Energy Star 5.0 and TCO 5.0 credentials. NEC has improved energy efficiency by using only half the number of CCFL tubes in the backlight unit. Power consumption and mercury content are both reduced by 50%. Power consumption is just 20 watts in eco mode on the touch-enabled AS231WM. Connectivity options include VGA, DVI with HDCP. Other specs are a 1920×1080 pixel format, 1000:1 contrast ratio, a brightness of 250 cd/m² and a 5ms response time.
NEC wanted to improve its green quotient but also wanted these new monitors to be affordable. The AS231WM is expected to have a street price of US$269. Any LCD monitor that uses the typical CCFL backlight, which requires the use of mercury, a known carcinogen, is not a green monitor. Affordability is not an excuse to pretend a product is green when in fact it is not. With a focus on innovation and reducing manufacturing costs by employing new technologies in a mass scale I am certain single-sided LED-backlit LCD monitors can be sold for only a small premium over these non-green models. LEDs enable thinner models; smaller packaging also means less transportation costs per monitor. LEDs are solid-state so they are more rugged and turn on instantly. Most importantly LEDs do not require the use of mercury. Next time, I hope to see real green monitors from NEC.
In Nexus One PenTile Matrix OLED Display (January, 20, 2010), I originally argued that because of the different sub-pixel structure used in the Nexus One the claimed 800×480 pixel format was not accurate. A simple calculation yielded more along the lines of 533×480 because of the 2×2 sub-pixel structure instead of the typical 3×1 found in most LCDs. Soon after the blog was published I was contacted by Joel Pollack, Sr. VP of Strategic Sales and Marketing at Nouvoyance and subsequently had a meeting involving Joel, Candice Brown Elliott (CEO) and Tony Botzas (Director of System Apps and Engineering) on February 3.
After some consideration, I updated the post by stating:
I came out of the 2 1/2-hour meeting impressed and convinced that the 3.7-inch PenTile Matrix OLED display used in the Nexus One does indeed have a resolution that is equivalent to a 3.7-inch TFT LCD with a 800×480 pixel format using red, green, blue 3×1 striped sub-pixels.
I argued in Display Showdown Part 1a: Nexus One that mere hardware specs cannot determine resolution. The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) Display Metrology Committee has a definition for resolution in Section 303-7 of Flat Panel Display Measurements Standard Version 2.0: “… the number of alternate black and white lines that can be displayed with a stated minimum contrast modulation.” I also added that the requirement that these black and white lines not only be displayed but viewed by the human visual system and concluded:
So, let’s move from vision back to hardware specification: does the Nexus One’s PenTile Matrix OLED display have a resolution equivalent to a 800xRGBx480? The answer is: yes, it does.
I thought the debate ended there, but Luke Hutchison in Secrets of the Nexus One’s screen: science, color and hacks on Ars Technica showed the resolution of the Nexus One screen is not as high as claimed. Luke claims that VESA’s resolution measurement methodology in Section 303-7 in the FPDM Standard Version 2.0 is “insufficient to test the display’s true resolution, at least for the way the PenTile display is configured on the Nexus One.” Luke then supported his argument by looking at diagonal white and black lines, which “exhibit significant color banding…” He then concluded:
My main point about screen resolution in this article is that both the Nexus One and the Droid screen were specced at almost the same resolution so they should look the same (I think this is a fair assumption)—and they simply don’t.
In the most recent High Resolution newsletter (March 2010) published by Veritas et Visus, Luke continues his assertion that the Nexus One’s PenTile Matrix OLED display is not as high as claimed in Resolution and false color images on the Nexus One:
PenTile’s creater, Nouvoyance (formerly Clairvoyante), claims that the PenTile’s resolution is exactly comparable to an LCD display of the same number of physical pixels. It is completely impossible for this claim to be correct, given that there are fewer total subpixel elements on the PenTile screen than on an RGB-striped LCD screen of the same number of physical pixels.
Luke pointed to effective pixel size, subpixel positioning, and offered links to full-resolution sample black and white stippled images that induce color artifacts on the Nexus One display. In the same High Resolution newsletter Candice H. Brown Elliott and Joel Pollack responded in PenTile OLED resolution to Luke’s original post on Ars Technica:
In Mr. Hutchison’s article he tries to examine the functionality of the layout independently from the algorithms. That is not possible, as the algorithms are an integral part of how PenTile technology works.
I think the confusion lies in not accurately creating the boundaries of discussion. As I have mentioned already in Display Showdown Part 1a: Nexus One there is a difference between hardware specifications and vision. The PenTile Matrix OLED display was developed and tuned for the way the human visual system works. Our vision system is not simply the sum of the biological capabilities within the eye but works in conjunction with our brain. That sounds simple but it is really quite complex. I don’t pretend to fully know how the brain works when it comes to vision, but I was intrigued to find out that most of what we see are things that we expect to see. Only in a few instances does our brain react to what we see; most of the time our visual system is confirming what the brain is already expecting, which points to a strong correlation of vision to our expectations, a function of the brain. So in agreement with Candice and Joel, I must say the PenTile Matrix OLED display cannot be examined without the underlying algorithms that make it work.
Candice and Joel goes to great lengths to provide ample analyses, some of which I will honestly admit the author does not fully understand. In regards to color banding on diagonal black and white lines:
… the PenTile OLED is capable of reconstructing black and white line pairs, with at least 50% Michelson Contrast, out to the full Fourier space of the input conventional image.
Close-up text images are then shown as examples for the reader to examine in response to Luke’s claim that text were fuzzy. From my point of view, reading the High Resolution newsletter on a 17-inch MacBook Pro at 1920×1200, the close-up text images look quite clear without fuzziness. And in response to color artifacts on stippled images Candice and Joel point to the cause:
… this artifact is caused by a very slight color error that occurs at the boundaries between two different filters in our locally adaptive SPR [Subpixel Rendering] algorithm. Mr. Hutchinson has literally found a “hack” in which he forces the SPR engine to switch between filter sets in a highly structured manner, forcing a negligible, but real color error, to be repeated over and over again until that error is visible.
It wasn’t stated in the article but I am sure Nouvoyance, Samsung, Google, and HTC will make sure the next version of their smartphone (Nexus Two?) will sport a much smarter display allaying fears or doubts that the PenTile Matrix OLED display technology is up to the task of delivering a viewing experience that meets consumer expectations for a “800×480″ display. Even then, I’m still a sucker for high-end LCDs… iPhone HD anyone?
Digitimes: Prime View International (PVI) will invest US$500 to expand its electrophoretic display (EPD) business in China. The company will work together with fanshu.com and Phoenix Publishing & Media Network for content development. China-based Founder Group’s fanshu.com will be the e-book download platform of choice.
More than 600,000 Chinese-language titles are authorized for downloads on fanshu.com and the number of titles are expected to grow at 100,000 per year. PVI and Phoenix Publishing & Media Network will develop China’s educational market by digitizing textbooks and reference titles. The goal is to reduce the consumption of paper and educational expenses. Apple’s iPad might be experiencing considerable demand in the US, more so than expected, but with an entry price of US$499 is considerably higher than Amazon’s Kindle. I’m certain e-book readers will need to hit the $99 price point (or even $49) to catalyze the transition from paper to e-paper.
The half-billion dollar investment will go toward building Yangzhou, China into a hub for EPD production. Yuen Foong Yu (YFY) Group, PVI’s parent company, will be one of the largest investors in Yangzhou, China. Transcend Optronics, the PVI subsidiary that produces TFT LCD panels and EPD backend modules, is also located in Yangzhou. By bringing downstream and upstream companies together development can be accelerated and costs reduced.
China’s e-book reader market is expected to be around two million units in 2010, more than double the 400,000 units that were sold in 2009. With a global market for e-book readers pegged at 10 million in 2010, China’s share is expected to grow from 10% in 2009 to 20% in 2010.
And here’s the long version as to why Adobe’s Flash is wrong for mobile devices. A few points from Thoughts on Flash by Steve Jobs:
- Flash is a closed system, not open and is controlled by Adobe. HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, etc. are open.
- Flash is not reliable, not secure and requires an enormous amount of hardware capabilities. “We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it.” Steve also mentioned that “Flash is the number on reason Macs crash.” And that is the number one reason why Flash needs to get my permission to run every time.
- Flash is based on mouse input. So in a smartphone world where the finger replaces the mouse most applications will need to be rewritten. Steve makes it clear: “If developers need to rewrite their Flash websites, why not use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript?”
- Dependence on Adobe is bad. Here’s Steve again: “If developers grow dependent on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features.”
Michael Gartenberg:
Like Steve, I have not seen Flash work on a mobile device. That doesn’t mean that it can’t or won’t. Adobe needs to not respond to Apple with words but rather actions and showcase shipping devices and how well they can run Flash.
Ditto.