Hasta La Gadget!

Samsung has outed a pair of new monitors, unable to keep quiet about the stylish duo until their official reveal at CES 2013 next week. The Samsung Series 7 SC770 Touch Monitor, and the non-touch Series 7 SC750, come in at 24- and 27-inches respectively, both running at 1920 x 1080 Full HD resolution and with HDMI inputs for easy hooking up to your Windows 8 box, laptop, or something else.

The larger SC750, shown above, uses a WVA (Wide Viewing Angle) LED-backlit LCD panel with 300 cd/m2 brightness and a 5,000:1 contrast ratio. Sat pretty on its brushed metal stand, which rotates 90-degrees for portrait-orientation use, it’s been pared back to the minimum to keep bulk down: you don’t get speakers (which, admittedly, are usually awful on monitors), DVI, DisplayPort, or a USB hub, only the HDMI input.

As for the Series 7 SC770 Touch, shown below, that uses an MVA panel with slightly lower brightness, at 250 cd/m2, though has the same contrast ratio and 178-degree viewing angles as its bigger, non-touch sibling. It doesn’t rotate, however, the lower-profile stand instead offering 60-degree tilting.

Of course, the real appeal of the SC770 is its touchscreen, which is intended for Windows 8 users wanting to get finger-friendly with their computing. It supports ten finger multitouch, for pinching, twisting, dragging, and all the rest of the usual gestures.

Both of the new Series 7 displays will go on sale worldwide in Q1 2013; Samsung is yet to confirm pricing.

Samsung Series 7 SC770 Touch and SC750 displays revealed is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Who hasn’t dreamed of having heads-up display screens directly embedded into their eyes? I guess years of playing Cyberpunk 2020 and reading science-fiction novels have made this a fixture in most settings. While it won’t make readable contact lens displays feasible any time soon, it looks like scientists have actually been able to make contact lenses with embedded LCDs.

Belgian researchers at IMEC were able to create an LCD-embedded contact lens in a working prototype. This LCD display is curved so that it fits the eye. For now, the lens can display rudimentary monochrome graphics, and their images can only be viewed by others, not by the wearer due to the eyes inability to focus on objects so close. However, there are applications where these could be useful. They could work like sunglasses by automatically darkening, as cosmetic enhancements by changing colors, or as an artificial iris.

Now, if they could only figure out the focusing issue, we could someday be walking around like human Terminators.

[via Phys.Org via Ubergizmo]

I’ve seen some strange mash ups of fashion and technology over the years. Typically, when you talk about clothing and technology, you always think about wearable computers. Clothing brand Sean John and retailer Macy’s have announced that they will be offering the world’s first video fashion clothing in select locations around the country.

The clothing that will be offered is a sweater that has its own little video screen in the sleeve. The sweater will be offered beginning this week at select Macy’s locations. You can find out if your Macy’s is one of the locations that will be selling the sweater here.

The sweater is your typical sweater, the little display comes from Recom Group and is called the Video Name Tag. The small display has a 2.8-inch active matrix OLED panel. The resolution of the screen is 320 x 240 pixels and it has 2 GB of integrated storage.

The display measures 3/8-inch thick x 2 3/8-inch wide x 1 3/4-inch tall. The manufacturer promises that the internal lithium-ion battery allows the screen to operate for 6 to 10 hours continuously. The little display supports full motion video or still images. Naturally, the display has to be removed for cleaning the sweater and pricing is unknown at this time.

Macy’s to offer Sean John sweater that holds a video screen is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

We already knew that Sharp’s been asking around for some much-needed help recently, and now we can all breathe a sigh of relief, as Nikkei is reporting that said manufacturer has finally found a new friend to help co-develop its energy-efficient IGZO LCD panels. Set to announce as soon as Tuesday (presumably Japan time), the deal will involve Qualcomm initially throwing in five billion yen ($61 million) by the end of the year, with a double-down of another five billion yen after “sufficient progress has been made.” There’s no timeline yet on when (or if) a full investment would be secured, but if all goes to plan, Qualcomm will eventually hold nearly five percent of Sharp’s stock, whereas Sharp will more or less get back the 10 billion yen it lost to Sony following the termination of their joint venture earlier this year. Not a bad way to prepare for 2013, eh?

Filed under: Cellphones, Displays

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Via: Reuters

Source: Nikkei (subscription required)

Sharp has reportedly begun talks with Dell, Intel, and other US companies for a potential share in the display firm, in a move that may be designed to put pressure on existing Foxconn negotiations. The discussions – which are also believed to be ongoing with Qualcomm, according to the WSJ‘s sources – would see struggling Sharp offer up a stake in return for as much as $240m depending on the suitor, with the spoils of the deal being a guaranteed supply of the company’s IGZO displays.

According to the insiders, Sharp is hoping to squeeze up to $240m from Intel or Dell, though its ambitions for Qualcomm investment are more modest. The display firm has been mired in ongoing negotiations with Foxconn/Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. for several months, with the firms needing to reach a conclusion by March 2013 but uncertainty around Sharp’s value stalling the deal.

Unofficially, however, a Sharp executive speaking to the newspaper said that while the companies continue to talk, “the unpredictability of its earnings are hindering” the likelihood of a deal. Others familiar with the deal have said that Sharp is laying on hyperbole about IGZO’s promise as a key negotiating point, routinely describing it as “potentially game-changing technology.”

That game-changer comes down to how IGZO works, replacing the substrate material among other changes, and in doing so reducing power consumption and increasing pixel density. That makes for displays that can offer the same brightness as regular LCD but with lesser power demands, or alternatively use the same power as traditional panels but for a much brighter picture, useful for outdoor applications.

IGZO production, however, has struggled to meet Sharp’s goals, and so far the panels are only showing up in a limited way in tablets and phones for the Japanese market. However, Sharp claims it is ready to offer a 32-inch IGZO panel that runs at an impressive 3840 x 2160 resolution, and which could well find its way into future Apple products according to some industry speculation.

In fact, Apple involvement in Sharp’s ongoing business has been the source of display channel muttering for some time. One analyst has suggested that a $2bn blip on Apple’s most recent financial results sheet was in fact a helping hand to the Japanese firm, potentially bringing forward future panel orders onto the books so as to help shore up the supplier.

Sharp has declined to comment on whether it is in negotiations with companies outside of Foxconn, and neither Dell, Qualcomm, nor Intel would comment on the rumors. It’s possible, however, that the move to widen negotiations – or, indeed, the leaks that such a move is being considered – is a tactical one to increase pressure on Foxconn management.

Sharp $240m talks tipped with Dell, Intel and Qualcomm: IGZO the prize is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.