Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Large Flexible Plastic Sheet Displays
Hewlett-Packard is working on large flexible plastic displays - and their goal is to manufacture them for $10 per square foot. Take a look at this 33-centimeter- wide roll of plastic covered with amorphous-silicon transistor arrays designed to control pixels in displays.
(Plastic-backed flexible display)
Carl Taussig is using high-volume roll-to-roll mechanics, the type of high-speed manufacturing process used in newspaper production, to make high-performance transistor arrays on the 33-centimeter-wide plastic rolls. HP researchers are now engineering a process for a planned pilot plant, where the company will produce the arrays at volumes of about 46,500 square meters a year through a partnership with Phicot, a manufacturer of thin-film electronics based in Ames, IA.The idea is to combine these transistor arrays with flexible "frontplanes"--the part of a display that creates the images and that the transistors control. "Our goal is to make displays at a cost of $10 per square foot," Taussig says. That's about a 10th the price of today's displays. Silicon-on-plastic displays might be used in laptops, or a few thin sheets might be stuffed into briefcases, replacing printouts and pads of paper. Taussig also imagines "ginormous displays" pasted to walls to show videos and ads.
SF writer E.C. Tubb described this kind of device in his 1958 classic The Mechanical Monarch:
Against one wall a wide sheet of clear material suddenly flared with light and swirling colour. It steadied and a woman stared from the screen. A woman with long dark hair and eyes that were like twin pools of midnight beneath her heavy brows.
(Read more about flexible wall sheet display)
Update Mar-22-2025: See the television sheet from The Threat of the Robot (1929) by David Keller.
"You have a good room here. Have you tried your television sheet? Probably did not know you had one, did you? Here it is over on this apparently blank wall. Let me turn off the lights and tune in for you.
End update.
Fans of Vernor Vinge are probably thinking about video wallpaper, as described in his 1999 novel A Deepness in the Sky.
Read details about these displays at Technology Review.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 6/25/2010)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 3 )
Related News Stories - (" Display ")
Did Frank Herbert Predict E-Ink Displays?
'A broken circle with arrows pointing to a right-hand flow appeared in the chalf.' - Frank Herbert, 1964.
I Need An Outdoor Spherical Display
'Usually a spherical display hovered in the centre...' - Iain M. Banks, 2010.
Outdoor Video Screens Can Be Arbitrarily Large
The Shape of Things To Come, HG Wells, 1936.
iPhone Air Fulfils Jobs' Promise From 2007 - A Giant Screen!
'... oblongs were all over the floor and surfaces.' - Kazuo Ishiguro, 2021.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Did Frank Herbert Predict E-Ink Displays?
'A broken circle with arrows pointing to a right-hand flow appeared in the chalf.'
Monolith One Giant Industrial Metal 3D-printer
'The object seemed melted together like wax — nothing was distinguishable.'
'Mooncrete' Lunar Regolith Concrete (LRC)
'And here they began to build...'
China's 'Magpie Drone' Ornithopter
'Midges have many capabilities. To the untrained eye, they look like sparrows.'
MAI-Voice-2 Microsoft Text-To-Speech
'I made disks of my own voice to the number of five hundred very carefully chosen words.'
Tumblin' Tumbleweed Rovers To Eplore Mars
'His sensors out and working, and the whirring of the tape that sucked up sight and sound and shape and smell and form...'
Tentacled Robot Captures Space Debris
Preventing annoying space debris build-up.
Prufrock-MB2 Ready In Nashville
'It sounds to me as though you had invented a kind of metal earthworm.'
DIY Robotic Content Farming
'The chief wheeled to the master machine and pressed a button.'
Reflect Orbital Sunlight On Demand
'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors that circulate around the satellite, making it habitable.'
The Amazing Lightfoot Electric Scooter With Solar Assist
'The steel tortoise gave MacKinnon a feeling of Crusoe- like independence.'
Fully Electric, Fully Automated Vegetable‑growing Agribots
'...then back to their work, though little enough it was on these automatic cultivators.'
Vero Robotic Dog With Vacuum Cleaner Feet
'Out of warrens in the wall, tiny robot mice darted.'
AI Operates An Excavator
'So far as I could see, the thing was without a directing Martian at all.'
Boy Makes Biomimetic Turtle Robot
't came out into plain view. Darkington glimpsed a slim body and six short legs of articulated dull metal.'
US Army IBEX Exoskeleton Walks Troops Out Of Danger
'The suit stands up and starts walking, gripping me round the calves and waist, taking the bulk of my weight off my throbbing feet.'
