Hasta La Gadget!

Fans of Apple displays will tell you that despite their price tag, an Apple display will net you excellent color quality and broad viewing angles. This is partially due to the fact that Apple displays (and many other manufacturer’s premium monitors) are IPS panels, as opposed to the more common TN panels on most consumer LCD displays. Now LG is getting into the mix, and has unveiled four new displays that feature IPS panels, including the new 20-inch LG IPS206T, the 21.5-inch IPS226V, and the 23-inch IPS236V and IPS231P models. Each one is LED-backlit, less than 20mm thick, and the 21.5 and 23-inch versions are capable of full HD resolution at 1920×1080 pixels. The new panels also feature 6ms response rates and near-180 degree viewing angles.

All of the new models come in glossy black with transparent trim, with the IPS231P standing out as the professional model and featuring on board speakers and a tilt/swivel stand. The new displays were unveiled at the IFA electronics event in Germany, but pricing and availability weren’t included in the announcement.

[via FlatPanelsHD]

We already knew about Samsung’s grand plans for expanding its display production in 2011, but now we also have a number to give us a sense of scale: 30 million. That’s how many screens the new Mobile Display fab (set to go live in July) will be able to churn out in a month, a vastly superior rate than the current 3 million maximum. Lee Woo-Jong, the display business’ marketing VP, tells us its estimates for AMOLED market demand have been revised upwards to 700 million units in 2015, with the new facility obviously being the key cog in making that growth happen. Intriguingly, he also notes that Super AMOLED — one of the big attractions of the Galaxy S line of Samsung phones — is not exclusive to Samsung’s electronics arm, everyone can apparently use it. That directly contradicts what we heard from Sammy’s mobile reps, but then this is hardly the first time that one part of Samsung doesn’t know what the other is doing. Still, it’s nice to at least dream of a S-AMOLED HTC HD7, no?

Samsung Mobile Display promises 10x increase in production next year, end to AMOLED shortages originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Sep 2010 05:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Interactive designer Graham Plumb has created a stunning 3D interface that projects beams of light beaming through a transparent cube filled with water and “a specially formulated emulsion.” The effect are three-dimensional structures constructed out of pure light that he dubs the Reactive Cube (click through for video of them in action).

Like music or fashion, new tech ideas often start as some high-minded proof-of-concept exercise. While not meant for the consumption of the masses, the ideas filter down into everyday use: think Apple’s transparent and translucent iMacs of the early aughts. While this particular interface may never find its way into personal computers or mobile phones anytime soon, it seems like it could be tweaked and fiddled to perform public display duties. Imagine a mall fountain with glowing ads swimming around, or a three-dimensional interactive map encased in a cube in a museum foyer.

via Make

Have a rig at home that’s in dire need of sprucing up? Cirago wants to help by giving the sad fellow with the dreariest desktop an easy way to add up to two more monitors: the HyrdraDisplay X3 Multimonitor Adapter. 

Oblong Industry’s G-Speak gesture-based interface offers one of the most advanced computer interfaces out there. All actions are directed by human gestures. It is completely frictionless: no touch screen, no keyboard, no mouse. Users wear special gloves with reflective balls on the finger tips whose movements can be read by infrared sensors. Essentially, you are composing data with pure air.

Earlier this week we posted on Gearlog about a Taiwanese researcher’s projected interface, which we alluded to as the closest yet to providing a true TCIMRE (Tom Cruise in Minority Report Experience). Boy were we wrong! G-Speak is the real TCIMRE deal. One of Oblong’s founders was even an adviser on Minority Report:

“Some of the SOE’s core ideas are already familiar from the film Minority Report, whose characters performed forensic analysis using massive, gesturally driven displays. The similarity is no coincidence: one of Oblong’s founders served as science advisor to Minority Report and based the design of those scenes directly on his earlier work at MIT. “

The full-room version of G-Speak seen in the above video utilizes several screens set up around a large room to completely embed the user (or users) in a world of pure information. The final product looks one-part Wii, one-part iPhone, and one hundred percent Tom Cruise.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Not yet anyway.

The tech looks really cool in the above video–as a good PR video supplied by the company on their official Web site should. But note that the users in the video are using very exaggerated gestures, which might indicate that the interface isn’t as instinctual or subtle as you might hope. According to one reviewer from New Scientist who got a hands-on experience, G-Speak is usable, but takes some “training” to get used to. Either way, the technology seems very promising, and we will see echos of this (and surely other hands-free operating systems) in the gadgets and computer interfaces of the next decade. This is just a taste of what’s to come.