

Sony’s new, super-thin OLED display wraps around a pencil - Ghost_Noname
http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/05/26/video-sonys-new-super-thin-oled-display-wraps-around-a-pencil/

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nkassis
So... when can I get my Daily Prophet? I'm expecting pictures of politicians
making faces and such ;p This is truly impressive. I wonder if the lines are
bad pixels or just meant to be there for testing.

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DrSprout
When my university put RFID tags on all of our ID cards, I fantasized about
setting up enough scanners to create a marauder's map.

All you would really need is a simple web server and a shit ton of RFID
readers set up all over the place. Completely impractical, but plausible. Now
that we've got e-paper, we've got the final piece.

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someone_here
You may only need 3 readers. Some off the shelf detectors can read RFIDs from
200 meters away (though they are physically quite large)

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RyanMcGreal
Can you somehow triangulate an exact position by using the 3 readers? It's not
enough to know a student is merely in range.

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joeyo
It would critically depend on the frequencies used by RFID (and multipath) but
perhaps it could be done by measuring the time of transit?

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matt1
I know a guy who bought oled.com and a few other oled-related domains a few
years back on a gamble that they would one day take off. I imagine he's pretty
happy with that purchase right about now...

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asnyder
For a moment I thought OLED was trademarked and that the domains would be
effectively forced over to the trademark owner. I did a quick US trademark
search and couldn't find the OLED mark registered. His gamble will probably
pay off.

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jacquesm
Now that is amazing. What a neat development, this will enable a whole slew of
new applications.

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pmjordan
Unfortunately, they've been the "next big thing" for a number of years now.
Apparently there are yield and longevity issues to be solved before mass
production of large OLED displays. But yes, extremely cool.

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melling
The other option is to find a market for what they can build. For example,
bring more effective advertising to consumers in places they don't normally
get it. Something eye catchy?

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jacquesm
The one thing that really gets me is that no matter how useful an invention is
sooner or later someone will come along and plaster it full of ads.

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melling
My suggestion was to put ad dollars to good use. That's part of the formula
for freemium. It's how X-Prizes are funded. Google is taking us to the moon.
We're spending billions on ads every year. The paper kind that show up in my
mailbox, that I immediately throw away, are worthless.

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anamax
For some discussion of HP's research on displays and other electronics printed
on plastic sheets see
<http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/Abstracts/100519.html>

Video and other talks are at [http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/spring-
schedule-20092010...](http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/spring-
schedule-20092010.html) .

Fun fact - they're talking about production runs of 300 square meters at a
time.

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ErrantX
It looks really neat.

It's interesting that it is on a rig - is it just an automated way of
displaying that it can be wrapped round a pencil. Or is it because it has to
be kept taught still to work right (I know previous thin OLED/liquid paper
displays have had problems when not held taught)

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gjm11
They're bound to have rigs like that around anyway for life testing and such,
so using one to automate the demo would seem a pretty natural thing to do,
whether or not there's a requirement to hold the material taut.

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mattcrest
Video slap bracelets. That is all.

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patrickk
iPad 2.0: roll it up, and put it under your arm. Like a newspaper or an
architect's plans.

I wantee.

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brk
This is neat, but I'm sort of wondering what value it really is. It would seem
that until we have highly flexible batteries, LCD controller chips, and all
the other periphery that would have to go with this to make a finished product
the applications are somewhat limited.

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ggruschow
1\. Roll-up phone display to make the pocket size smaller and simultaneously
make the usable display size larger.

2\. Animated blowout party favors for those $100k+ parties people seem fond of
throwing.

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jacquesm
\- curved displays so you don't have to refocus all the time on a wide screen

\- an e-book reader that is just a spine with a roll out display

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jcl
Philips made an e-ink reader that does this:

[http://gizmodo.com/197227/philips-readius-e+reader-scroll-
pr...](http://gizmodo.com/197227/philips-readius-e+reader-scroll-prototype)

~~~
jacquesm
So much for me being able to think an original thought.

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wizard_2
Is sony making this themselves or do they use some other company they own? I'm
curious who the big players are in the OLED space, it seems like it's finally
getting interesting.

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justin_hancock
Perhaps a means for making an invisibility cloak, e.g. display the image of
your environment on the cloak.

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pak
Wouldn't that depend on which direction you are being observed from?

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ahoyhere
Has nobody read Diamond Age, seriously?

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jcl
I take it you're referring to Hackworth's chopsticks? That was the first thing
I thought of when I read the article's title, too.

 _...it wasn't long before he came up with the idea of selling advertising
space on the damn things, chopstick handles and Chinese columnar script being
a perfect match. Before long he was presenting it to his superiors: eminently
user-friendly bamboid chopsters with colorful advertising messages
continuously scrolling up their handles in real time, like news headlines in
Times Square._

