APPLYING TECHNOLOGY TO DISPLAYS

"Step into the 3D world."

The poster reads...

You are not kidding.

At the Society For Information Display's (SID) convention in Seattle, WA May 25-27, 2010 it was 3D all over.

The demonstrations ranged from a giant 84" panel from Samsung with a 3D screen resolution 4 X High Definition (3,840 X 2,160), that you viewed with glasses, to small mobile device 3D displays that give you a crisp 4-6" 3D image you can see without glasses.

The SID show is not so much about finished products that you can go out and get at Best Buy today. This show is where the people who make those display systems you buy at retail get their technology and technology components. It is the ultimate annual display dweeb fest.

It is the place to catch the industry's themes and directions, as well as understanding what will be at retails in a year or two.

The themes for 2010 are:
1. 3D Everything
From display technologies to the manufacturing and testing tools to put the technologies to market.

2. Multi-touch

So you can expect to touch and pinch everything over the coming years.

3. OLED (Organic Light -Emitting Diode)

An up and coming display technology that make thinner, lower power and even flexible displays possible.

4. Low power consumption

Technologies that make our large home screens 4 times as power efficient, to laptops and pads that will run for weeks without recharging.

5. Thin

All the way to flexible!

I gathered a lot of material and shot some great interviews that I will be bringing you over the coming weeks.

Stay tuned!

This is Theo looking at how the industry is applying technologies to displays.

APPLYING MOBILE PHONE TECHNOLOGY TO MAKE A GUITALK

A friend of mine sent me a link to this video. This is a fun follow-on to last weeks blog on the iPad as a control surface.

When you watch the video, you'll notice that most of the action is on the iPhone with the android and MS Mobile devices appropriately playing supporting roles. A good market metaphor, if ever there was one!

The performer is a software developer who thought he would show his prowess by integrating a stack of mobile devices into a guitar like thing. He sure did. This is my kind a guy! And this is just plain fun.

This is Theo - Digging on Steffest applying mobile phone technology to make and play a "Phonetar" or "Guitalk".

Applying iPad Technology AS A CONTROL SURFACE

The iPad is the control surface I dreamed of for years.
In my 20's I started designing technical systems, beginning with mixing consoles and tape recorders. The control surface designs (better known today as UIs or User Interfaces) were limited by buttons, switches and sliders that needed to be logically located for the user - but also dictated by engineering and board layouts.

In the early 90's, as digital controls became feasible, I started to design control systems using computers. The first of these were very crude, but by the mid 90's I was able to create graphic user interfaces for machine and system controls. I eventually received a few patents in this area.

Probably because of my background in hardware UIs, I always liked software that emulates hardware. Buttons sliders and knobs should look, feel and operate like their physical counterparts. The main benefits of the electronic interface is its tremendous flexibility. Of course, interacting with this interface using a keyboard and mouse was a giant leap backward.

In this new century, touch control has leaped forward as evidenced by many things including the touch screen in my car and of course now my multi-touch phone.


Putting the iPad into this context is more than exciting!
Consider the following characteristics:

• The iPad is not only touch but multi-touch.
• The iPad is untethered with great battery life and the ability to link the control surface to the controlled system wirelessly -with both wifi and bluetooth.
• The iPad can leverage client-side AND server-side applications for really sophisticated controls that are software and database linked.
• The iPad offers powerful high-speed graphics and animations to support real time feedback including live video cameras and sound.
  
• The iPad is an ideal size for a single user UI.
  
• The iPad is very inexpensive in the context of control surfaces.
• The platform is very feature rich compared to a standard touch screen. It includes multi-touch, accelerometers, GPS location, wifi, blue tooth, web, multi-tasking (imminent), sound, and more.
  

THE TOPPER!
And most important, the iPad is NOT some proprietary hardware system you need to integrate and support. Rather, it is a relatively inexpensive, commodity, commercial device you can easily adapt to your most esoteric application by simply developing software - and if the device you need to control does not support wifi or bluetooth, a little bit of hardware interface is probably enough.

It seems that the audio Apps have really gotten into this. As an example, Groove.Maker includes sliders, button, selectors, real-time visual feedback and more.

Although this particular app does not control an external device, it easily could. Others do.

It adheres to many real-world design metaphors and you can run multiple faders and turn knobs at the same time because the control surface is multi-touch. Wow.

The real innovations are yet to emerge. I expect industrial casings, dual hand or "many surface" coordinated applications, video integration, and much more.

I will go as far as to predict that the iPad becomes a catalyst for a renaissance in man/machine interface...

This is Theo - Exploring the iPad as an amazing control surface application.

Applying "Lean Back" computing with the iPad

The idea of "lean forward" and "lean back" computing has been bandied about over the past few years in context to the IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) movement. It is pretty self explanatory.

Sitting at your computer, and clicking links is considered to be "lean forward".
Sitting on your couch watching television is considered to be "lean back".
This makes sense when you think of the experiential aspect of each mode.

I bring you this idea because it is one of the most intriguing aspects of the iPad.

It is arguably the world's first "lean back" computing device. It simply invites you to curl up in your easy chair and fondle your way through the internet... or simply watch a show... listen to music... or read a book. And when you are in a "lean forward" frame of mind, you can pop it onto the table and start typing. It is really terrific that way.

As we all try to make sense of this new device, the "lean back" attribute of the iPad is one of its greatest differentiators. It is little wonder that the traditional computer categories don't fit it well.

It can also make it challenging to justify the iPad as a work tool. I'll address that in an upcoming posting on work surfaces. Right now, I am going to take my iPad out to the patio and watch a movie on Netflix.

Theo - Leaning back while applying new computing technology.

APPLYING MULTI-TOUCH TECHNOLOGY

In January, at CES in Las Vegas, Think Optics introduced a combination hardware/software solution that leverages the iPhone platform as a powerful remote control appliance for entertainment electronics and/or computers.

Their presentation included a number of standard remote controls to choose from, but I responded from the "Applying Technology" perspective, because of the ability to create your own control systems.

The video clip of co-founder and CTO, Anders Grunnet-Jepsen demonstrating the product provides a great overview. Take a look. (bad video - good content)




Pretty neat.
But in the fast moving tech world; that was then.... And this is now! Heck, almost 30 days have passed. So of course, their January technology announcement is now obsolete... in a most exciting and serendipitous way.

I am imagining that Think Optics must already be working nights and weekends to get their iPhone system leveraging the full screen real estate of the iPad!

This is very significant in two ways.

First of all, if I own an iPad, I am exploring "lean back" computing... and surely I want to be able to control a lot of stuff around me as I lean back and enjoy myself.

But the more significant potential that Think Optics and the iPad provide is an immensely rich exploration platform for human interface. The combination of the multi-touch hand held device and their control creation tool, opens up many exciting possibilities... Especially because it makes control system creation accessible to the brilliant light of a billion minds!

IMAGINING APPLICATIONS
CRUSH THAT DWARF: The grand finale winners and undisputed champions of this year's "Robot Wars" competition were the "ZapWarriors" from Milford, Michigan. Their astounding performance, that totally devastated the rest of the field was attributed to the three iPad controllers they used to operate their assault robot. "well, we decided that we weren't gonna use the standard model airplane controllers we'd been using before... and it really paid off. We came up with all sorts of ways to control our Zapper robot that we'd never been able to even think about before!" said Billy Smithers, the ZapWarrior's team captain.

FOR PETE'S SAKE: Peter is a design student at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. Earlier in the year, General Electric sponsored a contest for designing better man/machine interfaces. When Peter read an article in Science magazine about how humans respond to color cues in identifying priorities, he knew what his submission was going to be! He began to envision a control system for machine operations that was based on the color schemes discussed in the research. Two weeks later he submitted a working prototype of his idea for the contest. The award winning entry was built on the iPad using the Think Optics software.

Trying to control myself in Applying Technology - It's Theo