tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91233878187166657102024-03-13T01:30:00.113-05:00Norm's Flat PanelTV, Digital Signage, Mobile, and VRNorman Hairstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10483780552567247916noreply@blogger.comBlogger102125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9123387818716665710.post-54186443710958917282023-06-01T20:36:00.004-05:002023-06-01T20:36:55.601-05:00Tag<!-- Google tag (gtag.js) -->
<script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=G-MJ6DF5XM7H"></script>
<script>
window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
gtag('js', new Date());
gtag('config', 'G-MJ6DF5XM7H');
</script>
Norman Hairstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10483780552567247916noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9123387818716665710.post-28019815784108276462015-02-03T09:23:00.001-06:002015-02-03T09:23:29.190-06:00Engineering vs. Physics<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>In technical developments, I was taught to think of problems in terms of one basic dichotomy, "Engineering Problems vs. Physics Problems." Engineering problems are things such as cost, having the right tools, or product design issues. These are problems that can be solved with time or with just working harder; things you basically know how to solve although the best solution may not be apparent. Physics problems are much harder. These are problems that say for the product to operate in the way envisioned, it must violate some law of physics or some fundamental property of the materials or system being employed. This is not to say that the problem is unsolvable but that some invention is required for the product to work but in a different way from what was initially envisioned.<br /> <br />
Amazingly, inventors and whole organizations can labor away at physics problems for years and years as if it were some routine engineering issue they were tackling. One of the more famous of these was American Optical's efforts to invent optical fiber. American Optical worked on the problem for years before the Corning invented a fiber and a manufacturing process that actually worked. The Corning inventions being direct and very simple (as many great inventions are) it was easily copied by American Optical who went into manufacture using the Corning inventions claiming prior art. Of course law suits ensued. American Optical lost because Corning was able to demonstrate that 1) American Optical never understood the physics of the problem they were trying to solve and 2) As to their prior art, if they had worked in that direction for a 1000 years, they would never have produced a working fiber because again, they didn't understand the nature of the problem they were trying to solve.<br /><br />
This long intro is a preface to discussion of <a href="http://venturebeat.com/2015/02/02/apple-will-open-a-2b-data-center-on-the-site-of-failed-iphone-screen-manufacturer/">Apple's recent decision to spend $2 Billion to convert the GTAT facility into a data center.</a> Clearly Apple is giving up on sapphire, otherwise GTAT or some restructured version of it might be useful going forward. This would tend to show that Apple ran into a Physics Problem in converting from glass to sapphire, not: cost or yield issues, design issues, tooling or such. Sapphire actually had to physics issues fundamental to the nature of the material.<br /><br />
As described in "<a href="http://flatpaneldisplay.blogspot.com/2014/10/big-surprise.html">Big Surprise</a>," although sapphire was harder and more scratch resistant than glass, with that hardness came brittleness. Secondly, and more importantly, sapphire has a higher index of refraction meaning that screens made with a sapphire overlay would have much higher surface reflections than glass. With LCDs having marginal performance outdoors anyway, the surface reflection issue made the material a "non-starter". Apple did file some patents that Applied the Gorilla Glass process to sapphire in an effort to make it tougher and patents concerning overlays to address the surface reflection issue. However, there is a Second Law of Thermodynamics problem in that secondary systems to correct system inefficiencies inevitably can not correct all of them. This is the reason why you can not build an auto engine that is 100% efficient... or anywhere near 100%. In the case of optics, secondary corrections (additional layers) inevitably create their own surface reflections, decrease optical throughput, add expense, cut yield, and otherwise introduce new inefficiencies that were not present in the original system. Frequently its like drilling a hole in the bottom of a sinking boat to let the water run out.<br /><br />
So, after a billion dollars of investment to produce sapphire for iPhone screens, the facility is being converted into a data center. I'm reminded of the ending of "Raiders of the Lost Ark," after such prodigious efforts to find the Ark it gets nailed up in a box, placed in government storage and lost again. Some of the sapphire making furnaces will no doubt find new homes. But placing so many at once, many might wind up being nailed up in boxes, mute testament to the years long hubbub over sapphire covered iPhones.
Norman Hairstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10483780552567247916noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9123387818716665710.post-87736371434870887022015-01-06T12:02:00.000-06:002015-01-06T12:03:46.129-06:00More on Display-Centric Movies<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>I had done a couple of posts on movies where display technology was central to the movie plot (<a href="http://flatpaneldisplay.blogspot.com/2012/08/my-top-ten-display-movies.html">here</a> and <a href="http://flatpaneldisplay.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-film-rolls-no-more.html">here</a>), naming a top ten. Of the ten, there were many other movies that I cold have named e.g. Star Wars, Star Trek, The Matrix, Total Recall, The Avengers); but for better or worse I chose the ten that I did. I recently saw a YouTube posting that I may have omitted a big one... 2001 A Space Odyssey.<br /><br />
The premise of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSo6s_xrj4c">YouTube video</a> is that the monolith (the 1 x 4 x 9 object that appears at the dawn of human intelligence) is actually a widescreen TV set on end. Although videos are not project on the monolith, it serves as a teaching tool for proto-humans early on in the movie, a means of conveying ideas. Later, when a duplicate appears orbiting Jupiter, it appears as a doorway to other worlds and it eventually transforms into the ultimate immersive display. In function, it exhibits the best of what TV is supposed to do. In physical form, the 4:9 aspect ratio (2.25 width to height) falls beyond the old 1.85 US widescreen standard and just short of the current 2.33 standard. The thickness is greater than what you would currently get in a TV but perhaps it has really good built in sound.<br /><br />
On a tangential subject, over the holidays I saw "The Hobbit, the Battle of the 5 Armies" in 3D. Thankfully, filmmakers have gotten out of the habit of throwing things out of the screen at you with their new-found toy in 3D and the use of 3D was quite acceptable. However, the thing that 3D was really supposed to bring, increased realism was very much lacking in the presentation. The digital projection was sharp and crisp as it is supposed to be, but it gave the overall effect of artificiality. Rather than being as looking through a window, the digital projection makes it painfully obvious the image is a projection. In a recent edition of "The Economist" director Quentin Tarantino describes digital cinema as <i>"<a href="http://www.economist.com/news/technology-quarterly/21635330-laser-illuminated-cinema-projectors-promise-brighter-and-more-realistic-images">The death of Cinema as we know it</a>".</i> The Economist article goes on to state, <i>"Digital projectors cannot match the sheer detail of a pristine 35mm print, nor its rich contrast between the deepest shadows and brightest highlights."</i> However, for me, it was not the lack of detail but the digitized edges (not quite jaggies)that gave a fake feel to the image. Seemingly, this is something that could be corrected with software, however the function of most image enhancement software is edge sharpening rather than edge blurring. Perhaps the role of <a href="http://flatpaneldisplay.blogspot.com/2010/04/image-post-processing-in-entertainment.html">image post processing</a> in cinema should be re-thought. In any case, as in my 10th selection for display centric movies, "<a href="http://flatpaneldisplay.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-film-rolls-no-more.html">Here's to Film</a>".Norman Hairstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10483780552567247916noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9123387818716665710.post-75845512819621861102014-11-26T10:05:00.000-06:002014-11-26T10:05:08.660-06:00OLEDS and Why Your Old CRT TV still Works<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>
Two stories about TV, not directly about OLED, that I will tie together down below. This note is about OLEDs. Although you can not buy a LCD TV that was made in the US, the active matrix LCD was actually invented in the US, in Pittsburgh by Westinghouse. Westinghouse was a prominent TV brand that was developing new technology. Westinghouse did not survive in the TV business long enough to capitalize on their invention because they had a problem at their factory. It seems a worker replaced a steel mesh filter in their water reclaim system with a copper coated steel mesh filter. That put just enough copper into the wash water and just enough wash water residue was left on the TV screen to serve as a phosphor poison. The TV tubes that the Westinghouse factory was making would go dark after about 6 months of use. The resultant recall of half a year’s production put Westinghouse out of the TV business. Parts per billion of copper put them out of business.<br /><br />
Another major brand of TV in those times was General Electric (GE). Although GE made glass for things such as light bulbs and such, GE bought their glass for CRT tubes from others. In addition to making glass, GE had an array of materials technologies including silicones and polycarbonate. At one point, in order to put downward pressure on glass prices, GE threatened to develop a polycarbonate CRT bulb. The glassmakers looked at the threat and determined that although such a product was possible and did have some advantages relative to glass, the product would only last about a year before there was enough inward migration of atmospheric gas to render the polycarbonate CRT non-functional.<br /><br />
The point of both stories is that emissive technologies tend to be sensitive to the most minute amount of contaminants. That is why some of the companies developing OLED technology concentrate on an ultra-clean manufacturing environment. It is also why the other key to OLED’s future is hermaticity. In a CRT, glass provided an absolute hermetic environment. The CRT was made in a clean environment, the inside of the tube, where the phosphors were, was maintained in high vacuum. Further a sacrificial barium “getter” was deposited on the inside of the tube to bind any stray oxygen that was left over from manufacture. <br /><br />
So, the phosphors did their thing in an absolutely pristine environment that was maintained as long as the tube continued to hold its vacuum, which is tantamount to forever for a consumer product. In terms of product chemistry, the environment virtually eliminated any alternative pathways that could be formed between the phosphor in its elevated state and when it drops back down to its base state by emitting a photon. The industry employed other tricks, such as moving to higher and higher voltage phosphors. This brought the product to the point where the phosphor aging was no longer the primary aging limitation but metallization of the glass from decades of electron bombardment.<br /><br />
The high voltage architecture may have some relevance to OLED design as well. But certainly, cleanliness and hermaticity are the key to making OLED technology work.
Norman Hairstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10483780552567247916noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9123387818716665710.post-66962168233101232222014-10-01T17:09:00.001-05:002014-10-08T10:17:37.220-05:00Big Surprise<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>The iPhone 6 does not us sapphire. Apparently Ray Soneira, agrees with me; this is from his DisplayMate website, "<a href="http://displaymate.com/iPhone6_ShootOut.htm">The use of sapphire to make the iPhone screens scratch proof was one of the most talked about rumors over past year as a result of Apple’s $578M investment with GT Advanced Technologies to build a factory in Arizona. The likelihood of sapphire appearing on the iPhone 6 was close to zero because it will probably take at least another year for everything to come together. It is important to note that sapphire has some downsides over and above its much higher cost and manufacturing complexity. The most important issue for display performance is that sapphire has almost double the screen Reflectance of glass (due to principles of optics), so it will be harder to read sapphire screens in high ambient light. That might be one reason why the recently announced Apple Watch Sport edition has a cover glass rather than sapphire like the other models – because it is much more likely to be used unshielded in high ambient light outdoors. Another reason is that while sapphire is very hard it is also brittle and is likely more prone to impact breakage, which is more common in sports situations. So, if given the choice, I personally would choose a cover glass with its better screen visibility and breakage protection. Others may find the scratch protection more important.</a>" <br /><br />
There is commonly confusion over display specifications. Many people do not understand the difference between color gamut and color resolution. And it is understandable that a non technical person might not understand the difference between hardness and toughness or the difference between an isotropic glass and an anisotropic transparent crystal. However, a display being fundamentally an optical device, when the discussion turns to a new material in the optical chain, it is amazing that the new material's optical performance could be so widely ignored. In GTAT's promotional literature, they did publish its "index of refraction", for all to see (... that particular page seems to have been removed from the web site. "Oops!.. Sorry about that. The page you requested cannot be found.") However the format of the publishing indicated that "more is better" even though a higher index is exponentially more surface reflection. In "<a href="http://flatpaneldisplay.blogspot.com/2012/11/more-is-better.html">More is Better</a>, " I detail the problems mobile displays have with surface reflections; how that is the limiting factor on current mobile LCD performance. The amazing hype regarding sapphire leading up to the iPhone 6 announcement just goes to prove that no one actually reads specs.<br /><br />
<b>Update 10/8/14</b> <a href="http://investor.gtat.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=874701"><b>GTAT filed for chapter 11 on 10/6/14</b></a> The stock is now selling below $2 and had been as high as over $20. Its market cap is now just under $240 Million.
Norman Hairstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10483780552567247916noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9123387818716665710.post-25818796058277037632014-01-29T19:38:00.001-06:002014-01-29T19:38:50.939-06:00Smart Watch Formats<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>
In the Sep 20, 2009 edition of “Touch Panel,” in an article that I published titled, “The case for a flexible touch panel keyboard” I made this statement regarding mobile devices at that time, “<b>This limitation in screen information content has produced a number of “unbalanced” designs where the computing power of the device addresses too few pixels to adequately support the intended functions of the device.</b>” Of course that statement was shortly followed, in June of 2010, with Apple’s retina display where they effectively pushed pixel density to the limit. It has subsequently been followed by numerous large phone designs where screen sizes have grown from 3.5” to well over 5” with the actual screen now constituting almost the entire front of the device rather than 70%. And makers continue to add to the pixel density even though the retina display theoretically started already at the resolution limit of the human eye. Full HD resolution is now available giving 2 megapixels, about 13.5 times the number of pixels as the Apple 3G. Given this journey of the past few years, mobile device makers may be planning to start over, not with low resolution displays but with smaller displays in a watch format with the consequent reduction in pixel count proportional to the reduction in screen area.<br /><br />
Some time ago one of my cousins described a technique for flight simulator displays where the direction the pilot was looking was monitored. The center of his field of view was generated in high resolution while things in the pilot’s peripheral were generated in much lower resolution. An observer watching the pilot in the simulator could clearly see the high and low resolution areas of the screen. However, to the pilot, it appeared that the entire screen was in high resolution. This technique was adopted to maximize the use of limited computing power in rendering an image for the pilot. Although a smart watch may not have the same computing power limitations, it would seem that the screen area limitations could be addressed by a similar technique.<br /><br />
The current generation of motion sensors is very small and very precise. They could be used to create virtual screen area to compensate for very small screens. This is standard in “near to eye” applications but could also be useful on a wrist mounted device. But there is no real substitute for just using a larger display. The first wrist watches were pocket watches with a wrist band. They kept pretty-much the same size although they were eventually engineered to be much thinner. Given their single function, there was never much of a point to making them bigger. That is not the case with a smart watch. A large cylindrical display with the virtual screen area enhancement would have interesting 3D effects as well. <br /><br />
Norman Hairstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10483780552567247916noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9123387818716665710.post-73125882748947695622013-08-16T10:05:00.000-05:002013-08-16T10:05:35.828-05:00Flat is Out?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div><a href="http://t.co/zk32NltBSD">Samsung has announced a new curved OLED TV</a>. This follows the LG curved OLED. After 40 years of development to get a flat TV screen, after years more development to get that flat screen ever thinner, is the industry now headed the other way? Not Quite.<br /><br />
The industry has several problems that it is dealing with simultaneously that makes curved screen OLED TV an enticing idea. First and foremost, in conjunction with recent depressed economic times, the fiz has gone out of the TV market. The industry has attempted to rectify this by pushing a number of features, in many cases pushing performance of the features well beyond what most human beings can see. Though specs do sell TV sets and they certainly are a means to premium pricing, specs that can easily be seen and be demonstrated by retail floor personnel have a much better chance at growing the market. One of the big advantages of HDTV was that it was a demarcation between the old and the new. The difference between an HDTV set and an older NTSC set could be seen, even when the set was off. A curved screen recreates this.<br /><br />
A second issue that the industry is dealing with is the growth of "over the top" (OTT)viewing of TV and video content on mobile devices. Very high resolution small screens with very high quality sound compete for consumer attention and the consumer dollar. Though video viewing on notebook computers has been around for a while, OTT is now offering a much more immersive experience. Unlike 3D, driven by the film makers and mostly used to push the content out, the curved screen draws you in. It creates an experience that is much harder to replicate in a mobile device.<br /><br />
A third issue is that the industry would really like to commercialize OLED. LCDs are great but they need multi-billion dollar fabs. Long term, OLEDs could have some cost advantage but they will never get to the long term until they start generating returns to scale, getting prices down by getting volume up. Competing with LCDs by doing things such as being a little bit better on some aspects probably won't do. It is not saving Plasma. So, the best way to grow OLED use is to make a product that can not be made with an LCD. That is how LCD did it. Absent the notebook computer and the volumes it generated, which can not be made with a CRT, we would still have CRT TV. Though there is an alternate pathway for OLED doing mobile devices, any large size TV volume certainly does not hurt.<br /><br />
Absent <a href="http://flatpaneldisplay.blogspot.com/2012/08/my-top-ten-display-movies.html">new form factors that actually require a flexible display</a> (Scroll down to "Red Planet"), curved displays will be OLED's forte.
Norman Hairstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10483780552567247916noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9123387818716665710.post-58089335967986191662013-08-09T20:25:00.002-05:002013-08-17T10:52:54.355-05:00Exhaustive Research<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>I have two teenage daughters (actually not, one is 12, one is 20) that find it hard to agree on anything. However, they did both agree on their absolute need for iPhones. They have both had their iPhones for 2-3 years and both now want to update their phones... both to Samsung Galaxies. I can't say if this is just an eb and flow of what happens to be hot at any particular time, if Apple is losing some of its mojo, or this is just some random defection by two previously dedicated Apple device owners. Taken together with recent press, it does seem that the smart phone market is much more up for grabs than it was.
Norman Hairstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10483780552567247916noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9123387818716665710.post-23099000192989571932013-07-25T12:15:00.002-05:002013-07-25T12:15:56.795-05:00A Flat World<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>
Around the time of the New Millennium, the microwave mapping of the universe was begun and it was almost immediately determined that the universe is flat. Amazingly, it was once thought that the earth was flat and the sky was round, sitting like an inverted bowl over the earth. Now the earth is round and the sky is flat. We live in a flat universe.
I recently published a blog article about a <a href="http://flatpaneldisplay.blogspot.com/2013/04/a-flat-panel-camera.html">flat panel camera</a>. Shortly thereafter <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/news?viewArticle=&articleID=5749864274839224395&gid=707517&type=member&item=248514544&articleURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Etechnologyreview%2Ecom%2Fview%2F515651%2Fbell-labs-invents-lensless-camera%2F&urlhash=jAWZ&trk=group_most_popular-0-b-shrttl">Technology Review</a> published an article on the same subject. Now Apple has patented a <a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/07/18/apple-details-in-display-fingerprint-sensor-tech-in-patent-filing-from-authentec-cofounder">flat panel fingerprint sensor</a>. As I noted before, as each component reaches its norm areal and performance limit, man components such as cameras, speakers, and now biometrics will be improved by making larger but flat versions. When the screen becomes flexible, these components will need to be flexible as well.
Norman Hairstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10483780552567247916noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9123387818716665710.post-1553847446100402072013-07-17T23:37:00.001-05:002013-07-17T23:37:48.431-05:00Barry Blundell's "Glasses-free 3D cinema 70 years ago"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>
This 60+ page White Paper is an abridged extract from the second volume of “3D Displays and Spatial Interaction” which I’m in the process of writing. The document reviews early efforts (prior to 1950) to implement glasses-free 3D cinema. It focuses on work undertaken in Russia (S P Ivanov), Belgium (E Noaillon), France (F Savoye), and the UK (Dennis Gabor). Other pioneering work will be included elsewhere in the book. The subject is fascinating and I hope that you will find the material of interest. Your feedback would be much appreciated.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.barrygblundell.com"></a>
The White Paper may be downloaded from www.barrygblundell.com
Norman Hairstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10483780552567247916noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9123387818716665710.post-51322851975305518822013-07-07T08:40:00.001-05:002013-07-07T08:40:41.619-05:00Parting Ways<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>
From the point where HDTV was ready to implement until it actually was implemented, a full decade past. The time was both a concession to the practical issues involved in updating US TV stations and a bribe to those same stations to make the investment by granting them additional spectrum. Standard Definition color TV (NTSC) lasted for 40 years. Less than a decade into HDTV the consumer electronics industry wants to move from HDTV to 4K. For a variety of reasons, there is no chance that the broadcasters will go along. As with the transition to HDTV, they must make a substantial infrastructure investment with no pathway for earning additional returns. Given the ever increasing value of the radio spectrum, there is no chance that congress will once again bribe them with free spectrum in order to make the transition. The idea of promoting 4K is an acknowledgement of the diminishing relevance of broadcast TV.
Given this state; given that the broadcasters no longer have the final word on TV formats, why stop at 4K. 4K is a great boon to the digital signage industry but ordinary consumers might be better served by other format changes such as a wider aspect ratio. Digital signage might also benefit from increased aspect ratios as well. On both TV and other platforms, display technology has been pushed to the point where some specs exceed what the human eye can comprehend while other factors languish with obvious needs for improvement. If the broadcasters are no longer the controlling factor for TV formats, then "let 1,000 flowers bloom."
Norman Hairstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10483780552567247916noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9123387818716665710.post-49570366820722038652013-06-01T14:34:00.001-05:002013-06-01T14:34:32.796-05:00Chicago, billboard Capital of the US.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>
Per Bloomberg, JCDecaux will erect 34 massive billboards in Chicago, expected to generate $700 million a year in revenue. This comes on the heels of <a href="http://flatpaneldisplay.blogspot.com/2013/05/digital-signage-comes-of-age.html">Wrigley Field's intended adoption of a massive jumbotron</a>.Norman Hairstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10483780552567247916noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9123387818716665710.post-84628417405624775332013-05-31T10:54:00.001-05:002013-05-31T11:44:09.317-05:00Boom<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>
<div style="width:540px">
<a href="http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=%22digital+signage%22" title=""digital signage" Job Trends">
<img width="540" height="300" src="http://www.indeed.com/trendgraph/jobgraph.png?q=%22digital+signage%22" border="0" alt=""digital signage" Job Trends graph">
</a>
<table width="100%" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="0" border="0" style="font-size:80%"><tr>
<td><a href="http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=%22digital+signage%22">"digital signage" Job Trends</a></td>
<td align="right"><a href="http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=%22digital+Signage%22">"digital Signage" jobs</a></td>
</tr></table>
</div>
A picture is worth a thousand words. This chart represents the number of current job postings mentioning "Digital Signage" growing from about 400 in the most recent trough to over 1100 over a period of a few months. Digital signage has the potential to be as big, in terms of total screen square footage, a TV sets. Further, the hiring in digital signage reflects new optimism on the part of retailers, increasing investment in promotion of their business.<br /><br />
While digital signage is not the new internet, digital out of home, incorporating social networking and custom tailored message delivery into brick and mortar retailing will help level the playing field between the B&M's and internet retailing.Norman Hairstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10483780552567247916noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9123387818716665710.post-65507622168875196642013-05-29T11:35:00.000-05:002013-05-29T11:56:10.364-05:00Privacy Again<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>
Some years ago when low light capability was part of the consumers’ figure of merit for a video camera, Sony decided to push the envelope with their “Night Shot” line. Night Shot had an infrared light and a CMOS sensor sensitive in the infrared. The camera worked well in the dark however there were some drawbacks to the technology. Fashionable clothes are sometimes made with very thin fabrics that are virtually transparent. Fashion designers compensate for this by coloring these clothes black or patterning them so that the transparency is less noticeable... If you are a human being looking with human eyes confined to the normally visible spectrum. If you are an infrared video camera, the black coloring or the patterning may not matter. The outcry from this newly discovered use of the Night Shot caused Sony to immediately modify the camera, adding an IR blocking filter to limit the range the camera could peer. <br /><br />
The privacy concerns raised by Google Glasses are, by comparison, minutia in that you cannot film anything with the device that you couldn’t ordinarily see. In fact, Google Glasses are less intrusive than a cell phone camera in that if you are filming with Google Glasses, it is obvious what you are looking at and may be filming. With a cell phone camera, in or out of your hand... you get the picture. In general f anyone objects to being videotaped, the best advice is to stay at home. The Boston bombers’ mother was arrested for shoplifting at the Boston Lord and Taylor; she was caught on camera. The exact same store seems to have been crucial in tagging her sons for the Boston Marathon bombing as the store video surveillance apparent extends to filming across the street. As Scott McNeally famously said... years ago, “ You have zero privacy anyway.” <br /><br />
In banks today, it is common to have multiple video cameras with multiple screens reminding you that you are being surveilled. In my opinion, this is a poor use of a public information display. The message that you are being surveilled could probably be gotten across 15 second bursts with the rest of the time being devoted to using those screens to promote bank services. This would be equally effective, less "Big Brother-ish," and allow the bank to promote itself better to its patrons. I expect that surveillance will only grow and the banking type public display of surveillance imagery will grow as well. I do not know if the Boston Marathon bombings would have happened if the bombers had realized just how many cameras captured their activities but it would certainly be a concern to shoplifters seeing themselves occasionally pop up on any in-store digital signage. As I noted in a <a href="http://flatpaneldisplay.blogspot.com/2013/04/minority-report-and-hunt-for-boston.html">previous post</a>, I expect that the next or some soon Boston Marathon will feature this crime deference feature of coupling surveillance with a publicly mounted display. With or without the public display device, my suggestion is to not do or display anything in public that you would not want filmed.
Norman Hairstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10483780552567247916noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9123387818716665710.post-25726417295009088592013-05-28T08:17:00.001-05:002013-05-28T08:17:30.959-05:00Becalmed<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>
Apple has not done a major new product intro for the better part of a year and these days, the Apple headlines are about how it avoids paying US Taxes. Sony, the Apple of its day, suggests that it might just be better off <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/28/business/global/sonys-bread-and-butter-its-not-electronics.html?hp&_r=0&gwh=53ECEB5AF7F4D33171880CDC789E8AA3">selling insurance</a> rather than making electronics. PC sales are declining in favor of much cheaper tablets. Indeed the only excitement in consumer electronics these days seems to be Google Glasses; even there, there are significant questions about whether this may ever be a mainstream consumer product due to concerns about privacy, distracted driving, distracted walking, eyestrain, etc. Ahead, there is possibly an Apple watch, an Apple branded TV set, or some new consumer device from an unexpected source. There is also always the next generation of the iPhone. However, the digital-out-of-home market may be switching its emphasis from stand-alone consumer devices to a more interactive world where those devices are designed more to interact with each other and with public information displays…. digital signage.<br /><br />
Digital signage is one part of electronics that is certain to grow in volume and in scope of its social impact. Near Field Communications (<a href="http://flatpaneldisplay.blogspot.com/2012/08/short-reach-communications-can-we-talk.html">NFC</a>) and possibly other point to point or net linked communications services will offer new ways for retailers or service providers to interact with the public and for the public to interact with each other. With Apple opting out of NFC for its last version of the iPhone, the door is left open for someone with a business model more accommodating for the growth in digital signage, perhaps one of the other electronics companies, perhaps not an electronics company at all. Now is one of those times when someone with a completely new vision can change the direction of consumer electronics, much as Apple did when it jumped into the cell phone market.
Norman Hairstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10483780552567247916noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9123387818716665710.post-60519203975232468512013-05-07T10:16:00.000-05:002013-05-07T13:54:10.197-05:00Digital Signage Comes of Age<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>
Wrigley Field is the second oldest ball park in the major leagues (Fenway is 2 years Older). The next closest in age is about 50 years its junior. Although the electric light was invented over 110 years earlier, Wrigley did not get lights, for the purpose of playing night games, until 1988. Wrigley still has its old scoreboard where the operator sits inside it with binoculars and has to physically change the numbers with each ball and strike.<br /><br />
This bastion of high technology early adoption is now contemplating adding a 6K square foot Jumbotron. The cost of not having one with its opportunities for advertising and <b>crowd engagement</b> is too pressing.
Norman Hairstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10483780552567247916noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9123387818716665710.post-34473146170175479802013-04-22T10:54:00.000-05:002013-04-22T10:54:31.396-05:00A Flat Panel Camera<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>
A smartphone is more than just a phone. The platform has grown by accreting the functions of other platforms: watch, calculator, MP3 Player, PDA, and now even the laptop. This has been done in part by miniaturizing the components but also in large part by consolidating functions within components. Although display technology continues to produce visually better display one of the biggest advancements in display has been the consolidation of the keyboard and mouse function within the display. In looking to future development in display technology, much of the focus is rightly on better displays; visually better and flexible OLEDs. However, much is to be gained by considering further functional accretion into the display. Specifically, as touch technology moves to optical (non-touch) versions touch panels take on the capability of flatbed scanners. Perhaps they could also take on the role of camera.<br /><br />
Current cell phone cameras are limited by the size of their optics. Obviously this limits light input (low light capability) but it also means that they are diffraction limited in terms of resolution. Though phones may boast resolutions of 10 megapixels or more in their CMOS sensor, the optical resolution may be much smaller than this, as small as 2 megapixels. Flat panel cameras currently exist. They work by using folded optics to break up and compress the optical path. This is a workable but inelegant and is not a technique that could be integrated into the display. A solution involving synthetic aperture imaging could conceivably be integrated into the display and would give resolutions much higher than the human eye. Current tablets are much thinner than just the lid of laptops from not so long ago and have every bit of the functionality. Increasingly, the display is the device. Ultimately, this may be literally true.<br /><br />
Norman Hairstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10483780552567247916noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9123387818716665710.post-39553011395787622912013-04-20T11:46:00.001-05:002013-04-22T08:28:32.400-05:00"Minority Report" and the Hunt for the Boston Marathon Bomber<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>
<a href="http://global.networldalliance.com/new/images/article/covers/boston2_2_150.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://global.networldalliance.com/new/images/article/covers/boston2_2_150.jpg" /></a><a href="http://www.digitalsignageconnection.com/digital-billboards-work-overtime-during-boston-marathon-terrorist-crisis-427?goback=.gde_1225757_member_233985413">Clearchannel</a> is, rightly, touting their role in dealing with the crisis. In the movie, "<a href="http://flatpaneldisplay.blogspot.com/2012/08/my-top-ten-display-movies.html">Minority Report</a>" the entire town is looking for Tom Cruise using its ubiquitous digital signage. In banks, the screens showing the feed from the security cameras are not referred to or counted as digital signage. However combine the two and you may have start to finish video monitoring of the next race with both the contest and the crowd being widely shown up and down the rout. Image from "<a href="https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&shva=1#inbox/13e30d4e597c5052">Digital Signage Today</a>" <br /><br />
In addition to fixing the highway system so that it connects to the airport logically, the "Big Dig" left Boston with an all-new data infrastructure. It would be the ideal place to implement ubiquitous digital signage. <br /><br />
Norman Hairstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10483780552567247916noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9123387818716665710.post-72392955593760464302013-04-20T10:26:00.001-05:002013-04-20T10:26:50.756-05:00Hermeticity<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>
<a href="http://www.theatlanticwire.com/business/2013/04/apple-will-pay-those-water-damaged-iphones-after-all/64160/">Apple will reportedly pay $53 million to settle a class action lawsuit concerning wet iPhones.</a> The Apple warranty does not cover dropping the phone in the toilet... which seems to be a common occurrence, so Apple placed a Liquid Contact Indicator (LCI) on the phone to determine which phones had been submerged. However, it seems the LCI also reacts to humidity. The settlement begs the question whether humidity can disable a phone as well and whether folks in Louisiana and Central Florida can routinely expect shorter life from their devices. There are tried and true remedies to this type of problem.<br /><br />
<a href="http://flatpaneldisplay.blogspot.com/2013/02/glass-v-plastic-substrates.html">As discussed in another post</a>, CRTs routinely lasted 20 years or more. They had a few things going for them that mobile electronics did not have. They maintained an <b>internal vacuum</b>, they were built from two pieces of completely <b>hermetic glass</b>, the glass was joined together by an equally hermetic <b>frit seal</b>, the inside was “<b>gettered</b>” to scavenge up any stray oxygen and, the power and data conduits to the tube were hermetic glass-to-metal seals. All of this was done very cheaply and the tubes were physically robust. In CRT manufacturing plants the tubes were occasionally dropped. Not only would a well-made tube not necessarily break, they would sometimes bounce. Made with non-strengthened glass, the combination of the <b>Implosion band</b> and the vacuum imparted sufficient surface compression that the tubes were able to survive indefinitely in most homes where their treatment was not always as gentle as one would want for a big glass bottle.<br /><br />
Many of these same solutions could be applied to smartphones and tablet. It would involve some re-thinking of the I/O but is certainly doable. The result would be not only a longer lived device, one that is susceptible to neither humidity or to actual submersion, but one that is physically more robust as well.<br /><br />
Norman Hairstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10483780552567247916noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9123387818716665710.post-39369415644203727122013-04-17T10:02:00.001-05:002013-04-23T12:59:18.818-05:00The First Nanomaterial: CorningWare and Controlled Nucleation Grain Growth<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>
Wikipedia, “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanomaterials">Nanomaterials is a field that takes a materials science-based approach on nanotechnology. It studies materials with morphological features on the nanoscale, and especially those that have special properties stemming from their nanoscale dimensions.</a>” <br /><br />
The recent hub-bub over the sapphire lens cover on the iPhone 5 and proposed use of sapphire as a “coverglass” has the display industry rushing to rediscover the difference between a glass and a crystal, both transparent but not the same thing. In addition to transparent polymers, there is also a class of ceramics that can be transparent as well. The most well-known pyro-ceramic (also called glass-ceramic) is CorningWare. CorningWare is usually visibly white but comes in a transparent version that is trademarked as Visions. In its white version, CorningWare is transparent to radio waves and is commonly used to make “transparencies” for the military and space programs in the form of radomes. Other forms of pyro-ceramics include infrared polarizers widely in use in the telecommunications industry, and two forms of photochromics: one lightens and darken depending on ambient light levels, a second undergoes permanent color changes depending on it's optical exposure during manufacture. All of these products are made possible by a process called controlled nucleation grain growth.<br /><br />
Controlled nucleation grain growth is a process by which a glassy liquid converts to a crystalline form by precise control of the crystallization process. Nano-Crystals are formed in a very controlled manner giving very specific properties to the finished body. This includes extreme hardness and very specific optical properties. These crystals can even be oriented by subsequent processing making the formed part birefringent and enabling its use as a polarizer. Some effort was made to employ the photochromic version as a color filter; however, the process was never able to produce the saturated colors that were necessary. However, this did not stop IBM from filing multiple patents in the area. In addition to cookware and optical products, pyro-ceramics have been investigated as armor for military vehicles and high temperature molds for metal casting. The process was invented in the 1950’s.<br /><br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSmGjB-G6v8">That' the ticket Ladie</a>.
Norman Hairstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10483780552567247916noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9123387818716665710.post-62859702542803609492013-04-15T13:24:00.000-05:002013-04-15T13:24:53.981-05:00A New Korean War?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1czP793uDgYt79UdSgbLkZ6bIoQYUxmAmOvKYzEtRXolnz1tiq4vH1RoqN-KaKJCWLLaJajSLAt8WfsRLw-1XXV10y5hAXjfmLfWMqWDxITi43z-fX8DnXu5cN24iJsxUvwylr1zPxbk/s1600/daddyinthearmy.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1czP793uDgYt79UdSgbLkZ6bIoQYUxmAmOvKYzEtRXolnz1tiq4vH1RoqN-KaKJCWLLaJajSLAt8WfsRLw-1XXV10y5hAXjfmLfWMqWDxITi43z-fX8DnXu5cN24iJsxUvwylr1zPxbk/s320/daddyinthearmy.jpg" /></a> My father (bottom row, second from right) and I both spent considerable time in Seoul, he as a soldier in the Korean War, myself as a marketing person in the display industry. The Korean War, as is any civil war, was a great tragedy with 1/6th of the Korean population dying. When my father was in Seoul, there were virtually no buildings standing. Today it is the home to millions of people and millions more in the immediate surroundings. Though no one can say what is in the heads of the North Korean leaders, or even our own leaders some times, most of the threats coming out of the north have been directed at the US rather than at the south. One can only hope that any linger sense of Korean nationalism keeps the north from targeting south and rolling back 60 years of recovery.Norman Hairstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10483780552567247916noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9123387818716665710.post-73393712679684860892013-04-12T16:14:00.003-05:002013-04-15T09:19:35.226-05:00Decline in Engineering Job Creation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>
Both as part of the debate on immigration reform and independently per request from west coast technology firms, the congress is considering increasing the number of those on technical visas and immigrants with technical skills admitted to the US as there seems to be a shortage. But is the shortage real? Indeed.com is one of those web sites that consolidates information from other sites into one interface. In the case of Indeed, it consolidates employment solicitations. It also has a number of tools to help the job searcher, one of which is a Trend chart that shows how many or what percentage of employment solicitations mention a particular skill. This facility of Indeed.com shows some peculiar results regarding engineering.<br /><br />
For most of the current century 10% of employment ads mentioned engineering. During the 2008 collapse, this number had been approaching 15% but fell back sharply coinciding with a renewed loss of manufacturing jobs. Since the collapse, there has been a slight recovery in the percentage of job solicitations mentioning engineering. However in mid 2012 that number collapsed again, falling below 10% and reaching levels of pre-2006. <br />
<div style="width:540px">
<a href="http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=engineering" title="engineering Job Trends">
<img width="540" height="300" src="http://www.indeed.com/trendgraph/jobgraph.png?q=engineering" border="0" alt="engineering Job Trends graph">
</a>
<table width="100%" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="0" border="0" style="font-size:80%"><tr>
<td><a href="http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=engineering">engineering Job Trends</a></td>
<td align="right"><a href="http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=Engineering">Engineering jobs</a></td>
</tr></table>
</div><br /><br />
The general trend of the above graph is repeated by plotting individual engineering specialties (electrical, mechanical,chemical), "civil engineering" is relatively stable for now but only because it could not get any worse. Although there has been some recovery in manufacturing jobs, the chart tends to indicate a continued hollowing out of the country's technological base. The decline in percentage of engineering jobs being created lead the overall decline in job creation and may be something of a leading indicator. It highlights the need to grow manufacturing to return the US to economic health.
Norman Hairstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10483780552567247916noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9123387818716665710.post-80191437694907827252013-04-11T10:09:00.001-05:002013-04-11T10:09:51.586-05:00When Your Business Model Expires (The End of Broadcast TV Pt II)<b><i></i></b><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>
I have written before that <a href="http://flatpaneldisplay.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-end-of-broadcast-tv.html">broadcast TV is not long for this world</a>. They are not going to go away tomorrow, but they are going away. Now, these septagenerian networks are acting their age and asking the world around them to contmplate life without them. <a href="https://www.aereo.com/">Aereo</a> is a service offered in NYC that provides both live and recorded broadcast TV over the internet. Each customer is assigned two antenaes that both capture live TV and and record selected shows. Three copies are made of each for streaming to mobile, wifi, and standard broadcast recievers. Effectively it is like the consumer purchasing their own TV antenae and exercising their public access rights. With such a business model, per two previous court challenges, Aereo can capture broadcast content for their consumers without paying any royalties to the broadcasters.<br /><br />
Per ZDNet, "<a href="http://www.zdnet.com/what-is-aereo-and-why-does-it-have-the-tv-networks-in-an-uproar-7000013833/?s_cid=e539&ttag=e539">While advertising was once the life's blood for broadcast TV, over the last few years, cable and satellite operator retransmission fees has become vital to their business... So it is that CBS and Fox are threatening to turn off OTA broadcasts in NYC if Aereo continues to stream broadcast TV without paying retransmission fees. </a>" Of course, they won't do that. Per my earlier blog post, the spectrum that the networks occupy in large metropolitan areas is worth more than those local stations. As the internet continues to grow and the diversity of content sources grows as well, the value of their content will only decline while the value of their spectrum continues to grow. The value of the broadcast spectrum is as the real estate value of a apple orchard nestled in the heart of Manhattan. Someone walks by and picks an apple or two off of a limg that happens to extend over the edge of the property and the land owner react by threatening to cut down the trees and abandon the property.... We can only dream that this would actually happen.<br /><br />
Norman Hairstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10483780552567247916noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9123387818716665710.post-81618809775187614812013-03-27T11:23:00.000-05:002013-03-27T11:23:57.880-05:00Child Killed by Falling Signage<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>
One of the larger hidden hazards of the CRT was the weight of the device, more particularly, the weight distribution. Due to the possibility of injury from flying glass from a tube implosion, the glass in the front of the device was relatively thick. Most of the weight of a finished TV was the front face of the tube. This meant that with a tug on the front of the set, a TV could be sent toppling forward. For larger sets, serious injury or worse could result. With flat panels, this particular hazard has largely vanished.<br /><br />
However, the news informs us of <a href="http://www.digitalsignagetoday.com/article/210417/Airport-digital-signage-accident-a-wake-up-call">a 10 year old boy killed, and the rest of his family injured by the toppling forward or a floor mounted display</a>. In this case, the harm most probably resulted from the weight of all of the other components besides the display. But still, a metastable arrangement of a display found a way to reach a more stable position and hurt those that were in the way. <br /><br />
The accident happened at the newly renovated airport in Birmingham, Alabama. The Accident would not have happened in, California or any other earthquake zone as the display would have been fixed to the wall even if it was resting on the floor. So, maybe a lesson learned for the digital signage industry. Sitting a display on the floor is one way to get around Americans with Disabilities Act requirements however it is still incumbent on the venue owner to consider the safety of those that can directly touch the display. UL provides minimal guidelines for impact safety, but it could be wise to follow normal architectural guidelines for display case glass to prevent consumer injuries from broken glass. <br /><br />
Norman Hairstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10483780552567247916noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9123387818716665710.post-47506978430891095532013-03-27T10:56:00.001-05:002013-03-27T10:56:55.952-05:00An Apple 4K TV?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>
Digitimes is reporting that <a href="http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20130326PD218.html?mod=2#.UVMP4jJh29A.twitter">Apple will release a 4K Apple branded TV in late 2013 or early 2014</a>. Though possible, I would say this is unlikely. As has been widely discussed, 4K shares many of the handicaps that lead to disappointing 3D sales: specifically, an extreme premium on pricing with a bare content library. My impression is that to be the type of player that they want to be in TV, Apple has to be shooting for at least a 30% US market share. With the top end of the TV market, sets double the price of the average TV, never being more than 15% of the market, Apple needs to effectively split the TV market into the new and old. This is effectively what they accomplished with the cell phone market; smart phones became not just the high end of the market but a different category of phone. Can Apple do this with a new category of TV without either an existing 4K content base or an existing 4K developer community? Also, when Apple introduced increased resolution to the phone market, it was a pre-existing need and there were immediately applications that utilized the extra visual bandwidth. Few consumers make full use of HDTV resolution now, the extra visual bandwidth of 4K does not have the pre-existing need that phone resolutions had.<br /><br />
I think Apple is more likely to bring about their TV revolution by increasing the utility of existing available content. The Apple branded TV won’t be 4K but it will be a new aspect ratio with specialized HD content for the new screen real-estate. 4K may come later but coming on the heels of 3D, launching a new TV format with no existing content library is unlikely.
Norman Hairstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10483780552567247916noreply@blogger.com0