‘3D Enabled’ Households By 2012, reports DailyDOOH

11 May 2009, 18:15:23 | Chris Sheldrake

Interesting quote from Sarah Carroll, Director of Continuous Services, Futuresource Consulting in their recent research ‘Strategic Impact of 3D’ report on the 3D enabled home, she said “Consumers are starting to experience the new wave of 3D technologies at the cinema and through Digital Out of Home advertising, and it won’t be long before there’s a groundswell of demand for 3D within the home”

Bottom line Futuresource Consulting believe that by 2012 more than 10% of US and Japanese households will be ‘3D enabled’ and Western Europe won’t be far behind.

Now more than ever it seems that 3D is coming to the fore, with backing from all major sectors of the entertainment and consumer electronics industries.

3D movie production of course is intensifying and cinemas all over the world are investing in 3D technologies – feedback too, from audiences has been highly positive, with encouraging ticket sales.

Futuresource Consulting however believe that the ultimate goal is to bring 3D to the home. Their report reveals studios, consumer electronics companies, broadcasters, video game vendors and network operators are all poised to power 3D through the consumer diffusion curve.

DailyDOOH

40” OLED Panels by 2010, Says Panasonic JV

While Panasonic is also cooperating with other partners to develop OLED technology, the Nikkei daily in Japan says a new joint venture between Panasonic and Sumitomo Chemical aims to develop and manufacture 40-inch or bigger OLED panels by 2010.
In an LCD, tiny packets of liquid crystal make up each pixel. These don’t actually radiate any light. Instead they change their structure when hit by voltage, so they need a backlight (cold-cathode or LED). In OLED, each pixel is an array of itsy-bitsy coloured LEDs that glows in corresponding colour initiated by the TV signal.
You can view OLED screens from any angle and they can show a wider range of colours (and black areas are a deeper black). Because they don’t need a backlight they can be much thinner while actually consuming less electricity.

From rAVe Europe

Mentor to distribute Mitsubishi LCDs

 

Mitsubishi Electric has appointed Mentor Distribution to distribute their range of LCD public displays. Mentor has more than 20 years experience within the display market, and will sell the range which includes Mitsubishi’s integrated touchscreens.

Fraser McDonald, UK Sales Manager said ‘Mitsubishi for many years has been a leading manufacturer within the a-v sector with its comprehensive product range. Our LCD public display monitors coupled with Mentor’s integrated touch screen technology enables us to strengthen our product offering within the market place. We are confident that Mentor’s experience and knowledge will be invaluable.

From Avinteractive.co.uk

Paul Milligan, 23 April 2009

Mentor to distribute Mitsubishi LCDs | News | AV Interactive | Audio Visual News | AV Magazine | avinteractive.co.uk

3D displays take a step forward

After visiting the Display 2009 show in Tokyo 2 weeks ago, it seems that commercial 3D displays viewable with the naked eye are edging closer to becoming a practical reality. VMJ here is Japan are already selling 3D LCDs into digital signage applications; companies like Newsight are also now producing product capable of a very convincing 3D effect over a wide viewing angle. But what about “true” 3D – the creating of a 3 dimensional object in space? Impossible? Think again!

As reported in InAVate magazine, a Japanese company has apparently succeeded in creating just such a system.

Sky’s the limit for outdoor advertising

24 April 2009

From the sides of buses, to giant billboards or even the backs of train tickets; advertising seems to pop up everywhere with no surface immune from transformation into a marketing space. And now, even the heavens aren’t safe, as an advanced laser system emerges from Japan, set to revolutionise advertising by creating 3D images in the sky.

Firing hundreds of laser pulses each second creates the illusion of constant points of light in the air, www.burton-jp.com

The New Scientist reported that Burton of Kawasaki, Japan was investigating outdoor advertising uses for a laser system that creates an illusion of many constant points of light.
Burton says that most reported 3D displays draw pseudo-3D images on 2D planes by utilising the human binocular disparity. The company said these systems cause problems, including a limitation of the visual field and physiological displeasure due to the misidentification of virtual images.
To overcome these problems Burton said it tried to develop a “True 3D Display" which produces bright dot in the air so audience can see 3D images in true 3D space.
“Our display device uses the plasma emission phenomenon near the focal point of focused laser light,” the company said. “By controlling the position of the focal point in the x, y, and z axes, it displays real 3D images constructed by dot arrays in the air.”
The New Scientist reported that a practical device could be created by 2011 and said suggested applications included light displays that resembled fireworks and 3D TV.

InAVate – Sky’s the limit for outdoor advertising

See me, hear me, touch me

As reported in rAVe Europe…

Gartner Research analysts predict HD based video meeting solutions will replace 2.1 million airline seats annually. Speaking at the annual Gartner Predicts 2009 briefing, Gartner Fellow Steve Prentice said, "The challenge of the current economic conditions demands that every organisation revisit the need for face-to-face meetings."

He went to tell the audience “… there is no doubt that Telepresence and other approaches to virtual collaboration such as Immersive Workspace, which is built on top of Second Life, or yet to be released solutions will provide a real alternative for many businesses. Companies should put aside previous prejudices and bad memories of older video-conferencing services and seriously investigate these new technologies."

As rAVe editor Gary Kayye notes, Gartner is… “powerful enough in the IT industry that their predictions can actually accelerate processes already in action.” However, much like the “Digital Signage Revolution” that took a decade to actually get going, while the idea is sound, reality has yet to catch-up with the vision.

The technology behind telepresence has come a long, long way from the clumsy and expensive ISDN systems of yesteryear. I can remember being involved in a videoconference meeting with some colleagues in Dubai many years ago. Once we totalled –up the cost of renting the equipment and the phone lines, it would have been cheaper to actually fly there!

With the advent of cheap, high-speed data transfer over IP networks, we now have a practical technology infrastructure to build workable systems upon. And I think Gartner’s predictions of a future in which virtual meetings are commonplace are essentially correct. But we are still a long way from finding the right medium for that form of communication.

Total immersive workspaces are really the Holy Grail of telepresence. Second Life showed early promise, but I can’t really visualise the CEO of a major corporation chairing a board meeting dressed as a Goth. It seems that the business world shares my views, with many big names reportedly scrapping their Second Life presences.

No, I think the future lies in a technology that allows people to interact naturally – with the technology (or technologies) providing an invisible layer in between. There have been some interesting experiments that predict some of the forms that telepresence might take, such as the virtual CEO addressing a shareholders meeting in Melbourne last year via an HD video link and some clever projection.

But it’s in the realms of personal virtual interaction that the real interest lies. There are some really exciting experiments being done by many companies, including Microsoft, who are working on a revolutionary form of interactive display called Touchlight that allows telepresence users to see and hear each other naturally, and even swap documents and virtual objects by “passing” them to each other. Read more about Touchlight here.

So – telepresence? yes I think it’s inevitable; and when it does arrive it will have an impact on business and personal communications equal to that of email and the internet. Some time soon? maybe not.

AJ

Japanese team invents video paint

April 1 2009 – Tokyo: A team from one of Tokyo’s leading technology institutes has announced a completely new form of digital display technology that looks set to revolutionise the way information is displayed electronically.

Professor Kenjiro Shigatsubaka and his team from the Kichijoji Institute of Digital Ultrachromatics (KIDU) presented the new technology at a small private gathering of academics at an undisclosed venue in West Tokyo. Professor Shigatsubaka’s new technique employs a revolutionary liquid polymer that is excited by an electric charge to alter its appearance.  Molecules within the compound can present either a transparent aspect or a semi-opaque one depending on the electrical charge applied to it. By creating versions of the polymer using cyan, magenta and yellow pigments, a substrate capable of displaying a full spectrum of colours can be built-up in layers by applying several coats of the “paint”. The substrate is excited by a electric charges in the X and Y axes, which interact with each other to create complex interference patterns. By controlling these interference patterns, Professor Shigatsubaka is able to create a moving image using the polymer substrate. The effectiveness of the technique was demonstrated to an astonished audience by a junior member of the team donning white overalls and painting a moving picture onto what appeared to be just a plain white wall.

“We still have some way to go to perfect the technology,” conceded Professor Shigatsubaka. “Inertia within molecules limits the bandwidth we are able to achieve t present and results in some artefacts in fast-moving images. However the technique is already good enough for most applications and we are confident of being able to improve performance dramatically in the future.”

Professor Shigatsubaka is convinced that his invention will transform the built environment in the 21st century. “For the first time everybody will have complete freedom to change the environment they live in with the touch of a button. If you want to watch TV on the ceiling, relax in a forest grove or even in outer space, you can do so as easily as changing channel on TV,” he said. “From now on, the chore of decorating will be a thing of the past,” he continued, adding that hitherto menfolk will be free to enjoy restful and guilt-free Bank Holidays and Sundays.

The markets have been quick to react to the news: Leisure groups such as golf clubs saw big gains, as did paint manufacturers. DIY stores however were hit hard as the implications of a world freed from the curse of the “quick makeover” became widely recognised.

Laurence Llewellyn Bowen was unavailable for comment last night.

Yankee Stadium’s New HDTV Is Bigger Than Yours — Way Bigger | Gadget Lab from Wired.com

By Jose Fermoso March 25, 2009 | 6:01:00 AMCategories: Displays, Sports, Television

Anyone walking into the new $1.3 billion stadium for the New York Yankees this spring is bound to be amazed by the size of the center field LED scoreboard, as the first photos of the screen reveal.

Taken by a local CBS affiliate in New York, the pics show early tests of the 103-by-58-foot, 1080p HD Mitsubishi Diamond Vision LED display, which is six times larger than the screen at old Yankee Stadium. According to Mitsubishi, the display is embedded with 8,601,600 LED lamps (covering a total of 5,925 square feet), and can put up to four simultaneous images, with picture-in-picture capabilities.

Yankee Stadium’s New HDTV Is Bigger Than Yours — Way Bigger | Gadget Lab from Wired.com

Microsoft Surface Launches in 12 EMEA Markets

From rAVe Europe

Microsoft Corp. announces expanded commercial availability of Microsoft Surface to 12 select markets in EMEA (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Qatar, Spain, Sweden, UAE and UK.)
Microsoft Surface is a surface computing platform that responds to natural hand gestures and to the placement of real-world objects on the display. With a large, 360-degree, horizontal user interface, Microsoft Surface creates a tabletop computing platform where multiple users can collaboratively and simultaneously interact with information, content and physical objects. Microsoft sells Surface as an enabler that lets companies attract and convert new customers as well as cross-sell products and services, drive customer loyalty, and achieve operating efficiencies.
As content and applications provide the real context of the Microsoft Surface experience, developers are critical. The Microsoft Surface partner program has expanded to include more than 120 partners from 11 countries
One example: Telefónica I+D is working on the development of Microsoft Surface applications for the retail, banking, digital signage, leisure and entertainment sectors. The Telefónica flagship store in Madrid, Spain, features a Microsoft Surface app that lets customers have a personalized shopping experience (lets buyers shop by accessing info about multiple mobile devices by placing them on the display.)

Mitsubishi Demos ‘3D Touch Panel’ — Tech-On!

Mar 11, 2009 11:46
Tadashi Nezu, Nikkei Electronics

Mitsubishi Electric Corp prototyped a capacitive touch panel that can detect the distance between a finger and the panel and demonstrated it at Interaction 2009, which took place from March 5 to 6, 2009, in Tokyo.

Mitsubishi Electric calls the touch panel " 3D touch panel" because it can determine not only the x- and y- (plane) coordinates of a finger but also its z- (normal direction) coordinate. The prototype has a 5.7-inch screen with a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels (VGA).

The prototype is intended for use in mobile devices with a small touch panel. For example, the company envisions mobile devices equipped with a "mouseover function," which changes the image of an icon when the mouse pointer is placed on it.

This time, Mitsubishi Electric had a demonstration of moving a finger toward thumbnail icons and icons on a map and changing their shapes.

"We think the mouseover function is more useful in smaller screens," the company’s spokesperson said.

By calculating the time variation of capacity in the z-axis direction, "the acceleration of the finger approaching the panel can be detected," the spokesperson said. With this method, the panel can determine the speed of the approaching finger.

"If the backlight is designed to be red when the finger moves fast and blue when it moves slowly, emotional changes of the user can be reflected on the panel," the spokesperson said.

The prototyped "3D touch panel." A white circle is displayed on the area approached by a finger. The circle becomes larger as the finger moves closer to the panel.

When a finger approaches the panel, icons pop up around it.

One of the thumbnail pictures enlarges when approached by a finger.

Mitsubishi Demos ‘3D Touch Panel’ — Tech-On!

Toshiba develops TV wallpaper

03 March 2009

Toshiba unveiled “television wallpaper” at Tokyo’s annual International Nanotechnology Conference and Exhibition, revealing that its scientists had used nanotechnology to create flexible paper capable of showing images. The revolutionary wall coverings, announced at the conference held February 18 – 20, are a result of a breakthrough in OLED technology that allows the paper to emit light.

Scientists at Toshiba have increased the efficiency of OLED devices by using light that has been redirected by an ultra-fine grating that is fabricated by self-assembled nano particles. OLED is far less energy hungry than LCD or plasma equivalents.

The paper can be used to project moving pictures or images to create different atmospheres. Furthermore the paper can emit light which could potentially eliminate the need for additional light sources.
Toshiba says the concept is still many years away from production.

InAVate – Toshiba develops TV wallpaper