(Credit:
Synaptics)
If you thought tilting and swiping your iPhone was the future, just take a look at the Synaptics Fuse. It's a concept phone that points to how we'll be fingering, tilting, and even squeezing our phones in 2010 and beyond. We're lighting the fuse on this innovative concept and standing well back.
Santa Clara, Calif.-based touch-screen and trackpad manufacturer Synaptics has headed up a coalition of interface experts to produce what it calls a "next-gen mobile phone concept." It packs a 94mm (3.7-inch) WVGA AMOLED touch screen with a cool interface, rolling icons past the screen like they're on the surface of a 3D ball.
Read more of "Synaptics Fuse: Multi-input concept phone gets a grip" at Crave UK.
Energized by their widespread use in cell phones, worldwide sales of OLED displays hit a record high of $192 million for the second quarter of the year, according to a report released this week by DisplaySearch.
Second-quarter sales of OLED displays rose 22 percent over the same period last year, and 32 percent over the first quarter of 2009, noted DisplaySearch's latest "Quarterly OLED Shipment and Forecast Report," which came out Monday.
The report said that shipments of AMOLED displays were especially strong thanks to their use in mobile phones, with more than 15 different AMOLED cell phone models released in 2009.
AMOLED (active-matrix organic light-emitting diode) screens use less energy than PMOLED (passive-matrix) displays, making them better-suited for portable devices such as phones and MP3 players.
"AMOLED displays have become an important differentiating feature for high-end electronic products," said Jennifer Colegrove, DisplaySearch director of display technologies, in a statement. "This technology is not only used for mobile phone main displays, but has also penetrated the market for portable media players, digital still cameras, and other applications."
(Credit:
DisplaySearch)
Making OLED TVs has been a costly, time-consuming challenge for most manufacturers. Despite demonstrations of flashy new products from several companies, Sony remains the only firm with an OLED TV on the shelves.
... Read more
(Credit:
Samsung)
This picture of a Samsung OLED laptop prototype raises more questions than it answers. Just how thin and light is it? Is touch-typing possible on that keyboard? Where's the mouse pad? What's that panel behind the display? Why is the woman pictured on the display checking her pulse? When can I have one?
What a translated-from-the Korean Samsung page does reveal is that it's an AMOLED (active matrix organic light-emitting diode) laptop prototype that Samsung's display division developed for the Society for Information Display's gathering in Los Angeles next week. According to Samsung, the prototype features a 12.1-inch screen with a 1,280x768 resolution. Perhaps we'll be able to glean more information next week when the display scientists, engineers, and manufacturers get together. As for when we might see this product on store shelves, Samsung has previously stated it'll start rolling out OLED TVs, monitors, and laptops in 2009.
(Via Engadget)
An Apple rumor a day keeps a slow news day away. Right? Though idle chit chat about tech's most gossiped-about company pops up all the time, they tend to be quashed or talked to death before another one comes along that's juicier. One recent rumor is still floating around the Web.
Sometimes the rumors are generated by simply making logical leaps, as in Wednesday's Apple-will-use-Atom-processors yarn, which my colleague Tom Krazit flatly dismisses. Other times, they're based on rumors overheard in Asia, like last week when Gartner's Ken Dulaney said he heard that Apple has ordered 10 million 3G iPhone units that will carry AMOLED (active matrix organic light-emitting diode) displays. Using those screens would allow Apple to make thinner phones that consume less power.
Gadget blog Gizmodo took exception to Dulaney's prediction, writing that OLED displays are too expensive, not as good as LCD screens in direct sunlight, and that Apple won't use an unproven technology.
That was last week. Now DisplaySearch is weighing in. Analyst Barry Young, who follows the AMOLED industry, says both are wrong--kind of.
Young points out that Samsung SDI is the only mass producer of AMOLEDs, and their maximum output is around 4 million units, which doesn't jive with the 10 million figure Dulaney gives. But he also disagrees with Gizmodo's assessment of AMOLEDs' performance, and points out that Apple has no problem using higher-end components and that the costs are already coming down since LG, Samsung, iRiver, Sharp, Sony Ericsson, and others are already incorporating the technology into their handheld devices.
So while neither is completely right, Young says that he knows Apple and Samsung SDI are at least talking to each other, so if anything, Dulaney may have just jumped the gun a bit. But it seems like this rumor just won't go away.
Bottom line, Apple is secretive. Until then, we can only speculate.
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