Hasta La Gadget!

Philips Electronics and other companies researching future display technologies got together this week at the Big Sight lighting fair in Tokyo to unveil cool new OLED prototypes, including the latest builds of transparent displays.

Philips Research mainly used the event to show its recently announced OLED light display grid, the Lumiblade, a basic, super-bright lamp slab that had previous problems with ‘luminance variability.’ Apparently, that’s been worked out (the lamps light up evenly) and they should start being sold by the end of the year in Europe, most likely for businesses.

But Philips reps apparently had to start talking up its transparent screens (above), since The Research Institute for Organic Electronics (RIOE) stole the show with its own transparent screen window display. The screens, measured at 70-75% of transparency, provide owners with the ability to let light in during the day and then use them as image panels at night.

RIOE hasn’t officially revealed its secret sauce behind the transparency, but it should follow the process of its other OLED screens. Mainly, they place an organic EL device layer on a glass substrate and then use heat and ‘radiating functions,’ a voltage type, generating an energy reaction that lights the panels. RIOE also showed a bright OLED that consumes only 15 watts for hours at a time, perfect for saving some money and electricity.

Last year, Sony and the Max-Planck-Institute in Germany created some of the first transparent displays that rendered moving images, and they did it through the chemical process of photoexcitation. That reaction is caused when rapid-fire lasers excite photosensitive chemicals embedded in a polycarbonate transparent sheet.

As for Philips, they also haven’t revealed exactly how they’ve created their own transparent displays, though it’s obvious from the previous examples that an organic polymer layering process is likely used.

For now, none of these prototypes have a price and most (except the Lumiblade) won’t be available for another 3-5 years.

Check out the RIOE OLED layer process after the jump.

See also the following related stories:

• Open Your Windows to the Sky With Transparent Displays
• Japanese Start-up Readies Flexible, Transparent Plasma Screens

Philips’ Lumiblade OLED Panels

RIOE’s Low Powered Panels

Source:  ledinside.com

Although it’s not the first 512GB 2.5-inch SSD we’ve heard of, A-DATA’s latest solid state drive is still in a rare class. We stopped by its booth today to see if the unit was on hand for CeBIT, and sure enough, there she was. We took a few shots and put ’em down below — you know, just in case you don’t have the nerve to dissect your next SSD-equipped laptop.

Filed under: Storage

A-DATA 2.5-inch 512GB XPG SSD eyes-on originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Mar 2009 19:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The latest version of Wired’s iPhone app is here, and it’s a substantial upgrade. In this video, I walk you through some of the new features.

This new version, 1.1, lets you browse our entire database of Wired product reviews, as before. But it also gives you easy access to the latest posts right here on the Gadget Lab blog, as well as all the gadget-related videos we produce.

The app is free, and will work with any iPhone or iPod Touch. Get it via the Apple App Store link here: Wired Product Reviews iPhone App

Slash Gear starts its hands-on review of Pixelar’s e-book reader by stating the obvious: “this is no Amazon Kindle 2.” And while there may be no integrated WiFi, no hardware keyboard, no Tom, and no Oprah, this device is not without its charms. It supports a generous helping of file types (including PDF, DOC, MP3, HTML, TXT, CHM, and at least a dozen others), comes with 512MB internal memory, supports USB and SD cards, and the reviewer found build quality to be “reasonable.” The e-ink display shows some intermediate flicker, however, and the page turn speed “is just a little too long” for the reviewer’s tastes. Probably the most off-putting thing about the device is its cost: in the UK (where the Kindle isn’t available) it’s going for a base price of £229.99 ($324), while Sony’s Reader, for instance, is currently priced at £224 ($317). Intrigued? We bet you are — check out the video after the break for even more e-book excitement.

Continue reading Pixelar e-Reader reviewed — not too shabby, also “not a Kindle”

Filed under: Handhelds

Pixelar e-Reader reviewed — not too shabby, also “not a Kindle” originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Mar 2009 19:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MSI has certainly already made a respectable enough showing for itself at CeBIT this year, but it looks like company isn’t done just yet, with it now getting official with three new “Classic Series” laptops. Those include CX700, CX600, and CR400, which each pack 16:9 screens of 17.3, 16, and 14-inches, respectively, along with ATI Mobility Radeon HD4330 graphics on the CX700 and CX600, and an NVIDIA Geforce 8200MG GPU on the more energy-efficient CR400. Specs are otherwise still a bit light, but each will apparently come equipped with a combo optical drive that boasts a “high-speed CD burning” feature, along with a 4-in-1 memory card reader, and a 1.3 megapixel webcam. No word on pricing just yet, but all three will apparently be on the more affordable side of things.

Filed under: Laptops

MSI debuts three new Classic Series laptops originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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