Polymer Vision Produces 5" Rollable Displays

drquizas writes "Polymer Vision (associated with Philips) has produced a rollable display using organic electronic techniques. The display, currently measuring 5" diagonal and capable of displaying QVGA at 320x240, will eventually be targeted towards applications such as military uses (maps anyone?), newspapers and e-books."

In a word;

[Darken_Everseek]

Cool.

Look like they might have come up with something to satisfy people like me. I love the idea of electronic books; but I'd miss being able to turn the page. Plus, if the electronic ink is as readable as they say, no worries about eyestrain.

great gadget for ... one summer?

[Anonymous Coward]

from the article: ...
Further, "the life of our organic electronics displays has been already prolonged from "hours to months," he added.

Re:Military maps? Why?

[fish_in_the_c]

I actually at the moment work for the military in the mission planning field. Much of the mission planning that is already done is done on computers. Some plains ( bigger ones) carry laptops to be able to replay their mission in flight if needed. I'd think the advantage in something like this is as much in the fact that it will not shatter or crack when dropped/ stepped on ect. Not to mention it is lightweight.

Re:Wallpaper

[Tarwn]

Ah ha found the company, if not the article:
http://www.prisma-techniek.nl/latestnews _lcd.htm

Of course I would feel better about the company if they didn't have the MS sample picture as part of the front of their website...

Display specs....

[Ratface]

Interesting to note what's current and what's in production...

Dimensions: display + pixels + aperture
Display size: 71 mm x 96 mm (diameter 119 mm).
Number of pixels: 240 x 320.
Optical aperture: 79%.
Driving: refresh rate, voltages, power consumption, volume electronics
Optimum refresh rate: 50 Hz.
Operating voltages: column voltage range: -15V, +15V; row voltage range: -25V, +25V; common electrode voltage range: 0, +5 V.

Power consumption: maximum power consumption of the display: 52 mW. Typical power consumption (10% duty cycle) of the display: 1 mW.
Contrast, reflectance, switching time, bi-stable, grey levels, colour
Contrast: 9:1.
White reflectance: 25%
Switching time: 800 ms.
Bi-stable
Number of grey levels: current: 2; in product: 4.
Colour: current 1; in future product: 1
Flexibility, thickness
Display thickness: current: 350 m; product: 100 m.
Display flexibility: current bending radius: 20 mm;
future product bending radius: 10 mm.
Stick facts: (user interface, bluetooth)
Component area of the addressing electronics: 48 cm2.
Height of the addressing electronics: 2 mm.
Typical size of a 0.5 Wh rechargeable Li-ion battery (10% duty cycle, 1 hour use per day): 1,3 cm3.
Battery life under the same conditions: approximately 1 month.
Bluetooth interface

Looks like the fujitsu product

[Beautyon]

Fujitsu have come out [irdial.com] with a similar looking flexible display product.

It looks like we are going to get very light, very energy efficient displays, rsn. These might not be used in a flat form, but would be very useful in making hard cased laptops even lighter...or clipboard devices...its just amazing.

Universal Display, Cambridge Technology & SID

[PeterCook]

Three other sources on this topic - worth looking at - UDC has a video of an early working green monochrome display: Universal Display Corporation (NJ) www.universaldisplay.com Cambridge Display Technology (UK) www.cdtltd.co.uk Society for Information Display www.sid.org

Re:important factoid,

[bhtooefr]

BTW, "4 types of gray" usually includes both black and white. It does on the old Game Boy or on older Palm PDAs, anyway.

Scientific American

[Tibor the Hun]

SciAm has a good primer [sciam.com] about the tech of these displays on their website.

They also have an artist's impression of these screens, stating that "Future looks flexible".

Apparently the future is finally here.

Article in Sci Am about Organic Displays

[Anonymous Coward]

There's actually an article in the february Scientific American about organic displays, though it talks more about organic leds and not really electronic ink. Still, a pretty interesting read, which has been kindly been placed online at the Sci Am website here [sciam.com]

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Military maps? Why?

[Kent Recal]

Every time a technical achievement like this one is made people start talking about the military uses.
Too bad the major technology-driver still is the desire to kill each other more effectively...

(my two idealistic cents)

Re:Military maps? Why?

[lowmagnet]

Actually, the curse was on BladeRunner:

Q: What is this "Blade Runner Curse"?

A: Someone once noticed that a number of the companies whose logos appeared in BR had financial difficulties after the film was released. Atari had 70% of the home console market in 1982, but faced losses of over $2 million in the first quarter of 1991. Bell lost it's monopoly in 1982. Pan-Am filed for bankruptcy protection in 1991. Soon after Blade Runner was released, Coca-Cola released their "new formula", resulting in losses of millions of dollars. It is interesting to note that since then, the Coca-Cola company has seen the biggest growth of any American company in history. Cusinart filed for bankruptcy protection in July 1989.

BladeRunner FAQ [buffalo.edu]