Roll Up for the Floppy Television (New Technology - Possible Major Ramifications)

Reuters (London) ^ | July 19, 2002 | By Pete Harrison

[DoughtyOne]

Technology - Reuters

Roll Up for the Floppy Television
Fri Jul 19, 6:10 AM ET

By Pete Harrison

LONDON (Reuters) - First they went wider, then flatter, and now televisions are set to go floppy.

Roll-up, flexible televisions, akin to the melting watches of Salvador Dali's surreal landscapes, have become possible thanks to a glowing plastic compound perfected in the laboratories of Britain's Cambridge Display Technology (CDT).

"You're effectively printing televisions," CDT Chief Executive David Fyfe told Reuters. "They can be printed onto thin plastic almost like paper."

Roll-up televisions will allow viewers of the future to flip their sets out of sight like projector screens and will come with a similar price tag to bulkier boxes.

The technology stems from the discovery in 1989 of the compound p-phenylenevinylene which glows greeny-yellow when given an electric charge.

A little tweaking over the following decade produced compounds to emit blue and red light: the roll-up TV was born.

The market for light emitting screens is expected to grow from $20-25 million in 2000 to over $3 billion by 2005, and CDT's Light Emitting Polymer (LEP) screens are expected to grab a majority chunk of that.

"I think it (commercial production) is very close now," said Fyfe, adding that the last bottleneck -- finding a flexi-screen that protects the sensitive compounds from corrosion by oxygen and water vapor -- had almost been overcome.

"Realistically, you will see roll up displays around 2004 or 2005," he added.

"Just four weeks ago Philips demonstrated an all plastic display -- an incredible thing -- a device only a fifty millionth of an inch thick," said Fyfe. "If you can get thin enough plastic, then you would indeed have a roll-up television."

The Japanese giants of television manufacturing, Sony, Hitachi and Toshiba, are leading the race to put the technology to use, but not far behind is the military, which envisions roll-up maps of the battlefield fed by overhead satellites.

"They're interested in every ounce that can be saved from a soldier's pack," said Fyfe. With the flick of a switch the display could convert to infra-red for covert night operations.

On the home front, TV-watches, giant animated billboards, and a new wave of roll-up battery rechargers are just some of the applications in the pipeline.

"I think we'll see a lot of innovation," said Fyfe. "People are talking about weaving displays into clothing. Will there ever be a mass market for that? I doubt it. But it will probably be seized on by someone."

[DoughtyOne]

I've been hearing about these diplays for several years now. Anyone who saw the space movie Red Planet saw some pretty nice display ideas utilizing the capabilities of this technology.

[brityank]

Science again catches up to Science Fiction.

[DoughtyOne]

Actually some of the movie crews do pretty good research before production. They speak to industry insiders and insert items that are expected to become a reality in years ahead. This one came along a little quicker than others.

Can't wait to see what they do with some of this stuff.

I've been waiting for affordable wall sized screens for a long time. I'd like to see that before I die. It's sortof like the SSTO space plane I guess.

[brityank]

My favourite was Issac Asimov, and as I grew found he was also a premier scientist in his own right with the patents for Aramid and Kevlar, among others. He and the other realists, as against the fantasy writers, always seemed to push current technology beyond our self-imposed limits.

[WyldKard]

Anyone remember the self-updating "newspapers" from Minority Report? Thats probably going to be a reality in a decade or two thanks to stuff like this.

We're going to see some truly amazing things happening in materials engineering from here on in...

[martin gibson]

[DoughtyOne]

I've read some of his early work. It's interesting to me the complex issues associated with space that he was able to visualize and relate to others early on. He was a bright guy. And there are a lot of bright guys out there who couldn't explain how to open a soda in layman's terms.

[DoughtyOne]

These displays will certainly be key in the implementation of such technology. Although these displays will be able to be rolled up, they can also be placed on rigid surfaces. I'm not privy to their full capabilities, but it seems they might actually be able to replace other displays if they are resolute enough.

[Blood of Tyrants]

That is so cool! Can you imagine a computer that weighs 3 ounces and fits in an ink pen like tube?

[muawiyah]

A few decades? Check what the man said: "On the home front, TV-watches, giant animated billboards, and a new wave of roll-up battery rechargers are just some of the applications in the pipeline.
"I think we'll see a lot of innovation," said Fyfe. "People are talking about weaving displays into clothing. Will there ever be a mass market for that? I doubt it. But it will probably be seized on by someone."

The custom-made t-shirt industry will have this stuff rolled out by next "beach time"~!

[Dead Corpse]

You know what makes me kinda sad in regards to this article? Not one US based company is mentioned.

Are we still world innovation leaders? We sure as hell aren't the production Kings anymore.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

It's the cable hook-up that hurts.

[WyldKard]

A few decades? Check what the man said:

Yeah, people say a lot of things, but I think they always seem to ignore the realpolitik of people warming up to new technology, adoption costs, etc. To get to a situation where you just buy a newspaper everyday that can shift its articles around on the fly is many years off...

[wcbtinman]

First thing that came to my mind was the movie "Blade Runner" and all of the advertisements on the sides of buildings.<p.Life imitates art.

[StockAyatollah]

"People are talking about weaving displays into clothing"

Nothing new here. Teletubbies have had this technology for years.

[Erasmus]

Arthur C. Clarke is worth mentioning also, as the first person to publish the suggestion of using geo-synchronous satellites as communications relays.

This was in an article in Wireless World in 1945.

[Erasmus]

It's the cable hook-up that hurts.

Using similar technology, perhaps they can make a roll-up satellite antenna that you spring out flat or maybe like a small umbrella (a la E.T.). If it's flat, they will make it electronically steerable, via phased-array technology, to find the desired satellite automatically.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Using similar technology, perhaps they can make a roll-up satellite antenna that you spring out flat or maybe like a small umbrella (a la E.T.). If it's flat, they will make it electronically steerable, via phased-array technology, to find the desired satellite automatically.

How about a conformal antenna in your propeller hat?

[DoughtyOne]

Yes it is very cool. I'm not sure if this is the technology that was mentioned about six months ago, but there is one coming along that is similar to this, that will be dirt cheap. When that comes along products will absolutely explode onto the market. You and I haven't the time or mental capacity to visualize all the wonders that will show up. We live in amazing times.