SEATTLE – A television sewn into your shirt sleeve. A dashboard screen to monitor the kids in the back seat. A 3-D computer monitor sharp enough to make a hard-core gamer’s heart stop – or help a surgeon start one.
The gizmo-packed exhibition hall at the Society for Information Display’s international symposium offers a tantalizing vision of what’s to come.
This week’s meeting was all about extremes – monitors that are very big or very small, very thin, very light and very, very high-resolution.
Another big focus: making the cutting-edge technology very low-cost.
While some tech enthusiasts are willing to shell out thousands of dollars for the next new thing, whether and how soon more mainstream versions of these gadgets will appear in your living rooms – or even clothing – will depend largely on the price.
Few can afford to pay $12,000 for a stunningly detailed 3-D computer monitor from SeeReal Technologies GmbH. The screen has two built-in cameras that track eye movement, so the viewer can move about and still see the 3-D display in focus.
For now, the product is aimed at government officials who pore over detailed maps, or doctors who perform delicate surgery. But its tiny German maker recently introduced a lower-end version – without the eye-tracking system – for about $3,600.
In perhaps a year, SeeReal hopes it can offer a consumer version – ideal for video game enthusiasts – for about $500.
While many companies were promoting superslim screens for use in cellphones and other hand-held devices, researchers from Royal Philips Electronics were showing off technology that would make screens as thin and flexible as plastic.
The ultralightweight displays, still in development, could be used for wearable displays sewn onto jeans or sweaters, or to create a low-cost curved computer monitor,said Henri Jagt, a researcher with Philips in the Netherlands.
But Jagt said such products won’t hit the market for at least three years.
Eastman Kodak Co. touted its thin, high-resolution screens made with “organic light-emitting diodes” as being better than liquid-crystal displays because they don’t need a backlight.
The technology, already found in digital cameras, cellphones and car stereos, could be incorporated into a dashboard monitor to police the kids or a rearview mirror to offer directions, the Rochester, N.Y.-based company said.
Korea’s Samsung SDI Co. Ltd. is working at what might appear to be cross-purposes. Its massive 80-inch plasma screen is designed to provide high resolution at a low cost, while its tiny 1.8-inch LCD screen aims to wow users with little regard to cost.
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