On Display

Emerging display technology and smaller consumer electronics form factors will create sea changes in the way we interact with computers and networks.

The brightest new display technologies? Most of us have heard about OLEDs, or Organic Light Emitting Diodes. Cheaper, lighter, more flexible, and more energy efficient than back-lit LEDs, OLEDs will enable new man-machine interactions. OLED displays can be built on flexible plastic or glass. No need for bulky laptops or displays. OLED manufacturing costs are expected to be much lower than LED costs, so you can afford displays everywhere. OLED displays could go on windshields, on retail glass windows, or on glass table tops. Since OLEDs draw so little power, more displays can go in power-challenged applications like portable or remote computing.

Rapid degradation of the materials that create blue light in OLEDs, as well as some patent and licensing issues, have slowed OLED's market entrance. Nonetheless, Samsung has demonstrated a 40" OLED HDTV display and should introduce OLED HTDV to the market in 2007. We'll have to wait a while for the plastic sheet computer, but it's possible that a touch sensitive keyboard, electronics, and power supply could be integrated into the same plastic sheet that has an OLED display. Voila! A portable computer that folds up to fit snugly next to your Pocket Protector.

Projector displays also enable different man-machine interaction. High-end projectors use special materials to display cinematic quality images in theaters from digital video, allowing entirely digital distribution of theater quality video content. DLP and LCD technology dominate current consumer projector products. DLP is a relatively recent MEMS device with tiny mirrors that reflect light to the right place, while LCD is a well establish display technology from the 1970s.

When projector keyboard technology matures and works well, it will give users of BlackBerry and other PDAs with tiny keyboards more keyboard real estate without necessarily adding more bulk to a PDA. It's conceivable that your handheld could have miniaturized projectors for both display and keyboard input. Voila, again! Your projector PDA will fit snugly next to your fold-up plastic OLED computer.

If you can't wait for all these new technologies, you can try this at home.