Sony's paper-thin flexible display

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YouTube - Sony Develops Thin As Paper Colour TV

Sony Shows Off Paper-Thin Color Display

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews
May 25, 2007, 4:37 PM

Sony debuted an innovative new bendable 2.5-inch display, one that is less than 0.01 inch thick -- not much thicker than a piece of paper -- and can display full-color video.

Sony's Paper-thin Color DisplayThe Japanese electronics maker released video of its latest innovation on Friday, showing the flexibility and capabilities of the display. Sony isn't quite sure how it will be used, but it could have a variety of applications.

Displays could be integrated into signs and advertisements, or worn like clothing. The displays could even help today's multimedia playback devices shrink even further. No commercial applications have been officially announced.

Sony researchers say that the screen is virtually unbreakable, and the elasticity of the device is what makes it so innovative. Neither LCD nor plasma screen technologies in their current form can reproduce the display's characteristics.

Paper-thin display technologies are nothing new. A host of other companies are working on such projects for a variety of uses, such as updatable newspapers and the like. However, it appears Sony's entrant is the first to be able to incorporate a full-color display.

Call me mad, but here's the progression I see extending from this, completed within 10 years:

1. make the display semi-transparent (if it isn't already - hard to tell for sure), and fashion the material into a "virtually unbreakable" pair of prescription eyeglass/sunglasses.

2. iPod and iPhone are blown out of the water by the new robocop shades. Internet, phone, mike, display - all included. (GUI? How about a wireless Wii-like hand-held joystick used to navigate, that fits in the pocket).

3. Marketing, and here's where it goes schizo:

Imagine, you're walking along the streets of City X, on your way to the office, reading/watching the morning's news and checking email, browsing the WAB with your new Robo-glasses. Then BANG! a man with a gun pops into view with a gun pointed right at you! "Sike!" he yells, and offers you a SUPER-LOW introductory rate of .19% on a credit card/mortgage/anything. -Spam is what it'll be called. Or, a naked lesbian couple will march into the middle of the road on your left and get dirty while cars pass magically through them and a script near their conjoined gonads reads "get laid for free click here!" or something.

Paranoid fantasy? Maybe. But I have a hunch Sony didn't develop this display so you could wrap it around your forearm, as if protesting the Vietnam War.

Other foreseen implications?

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I LOVE the newspaper idea, imagine picking the daily up with an actual short video clip on it showing the latest news, it would be amazing.

Can this kind of tech be produced cheap enough to mass-manufacture it , or will we have to wait for it to become more mainstream?

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The new display combines two technologies: Sony's organic thin film transistor, which is required to make flexible displays, and organic electroluminescent display.Sony develops paper-thin video display - USATODAY.com

Wanted Technology

There are myriad possibilities for an ultra-thin display like Sony's, Todd Day, an analyst with Frost & Sullivan Latest News about Frost & Sullivan, told TechNewsWorld.

"It would be perfect for mobile and media devices like the iPod, Zune and other MP3 players," he suggested. "There is a big demand for smaller devices."

A paper-thin display could ease cost burdens for manufacturers, noted Day, allowing them to basically create devices without screens and add them after production. "It would take a complicated step out of process."

Cost and durability could be issues if Sony decides to compete in the home plasma market, he observed. However, the "electronic paper" display could be a competitor with projection devices.

"Increasing the display size is another obstacle facing Sony," Day said.

Lightning Labels Blog: Sony Announces Paper Thin TV Screen

Last week Sony announced that it has invented a flexible plastic display that bends like paper while showing full color video. Even though we are years away from this becoming a commercial product, it is truly an amazing breakthrough. You can see the video released by Sony (in Japanese) on YouTube.

The screen is a 2.5" display and amazingly only 0.3mm thick (about 0.01") and the video seems to be very high quality. You can easily see this leading to ever thinner cell phones, video iPods and other similar applications.

I also see the day in the not too distant future where you will be browsing the supermarket shelves and the "product labels" will actually be a TV screen on this kind of material. Right now, if you order product labels on our white BOPP with a gloss laminate then your labels are 0.0036" thick, slightly less than half the thickness of the plastic TV screen. So you can see that adding some adhesive to this plastic display and including a power source such as the paper batteries that are just around the corner, and you have a viable new kind of "product label" - the ultimate product sales tool.

Now, we have a lot of obstacles to overcome before this day arrives, but you can be sure this day will come and I expect to start seeing these on the shelves within 10 years. Of course, these "video labels" will be expensive but I also imagine a recycling program that will offset the cost to the consumer. You might spend $2 more for a product with the video label, but then you could send the label back to the manufacturer for a $1 coupon or something like that.

Here at Lightning Labels we like to be on the cutting edge of digital label technology. So even though these video labels are a long way off, when they become commercially available for product labels, we will be at the forefront.

This technology won't be wasted on Campbell's soup cans. Its plausible to start by swapping theses displays for the ones currently used in iPods and other personal electronic devices, especially if its cost-effective to do so.

T-shirts? Sure, I guess. But not one-per-shirt. The display would have to be an add-on that's applied to existing shirts, to allow for like, doing laundry. -Something you put on your shirt in the morning, then take it off at night before hampering your b.o-ridden wife beater. Afterall, these things still need to be battery-powered, unless it incorporates some cheap personal calculator technology.

No doubt, Apple would do well to get in on this action. Imagine an iPod application, a display that you buy per your chest measurement, which you fix around your existing shirts, and project album art or concert footage as you bop along, so everyone can now tell not only that you're cool and have an iPod, but also that you have a refined palette. Or better yet, make the display add-on compatible only with special Apple brand clothing - just like Apple did before with DRM exclusivity.