Rugged Displays

Introduction
There are about 3 dozen parameters by which you can measure a display. Occasionally there is either a technical breakthrough or someone opts to up the performance on one of these significantly beyond the norm and then promote that feature heavily. Other device makers then follow suit to capitalize on the promotional spending the first mover is making with their own performance improvements and promotional spending. Soon performance and the claims of performance move beyond what the average person can actually experience, beyond what anyone can see, and sometimes beyond what can even be measured on conventional equipment.

Lately these have tended to focus on electronic improvements due to the funding sources for R&D in the industry. A prominent computing company frequently they surveys users of computing devices and regularly finds that ruggedness was always in the top three of areas where consumers desire improved performance. However increased ruggedness involves making trade-offs from areas the company was pushing, specifically thinness. So this is not an area that gets much attention from the company or its competitors even though it has very high consumer utility. In the notebook area, I am only aware of Panasonic with their Toughbook brand, actively promoting ruggedness. In the cell phone are, in-spite of designers desire to make cell phones increasingly thin, we find out from of the out-fall of the Apple v. Samsung case that the vast majority of cell phone user encase their phones, sometimes doubling or tripling the thickness in order to increase the ruggedness.

Of course, there are also companies that specifically make devices for children that necessarily design to more stringent specs; but toughness has not widely caught on within the industry… with a few exceptions that are mostly prescriptive. The ThinkPad has a special rubberized paint that gives it better impact performance. The iPhone has the Gorilla Glass cover instead of a plastic one to give it better resistance against surface scratches (keys) in your pocket. Sony also has offered a TV set with a Gorilla Glass cover to prevent screen damage in case the kids get too involved in their video games. However, there are other challenges besides impact and surface scratches.

Moisture
Early smart phones were very susceptible to moisture. Rather than fix the problem, the first reaction was to mark them with a dye that changed color when it got wet. This relieved the maker from having to pay for replacement of wet phones but did not solve the consumer’s problem. Lately, cell phone case makers have been offering water resistant models and some cell phone makers have introduced product that can actually be submerged without damage. In larger LCDs, digital signage and outdoor LCD TV sets have developed encasements that allow these devices to operate in the rain.

Sun
The sun can impact performance of a cell phone or mobile device in two ways. First, trying to use your mobile device outdoors is frequently problematic as the sun washes out the screen. Although this is not specifically ruggedness in that it is not a permanent failure of the device, it does render the device useless. The wash out can be so thorough, that it is sometimes not apparent that the screen is on. Pixel Qi makes a screen that is viewable in direct sunlight; I had expected that type of screen to star appearing on mobile devices before now. There is also a rumor that one of the next Kindles will have both an LCD and an e-paper display.

A second impact of the sun is radiant heating. The unsourced diagram shows the heating of the dashboard of a BMW on a 100 degree July day. The upper (green line) shows the dashboard reaches 185 degrees while the ambient (lower blue line) gradually climbs to 100. Please note that although the ambient air in the interior of the car may reach 145 degrees, the dashboard temperature is more a direct result of the amount of solar radiation it is receiving and the temperature curve reflects the rapid increase in radiation rather than the gradual increase in ambient temperature either inside or outside of the car. Further the dashboard is protected from some of the solar radiation by the glass in the car. An object in direct sun, say left on a picnic table near the summer solstice can reach 210 degrees or more and that equilibration with the current level of solar radiaon can happen in only about 10 minutes. Other than Apple’s preference for white encasements, little has been done to isolate mobile LCDs from possible impairment by the sun.

This may change. Although optical isolation is not a focus issue with mobile devices, it is a recognized problem with digital signage where both ambient light wash out and solar thermal clearing are substantial problems. Currently, the digital signage world basically lives with image wash out and uses active air cooling to combat the thermal issue. One LCD maker also seems to have a product that is significantly more temperature resistant to thermal clearing; however, I do not see them promoting this. More sophisticated approaches are available and the signage industry is actively investigating these. As they are applied to digital signage, they might also find their way into mobile devices as well.

Trinitron, Retina, & What do you call an Apple TV Set?

Trinitron
A Trinitron® TV is distinguished from the outside by the cylindrical shape of the front of the tube. This cylindrical shape reflects some important internal differences from traditional CRTs that have a roughly spherical shape. When the Trinitron was first introduced, it was a great step forward in color CRT image quality. However, it was followed shortly on by the Zenith innovation of Black Matrix which leveled the playing field. Actually, Black Matrix may have been an enabler for Sony and Trinitron as well as the first Trinitron sets could not show black and white content very well. This was a big draw back in the 1960’s as most of the available content was still Black and White. Applying Black Matrix to Trinitron tubes vastly improved their black and white image quality. As the technology developed the original “aperture grill” inside a Trinitron grew to be more like the “shadow mask” in a conventional CRT. Further detracting from the uniqueness of the Trinitron, Mitsubishi offered a Diamondtron ® set with identical technology.

The Trinitron TV set was first before Black Matrix and before competing Trinitron-like sets. It distinguished Sony in the minds of consumers as providing the best image quality even when their competitors made up the difference. It was neither unique nor all Sony’s technology. Sony also grew its brand image with platform innovations such as the Walkman® and Watchman®. However, when the main stream of television switched from CRTs to flat panels, the Trinitron mark went by the wayside as it seemed to be viewed by the company as a technology rather than an important part of the Sony brand.

Apple

The effective loss of the Trinitron brand coincides with the decline of Sony as the top consumer electronics brand. It also coincides with the emergence of Apple as a mainstream CE brand rather than a computer company. Indeed, Apple’s recent history shares much in common with Sony‘s past glory. Apple introduced the Retina display to the mobile phone market, in-part contributing to a remake of the platform by a significant increase in image quality. Similar to Trinitron, the core of this new brand depends in major part on technological contributions of would-be competitors; Apple does not make LCDs, Samsung does. Apple introduced new platforms, notably the iPod® and iPad®. The iPod directly displaced the Walkman. More importantly, the i-blank meme replaced the blank-man meme in mobile electronics. Where blank-man implied a supreme level of compactness, i-blank implies a supremely developed human interface. As much as the actual technology, what was at stake in the recent patent dispute with Samsung was the i-franchise. Though much of the subsequent commentary centers on a loss of consumer choice and potentially higher prices, the innovations that Apple created and the subsequent brand image where really what was at stake.

Amdahl
Some time ago, I attended a lecture by Gene Amdahl, founder of Amdahl computer. During the lecture, Mr. Amdahl described why he left IBM in order to build supercomputers at his own company. It was not his entrepreneurial spirit but his desired to build really high powered computers, a desire that he could not pursue at IBM at that time. He described a meeting that he had with the pricing manager for IBM mainframes. The pricing manager told how the price structure that IBM had in place for its mainframe product would be destroyed by providing too much computer in one package.

Apple may have a similar issue with the speculated Apple TV Set. While price management was the supercomputer issue at IBM (preventing them from developing an obvious product extension), I believe Apple has a brand management issue with a TV set. Although the Apple name carries considerable panache, as Sony still does, much of the value of the company is in the sub-brands as much of Sony’s value was in Trinitron…. What do you call and Apple branded TV set? Though the delay in launching such a set may be due to inaccurate rumors, technical issues, or the desire to ensure an absolutely distinctive product on first launch, there is some logic that says it is a marketing issue not a technical problem.

iTV already exists in the form of a TV news network. They use the little “i” in their logo as well. The image at the top of this article is the iTV logo from their web page; it demonstrates how an Apple product of the same name could cause confusion as to what the subject is. Retina is also in use of a sort. In the 1983 movie, “Videodrome,” the TV screen is several times referred to as the “Retina of the mind’s eye.” Apple TV is already taken as well, by another Apple product. Apple is free to transfer the brand name from one product to another, as Microsoft recently did with their Surface® brand; however, it seems to be the Apple sub-brands that have the consumers’ attention. Creation of a new brand, either for the TV itself or the TV screen is possible, but brand creation takes money and time. Further, having too many brands or overlapping brands can be damaging to the existing brand structure. Again, what do you call an Apple TV set? For a company that is its branding, this is not a trivial issue. An Apple product without the i-**** or retina co-brand is like a Sony product not labeled Trinitron or ****-man.

WTBS
When I was a student, the school radio station at MIT was WTBS, the “Technology Broadcast Station”. At that time, the FCC mandated an upgrade to low power radio stations and there was no money to upgrade WTBS. The school had obtained an unsolicited offer for its call letters from the New York Times; potentially launching the “Times Broadcast Station”; however the Times offered no money for the deal. Ted Turner offered a much better deal, paying for the school radio station upgrades with some money left over. Hence we now have the WTBS that everyone is familiar with. At MIT, WTBS was not a business, not a profit center. The objectives of those involved with the station were just to keep it on the air. The iTV network is an ongoing business that has been building their brand since the 1950’s…. Wonder what their stock sells for these days?

Why there are 31 days in August

Many things that seem arbitrary or even sinister, are in-fact done for pragmatic reasons. Although there is a common rhyme for remembering which months have 30 and which months have 31 days, and the arrangement seems arbitrary, remembering which months have 30 and which have 31 days is easy if you know why.

Originally the calendar was much different. March was the first month of the year, which seems logical, having the year start in the Spring. However there had been some issues with the calendar and when the changes were decided, the new calendar was implemented the next month, which happened to be January. That is how December went from being the tenth month (the prefix "deci" implies ten) to the twelfth month. As the new calendar was set, March had 31 days followed by alternating 30 and 31 day months except for the last month of the year which only had 29 days.

It stayed that way until Augustus Caesar died. When Julius Cesar was killed, his successor, Augustus later had the month of his birth renamed in his honor, July. When Augustus died, the roman senate conferred a similar honor on him. However with only 30 days in August and 31 in July, it could be considered a smite to Augustus and his family. So August was lengthened by a day and that Day was taken from February which was already a short month. The months after August were adjusted as well to keep the 31/30 pattern.

Another artifact of history is the diagonal measurement of television screens. Previous readers of my writings will know that TV tubes started off as round bottles with the screen being imaged on the bottom of the bottle. The size of the screen was the inner diameter of the bottle. Later this became the diagonal measurement we have today.

Comparing diagonals does give the consumer a straightforward picture of the relative sizes of display screens when all displays have the same aspect ratio. Until now, it has either been 4:3 and since 2005, 16:9 for televisions. Vizio has recently introduced a Cinema-wide TV with a 21:9 aspect ratio. I read a review that attributed the new aspect ratio as something sinister on Vizio's part, trying to inflate the size of their screen. The article listed the square inches of the screen against the area of a 16:9 screen of the same diagonal.

The truth is, in a world where there multiple aspect ratios, the consumer will need two numbers to describe the screen size. This can be height and width or diagonal and aspect, which the company provides, actually it is what Vizio is promoting. Sometimes the press can go a bit overboard. Giving the diagonal was never intended to be misleading or confusing. As with the days of the month, it started as a way to simplify before other events made it more complex. The Cinema-wide set is a great innovation and will be great for the consumer.

Why an Apple TV Set Will be Good for the Market

Once cell phones moved beyond alpha-numeric displays to high information content displays, they very rapidly evolved from being just a device to make phone calls to an interactive link between the cell phone user and the world. TV sets were, by nature, high information content. Although there have been improvements in the image quality, there have been scant developments in TV usage models that are native to the set itself. All of the development has been in the form of attachments to the set, leaving it as just a display. A priori, I would have expected video cameras to have been built into TV sets before being included in notebook or cell phone platforms. Much of the reason for this is the extreme cost competitiveness in the TV business. It is difficult to charge for anything added to the platform as the business is a constant phyrric battle for marketshare. As I have noted elsewhere, for the first 40 years of color TV set sales in the US, the average price never moved from $400. The average size did not change much either. Consumers were taught to expect every innovation and every improvement for free. This changed in the conversion to HDTV, but average prices paid have been gradually inching their way back down to $400.

Part of the blame has to also go with the platform's orientation around traditional content providers. This orientation is the answer to the question asked by the Washington Post, "so who is killing TV Innovation?" Apple's entry will spark a round of genuine innovation. More importantly, Apple will most probably charge for their innovations rather than give them away for marketshare. Presumably, this will give cover to other brands to also start charging for their innovations.

Ahead of Apple's entry, the incumbents are stepping up their own innovations. The connected TV idea (again attachment focused) has given way to "Smart TV". Vizio has introduced its Cinema-Wide TVs with aspect ratios that match theatrical display. Although much of TV promotion is based on published specs, features that the consumer can see always have more impact than features the consumer only reads about. When not in use showing a cinema-scope movie the extra acreage on the side of the TV screen can be put to use providing interactive or control features. This is much the same concern prompting the preference for 16:10 vs 16:9 for computing devices. The extra screen area provides for control functions without cropping the 16:9 broadcast image.

The image above is a relief of a battle between the Roman and Germanic Armies.