WSJ: Google X Display Team Works Toward Bezel-Free Modular Displays 56
The Wall Street Journal reports in a paywalled article that a team under Pixel Qi founder and OLPC co-founder Mary Lou Jepsen at Google's skunkwork labs Google X is working on modular video displays that could be expanded by snapping them together "like Lego." Ars Technica, TechSpot, The Verge, and several others summarize the claims made by "three people familiar with the project"; here's a snippet from TechSpot's version:
Even in the home and office, the use of multiple displays isn’t uncommon but just like with larger implementations often used for advertising purposes, screen bezels are always a problem. Bezels are less visible from a distance but up close, they pretty much ruin the experience.
The scope and target audience for the project is unclear at this hour as we are told the project is currently in an early stage. One of the biggest challenges is figuring out how to stitch images together across screens, both electronically and through software.
Desperate Times? (Score:3, Insightful)
Posting for a paywall article? Budget must be low at Slashdot to advertise for wallstreet journal.
You getting 20% of the signup costs?
Great article i bet, shame i'am too fucking tight to give you 20p to read it.
Re: (Score:3)
This has been going on forever -- it used to be back in the early 2000s that every other article was a link to the New York Times with a "subscription required" warning.
People frequently used to request an option to get rid of postings that linked to pay sites, but we never got it. Although at least we eventually got the "Shut Up JonKatz" option.
Re:Desperate Times? (Score:4, Informative)
Too tight or too lazy.
Just copy/paste the WSJ article title into google, and click the link.
You kids...
Re: (Score:2)
Posting for a paywall article? Budget must be low at Slashdot to advertise for wallstreet journal.
You getting 20% of the signup costs?
Great article i bet, shame i'am too fucking tight to give you 20p to read it.
If you don't like ads, then you shouldn't read it anyhow. The ad for the paywall article is about making modular ad walls that when combined can make even bigger ad walls.
Think Shinjuku Tokyo Japan [wallpapers-diq.com], but everywhere, in your home, at the groceries, at work, etc., brought to you by Google and as easy to assemble as legos.
Done before (Score:2)
One of the biggest challenges? (Score:3)
One of the biggest challenges is figuring out how to stitch images together across screens, both electronically and through software.
Umm, Every OS on the market already does this when you hook multiple monitors up to it.
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Umm, Every OS on the market already does this when you hook multiple monitors up to it.
Right up until you run a 3d app. Then you have to have the right graphics system in your PC and it's left up to the video driver.
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agreed. pay article, but I suspect the summary may be leaving some detail out here. I'm not sure why this would be an issue at all. Pixel 4000 is last one on screen one - pixel 4001 is first on screen 2. Giant jumbo tron screens are modular - this seems like a solved problem. I wonder how you protect the edge of a bezel-free monitor though?
Skeptical of seamless images / Ars Project (Score:1)
I wonder how the group plans to stitch together multiple displays seamlessly. Removing the bezel is only part of the problem. There'd still be a noticeable seam between panels, never mind the problem of lining up pixels. I suppose one could argue that beyond a certain pixel density - +400dpi or something - lining up pixels exactly wouldn't be necessary. But then you'd have to offset by that difference, and the joined panel would have to test for and respond to that offset to compensate.
I think most would be
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I reckon it'd be like Lego. A 4-stud panel (that's 4-stud wide, standard height) would have a 16:10 aspect, a 2-stud 8:10. Tile a row of 4s, then the next row would consist of a 2, then 4s and a 2 at the other end - just like building a Lego brick wall. The panels would necessarily need to sport the same dot pitch, and the studs form part of the electronics to align the panels. Because the interlocks are in the same positions relative to the vertical edge on all the panels, they align themselves and you get
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By using OLED, it should be possible to make a screen with pixels literally right up to the edge. By using a fairly serious locking connector mechanism, it should be possible to clamp those panels down tightly enough to where the line is not really perceptible when the array is active.
All I could think of when looking at this was Stringer Bell from The Wire swapping out sim cards in his phone and what a boon that might be for criminals. Or at least crime drama on TV.
I'm sure it will feature in Watch Dogs 2 or similar, but it's fairly irrelevant. Besides, there are already dual-SIM phones.
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drinkypoo - gee, I remember you. Nice to see some old timers 'round here.
I'm sure it will feature in Watch Dogs 2 or similar, but it's fairly irrelevant.
Way to let out a balloon. Comparing The Wire to Watch Dogs is like serving Chef Bloyardee and calling it Bolognese.
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Way to let out a balloon. Comparing The Wire to Watch Dogs is like serving Chef Bloyardee and calling it Bolognese.
The point was that a modular phone figuring in a plot is more worthy of the former than the latter. And it's all based on hearsay, anyway. I have no direct experience with either. It's not my kind of game, and it's not my kind of television, respectively.
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I'm thinking you place two current monitors side by side, then slap a strip of OLED tape down the seam. With a small matter of programming, and a few photo transistors on the back side, it could be self calibrating and self aligning. As far as the OS goes, it would just be another tall thin monitor.
Re:wait for a few more gens of Oculus Rift (Score:4, Interesting)
Carmack's keynote at the 2014 Oculus Connect conference said it would take several more generations before Samsung would have panels that could support seamless 120 fps. Apparently there's a problem with peripheral vision noticing 60fps with a significant number of people. Basically, Samsung is focused on developing panels for the phone market and Oculus piggypacks on that development line. They don't have the market penetration to drive display research.
The most interesting part of his discussion was proposing interlaced formats and variable refresh rates with G-sync to up the perceived refresh rate around peripheral vision.
The talk is about 90 minutes and - ironically - audio is not synced with video. Still, he doesn't talk much bullshit and it's an interesting listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Seamless screen joining (Score:2)
I imagine that someone will figure out a way, but I won't hold my breath.
Re: (Score:1)
Dell already did it. The Venue 8 7480, for instance, sports an edge to edge screen. I still like my hackaday 30" 4:3 (4x15") wall made with 1024x768 Samsung panels from old Latitude laptops. It's like using a tall Cinema display. Almost. If you ignore the 1/16" wide frame around each panel.
Ya know what's harder than lining up the pixels? (Score:3)
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Yeah, it's actually quite an annoyance - we got multimonitors at work, and it drove me up the wall that one was bluer than another. So you'd have two Explorer windows open, and o
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Get a new cable, that will probably fix it. And it's magenta, not pink.
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For $90 bucks
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Yes, color correction devices exist. However, to perform a really good calibration on an ordinary monitor takes about nine tests which take ten to thirty minutes each depending on how frisky your device is feeling that day. You're going to have to do that for every single panel in the set.
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It would seem practical to use a single HD webcam to calibrate all the monitors in this way.
Might work if you calibrate the webcam before each run. But you'll need an ideal setup...
Oh Dear... (Score:2)
portrait view (Score:2)
We already have screens too wide, unable to present a readable document which is taller than it is wide. Great for widescreen movies and certain spreadsheets, not so good for letters, legal papers, business documents, books or magazines.
We may have to stack these monitors somehow.
Really? (Score:1)
"One of the biggest challenges is figuring out how to stitch images together across screens, both electronically and through software."
I'm not discounting the intelligence of the designers at Google, but splitting video of any resolution across multiple monitors is not something that needs to be figured out. Christy, Green Hippo, Derivative and dozens of others have been offering solutions to this for years, if not decades. The finest pitch LED screens are about 5mm, these days (I'm talking about the bi
Pengertian Pakar (Score:1)
Pengertian Pakar 2 (Score:1)
I wanna... (Score:1)
Bezel less display sounds so good I wanna have sex with it...