Roll Up Your PDA Screen? Maybe

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20040805.html' target='_blank'>http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/...it20040805.html</a><br /><br /></div>"Some futures take longer to arrive than others. Back in 2001, I wrote about a company called Rolltronics that was working on adapting roll-to-roll printing technology to the production of amorphous semiconductors on plastic films. Their goal was a $15 PC that could literally be printed on a press like a newspaper with different layers for battery, motherboard, graphics controller, display, keyboard, etc. Well, the company is still working toward that dream, but the more variables you try to change at once, the longer it takes and the more risk you have to accept. So on its way to the future, Rolltronics decided to make a few bucks by applying some of these ideas just to displays and the results look to be amazing.<br /><br />We're talking not just about displays that are cheaper to make (perhaps a third the cost of current technology), but that are flexible and paper-thin. Lower prices can lead to market acceptance, but what people really like is something that looks brand new and opens up new application possibilities, and the new Rolltronics displays promise to do that. Imagine an HDTV you take home under your arm in a cardboard shipping tube and attach to your wall with thumbtacks or carpet tape."<br /><br />I've read about flexible screens before, but I didn't realize how close we are to seeing them come to market. Most of this article is above my head (I heard several "whooshing" sounds when I was reading it), but the basic premise is clear, and if it comes to pass (always a big "if" in the tech world), display technology will never be the same again - we'll have "stick" PDAs and phones with a roll-out screen, massive HDTV screens that take up hardly any space at all...the possibilities are enormous. This is some very cool stuff!

[Ryan Joseph]

Star Trek doesn't even have roll up displays 400 years in the future!

This is very cool. I think the potential here is beyond our imagination. All science fiction speculates that advertising will be dynamic and this looks like it'll help to bring that about.

Can you say, "Holodeck?"

:mrgreen: One more thing we'll have before Star Trek predicted!

[nGage]

Anyone ever watched a TV series called Earth Final Conflict? They use a Mobile phone / PDA type device called a "Global" and it has a pull out screen. I think that it is a very well worked out fictional device and with roll-out screens, it is probably not too far off the mark.

[felixdd]

Anyone ever watched a TV series called Earth Final Conflict? They use a Mobile phone / PDA type device called a "Global" and it has a pull out screen. I think that it is a very well worked out fictional device and with roll-out screens, it is probably not too far off the mark.

I used to chase that series. I remember Liam can pull it out at various widths for different applications.

Or maybe he just fudged during filming and wasn't consistent in pulling it out :lol:

[ajnemasis]

The movie Red Planet with Val Kilmer had a pull out screen device, they used it for mapping purposes.

[dean_shan]

If it was cheap you could make it the wallpaper in your house. Then when you grow tired of one pattern you just change it with no fuss at all.

[Blue Zero]

If it was cheap you could make it the wallpaper in your house. Then when you grow tired of one pattern you just change it with no fuss at all.

Cool!
Now I could finally be able to have naked girls wallpaper that can be switch instantly back to normal when my wife comes home!

.....Sweeeeeet

[Rob Alexander]

If it was cheap you could make it the wallpaper in your house. Then when you grow tired of one pattern you just change it with no fuss at all.

Cool!
Now I could finally be able to have naked girls wallpaper that can be switch instantly back to normal when my wife comes home!

.....Sweeeeeet

Ah yes.... the first application of ANY new technology! :rotfl:

[Mark Johnson]

This sounds great, but I hope it doesn't turn out like E-Ink's digital paper. Years of hype followed (this year) by finally releasing their first e-book reader that uses the "I hate it so much" Sony MemoryStink and the "I hate it even more" MagicGate DRM system.

The E-Ink system could have been so exceptionally cool, but now their awsome e-paper is wedded to Sony's goofy restrictive proprietary device. The thing's gonna flop and now we'll have a huge wait until we get a decent standards-based eInk eBook reader. If it had used SD and read HTML and PDF's it would have been incredible.

[bjornkeizers]

Anyone ever watched a TV series called Earth Final Conflict? They use a Mobile phone / PDA type device called a "Global" and it has a pull out screen. I think that it is a very well worked out fictional device and with roll-out screens, it is probably not too far off the mark.

That was the *very first thing* that crossed my mind!

Holodecks? You betcha. If it's that cheap, I'm going to wallpaper my f'ing room with the stuff.

&lt;edit> I should've read the thread before I responded; you guys beat me to it :D

[GreenBoy2]

One of the down sides of this kind of tech is that it will be capitalised by advertising.

Imagine fully animated bilboards - everywhere including, and this is where this tech will come into its own - on shaped surfasces such as round columns - every shopping mall will become a wall to wall advertisers wet dream. :(

[Ryan Joseph]

One of the down sides of this kind of tech is that it will be capitalised by advertising.

Imagine fully animated bilboards - everywhere including, and this is where this tech will come into its own - on shaped surfasces such as round columns - every shopping mall will become a wall to wall advertisers wet dream. :(

Actually, I think that sounds cool. We live in a world dominated by advertising anyway, so why not make it dynamic and interesting? Full motion video ads everywhere including shaped surfaces? Cool! :D

[Jonathan1]

Pocketable bar PDA's can't come soon enough. The problem is how do you unroll one and have it rigid enough to work on. While still allowing it to fold up into the "bar" So clearly there's tech there that needs to be refined beyond simply just the screen. But beyond that what about the battery? Hopefully fuel cells will become a serious reality by then because as much space as a screen takes up there is a whole heck of a lot used by the battery. Finally how about other techs that might find their way into PDA's or even PDA phones. Directional audio anyone? Imagine browsing the WWW2 and having some iTunes playing in your ear (Oh did I forget to mention that Apple released iTunes for Windows Mobile 2007?) ;) without headphones and without bugging the crap out of the person next to you.

Oh and an entire wall of my house a high def TV? Ya I pretty sure I would like that...then again I'm pretty sure I'd have to sell my soul to afford one. 8O

[Jonathan1]

Imagine fully animated bilboards - everywhere including, and this is where this tech will come into its own

However I think at some point there will be laws preventing moving advertisements within a certain distance from any major highway or interstate. Moving ads are about as distracting as riced out cars with blinking lights on them and that IS illegal in most places.

And I think moving ads in malls will only go so far. There will most likely be an explosion of them when the tech comes out in cheap quantity because anything new is always like that but given enough time advertisers will realize that:
1. such billboards need power and electrical outlets aren't always in easy reach everywhere.
2. Too many moving boards simply blends in together and doesn't stand out.

[Mark Johnson]

2. Too many moving boards simply blends in together and doesn't stand out.

I really hope you're right. I've got this nightmare vision of a shopping mall where every surface is a series of those unbelievably annoying multi-color "You've Wone!" banner ads that "jiggle." Oh! The humanity of it all! :lol:

[rocky_raher]

If it was cheap you could make it the wallpaper in your house. Then when you grow tired of one pattern you just change it with no fuss at all.

IIRC, Bill Gates equipped his new house with HDTV screens in each room, with a setup so that they would display works of art by the favorite artist(s) of his guests. Wallpaper like this, if it becomes affordable, will enable anyone to have such a changeable gallery about his house.

[rocky_raher]

...what about the battery?

How about a mini generator tied to the screen roller? The act of pulling out the screen would generate a small amount of electricity.

Remember how a self-winding watch works? A small pendulum uses the movement of your wrist to keep the mainspring wound. If a PDA had a small pendulum attached to a small generator, every little motion would add a small charge to the battery. You could keep a full charge just by having your PDA in your pocket as you walk around.

[KimVette]

Anyone ever watched a TV series called Earth Final Conflict?

That Gene Roddenbury show that lasted only one season? Yeah I watched it. I watched another show by the same title for the following four years, but it was a totally different show. ;)

They use a Mobile phone / PDA type device called a "Global" and it has a pull out screen. I think that it is a very well worked out fictional device and with roll-out screens, it is probably not too far off the mark.

The "Global" was what I thought of when I first saw the iPAQ and thought about the (still under development) upcoming rollable display. It's not all that far off!

[rocky_raher]

Oh and an entire wall of my house a high def TV?

In Ray Bradbury's "Farenheit 451," the main character's wife had a room in which 3 walls were floor-to-ceiling TV's. Programming apparently was provided for the side walls, kinda like the alternate camera angles available on DVD's. She begged him for a wall TV to replace the fourth wall, so she'd have her own little TV world (almost like a holodeck).

Bradbury also predicted interactive TV in that novel.