Hasta La Gadget!

Banning bezels is good for business, and ViewSonic has joined the waifish monitor club with the VX2370Smh-LED and VX2770Smh-LED displays. Offering Full HD resolution spread across 23- and 27-inches respectively, the new desktop pair clad their IPS panels in “ultra-thin” bezel gloss black frames which ViewSonic suggests makes them ideal for building a display wall of closely-abutted screens.

Of course the frames, though narrow – ViewSonic isn’t saying exactly how slim – isn’t quite “borderless” as the PR breathlessly promises,  though it’s nice to see them cut down on extraneous bulk. Inside there are 1.5W stereo speakers, while connectivity includes VGA, DVI, and HDMI inputs.

The panels themselves use IPS technology with the promise of 178-degree viewing angles, 7ms response times, and a 1,000:1 contrast ratio. ViewSonic says power consumption is down too, with “optimize” and “conserve” modes to the LED backlighting which can save energy (and money) at the cost of some brightness.

The ViewSonic VX2370Smh-LED and VX2770Smh-LED are priced at £110/€139 and £199/€233 respectively. They’ll each go on sale at the end of October.

ViewSonic trims bezels for new IPS LCDs is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

If you’re the DIY type that likes to whip up projects using different components and an Arduino, you’ll like the new ArduinoLCD from EarthMake. This device is an integrated color LCD that fits everything you need to add a screen to your projects in one package. The little screen measures 3.5-inches and supports touch control.

The display has an integrated 16-bit GPU and comes with a mounting bracket for easy integration into your projects. The display can be programmed using EarthSEMPL making it easy to design your own user interface. The resolution of the little color screen is 320 x 240 and it supports 65,000 colors.

The display has a 500:1 contrast ratio and can operate on 6 to 9 V of power, drawing less than 200 mA. The screen has 4 MB of integrated flash memory and can operate using USB 2.0 or Arduino Shield interfaces. The ArduinoLCD is available right now for $79 (USD).

If you really enjoy making your own projects using Arduino, EarthMake has a new product that you may appreciate. The device is called the ArduinoLCD and as the name implies it is an LCD screen designed to use in your DIY Arduino projects. The device has an all-in-one modular design with a 3.5-inch color LCD that supports touch control.

It has an integrated 16-bit GPU and a mounting bracket as well. The display uses the EarthSEMPL programming language to allow users to design custom macros, graphical objects, fonts, and images. That easy-to-use programming language makes designing the user interface quick and easy.

The 3.5-inch LCD has a resolution of 320 x 240 and supports 65,000 colors. The screen has a brightness rating of 250 nit and supports resistive touch technology. The 16-bit GPU has 4 MB of flash memory and offers USB 2.0 and Arduino Shield interfaces.

The display operates on 6 to 9 volts of power and draws less than 200 mA. The display operates the temperature range of -20 to 60°C. For a limited time, the display is available for $79 it should make for an easy-to-use integrated display for many DIY projects.

ArduinoLCD for DIY mods breaks cover is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Youth-oriented TV drama factory The CW is hoping that Entertainment Weekly readers are interested in taking Twitter from smartphones and computers to the printed page — er, at least a printed page with an LCD insert attached. The October 5th issue of EW features a miniature LCD display with the six most recent posts to its Twitter feed (@CW_Network), as well as a “short video showing stars of new CW shows,” according to The New York Times. Yes, seriously — an LCD screen with some form of internet connection embedded directly into copies of a physical magazine. “Emily Owens M.D.” — a new show on The CW — is the first to receive direct promo treatment via the magazine’s LCD display. It’s unclear if all issues of the Oct. 5 edition will contain the embedded video screen (only 50,000 issues of a 2009 EW issue ran an embedded Pepsi video ad, for instance).

CW executive VP Rick Haskins said the company’s social media team overseeing the project will only filter out “profanity or other unacceptable language.” As for negative tweets, however, those are fair game. Not that we’d encourage such things, but this setup sounds all too ripe for exploitation by the denizens of the internet. Do with the information as you will, unscrupulous readers.

Filed under: Displays, Software, HD

The October 5th edition of Entertainment Weekly has a built-in Twitter feed (really) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Sep 2012 16:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LG has launched a pre-reveal attack on Samsung’s favorite phone and tablet technology, AMOLED, hammering home the idea that its Optimus G display will be thinner, brighter, and more power-efficient. Announced last month, the Optimus G uses a new True HD IPS+ screen based on LCD not OLED technologies, and LG is keen to make clear why that’s a specific advantage over Samsung’s current Android flagship smartphone.

LG is using a suspiciously Galaxy S III-shaped wireframe to illustrate its AMOLED opposition, and though there’s no branding to confirm the Samsung slap, if Apple can patent rectangles with rounded corners then we can probably safely assume that it’s the 20m-selling smartphone the Optimus G is being compared to. Even if that’s too great a leap, the fact that Samsung is pushing the market in AMOLED technologies makes it the obvious opposition.

According to LG, the 320ppi True IPS+ panel gives 1.6x clearer images than AMOLED – great for reading text on webpages and in ebooks – while its greater power efficiency when showing white pages (LG namechecks the backgrounds on websites as a good example) is another advantage over the rival tech. Overall thickness is 27-percent down on previous panels.

Slim screens aren’t the only thing LG is relying on to differentiate the Optimus G, though. The company apparently spent 15 months developing and patenting the “Crystal Reflection” process which decorates the back of the smartphone, with a polarized 3D pattern sparkling and glistening in the light.

Whether that will be enough to convince would-be owners to give LG a try despite its less-than-impressive record in delivering Android updates remains to be seen. The LG Optimus G is expected to be officially shown off at the end of September.

LG brings screen smackdown to Samsung over Optimus G is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.