Hasta La Gadget!

E Ink’s black-and-white displays have become synonymous with electronic book readers such as the Kindle and the Sony Reader. Now watchmaker Art Technology has extended the technology to timepieces, enabling the creation of a digital watch with a curved display surface.

“Our hope with E Ink was to take advantage of the high-contrast E Ink display and offer a curved look that we couldn’t have done with an LCD,” says Donald Brewer, CEO of Art Technology.

E Ink, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, has popularized electrophoretic displays that consume very little power, require no backlights and are easily readable in sunlight. E Ink’s displays are used in virtually every e-book reader on the market today, thanks to a crisp, readable appearance that is closer to the experience of reading ink on paper than any LCD screen.

For now, the watch introduced by Art Technology is the only timepiece to use E Ink’s display. The watch, called Phosphor, is water-resistant but otherwise light on features. It offers only five different modes, including digital time, analog time, date, alarm and calendar.

While the use of the E Ink display is novel, it isn’t entirely functional. The display doesn’t refresh instantly and it can seem a bit slow, especially while changing modes or setting the time.

Another drawback with the watch is the lack of backlight. That makes the watch impossible to use in dark environments such as a theater.  Brewer says analog watches rarely have a backlight, so the lack of one in the Phosphor range shouldn’t put off too many buyers.

But then, analog watches usually have luminescent paint on the hands that make them glow faintly in the dark. That feature is not available on E Ink displays.

Though E Ink displays aren’t any cheaper than LCDs, Brewer hopes it can create the perception of greater value among buyers.

The watches will retail for $175 to $195 depending on the band. For now, they are available only through the company’s website.

Photos: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

I woke up at 3AM last night with my mind racing. The extremely important question that jolted me awake: How big is the Enterprise’s viewscreen? So I did the math.

First off, it depends on which Enterprise you’re talking about. The original Enterprise of the ’60s, which I’ve been watching Season 1 of on Blu-ray (quite a good restoration, btw), had what seemed like a tiny ass screen when compared to the IMAX-like experience of the new movie Enterprise. But it’s not actually that small.

Using the combined knowledge of the Star Fleet Technical Manual and some screenshots of the episodes, I was able to determine that the screen is a 136-inch display with a 1.73:1 aspect ratio. That’s actually smaller than the retina-searing 150-inch Panasonic plasma that we played with before. Yes, Adam Frucci and various captains of industry that have way too much money have viewed things in their own home on a larger display than a captain of a STARSHIP.

But Picard isn’t going to be showed up by 21st century technology. His glorious Enterprise D has a 212-inch screen with a 1.92:1 aspect ratio, which is big enough for Riker to jam chairs through while Picard’s off in a fantasy land with Whoopi Goldberg. Nice job, Riker.

Not only is this screen gigantic, it supposedly displays stuff in three-dimensions, shifting views or something so Jean-Luc can put a face to Troi’s feelings of “he’s hiding something”. The Star Trek Wiki explains thusly:

While it is a subtle effect, the viewscreen seen throughout Star Trek: The Next Generation clearly displayed 3-D images. This effect was created in some scenes by providing multiple angles on the viewer, with the image on screen displayed at a corresponding angle, rather than a flat, single angle shot.

But what about the newest technology? What have we learned from years of actual consumer electronics development that the tech-consultants on the movie set could incorporate into the latest iteration of the Enterprise? “Bigger is better.”

The display on new-Kirk’s ship looks massive, but only because it’s so wide. If you’re measuring the screen diagonally in display-talk, it’s around 326-inches, which is larger in absolute terms than even Picard’s screen. It also has a 3.25:1 display ratio, making it wider than most film ratios. But if you’re talking pure width, it measures about 26 feet across. Quite impressive.

If they ever do remake TNG, I suspect that the viewscreen will wrap entirely around the side of the bridge all the way to the back where neo-Worf and neo-Geordi will be able to see what’s going on behind the Enterprise. It’s easier to turn your head to see a display than to tell someone to press a button to change the view.

So yes, this is our dream for when we go into space. Not only will we be able to be in space, we’ll have really, really big screens to watch stuff on.

As high-definition TVs get cheaper and bigger, many people are discovering that the joys of HDTV aren’t always matched by similarly high-quality sound.

In fact, the sound from TV sets’ embedded speakers has arguably gotten worse. The cathode-ray tube sets of old had plenty of room in them for high-quality speakers, whereas today’s flat sets have much less space. Less space means less room for the air displacement needed to make big, beefy, well-rounded sound waves, and that means if you want good sound, you’ll need to add a couple hundred bucks to your TV purchase for a nice pair of external speakers.

Now some companies say they have a better way: Transform the front of the TV screen itself into a vibrating membrane, making it in effect a giant, high-fidelity speaker, giving your HDTV an acoustic range that would make Pavarotti proud.

Emo Labs, a Waltham, Massachusetts startup, has created flat, transparent “speakers” that go in front of the display. And it is not alone in its plans to put good sound right on the face of your TV.  Warwick Audio and NXT Technologies, two British companies, and a Korean firm, Plasma & Ion Beam Corp., have similar plans.

“People are spending a lot of money on these TVs expecting to get great video and audio,” says Allan Evelyn, vice president of business development for Emo Labs. “And when they get their HDTV they are disappointed to discover their old CRT TV had much better sound.”

“It’s a question of physics,” says Aldo Cugnini, a digital technology consultant with AGC Systems, “and physics usually dictates that the bigger speakers have higher fidelity.”

Not anymore, says Emo Labs. Wheeling in at least six boxes that contained cables, a prototype 32-inch TV and a notebook computer, Jason Carlson, CEO of Emo Labs joined Evelyn in showing Wired.com an impressive demo. Every note of Diana Krall’s Live in Paris coming straight from the HDTV sounded like it had been piped through a Bose speaker system. “With our flat embedded speakers the sounds come from the screen, almost like what you get in motion picture theaters,” says  Carlson.

Traditional speakers have three fundamental components: a cone that pushes the air, a voice coil that is an electromagnet and a permanent magnet that can attract or repel the voice coil. When the coil moves, it pushes and pulls on the cone. This, in turn, vibrates the air in front, creating sound waves.

But with thinner or smaller displays there is not enough room to create that displacement resulting in a ‘tinny’ and weak sound.

“Manufacturers are challenged for real estate on a display and they want it to be as thin as possible,” says Cugnini.  “That means they can put the speakers behind the display or at the bottom, both which are not ideal.” The best sound field, say experts, comes from the spaces in front of the speaker and the screen.

For HDTV buyers, this can be a significant annoyance.  HDTVs larger than 50 inches are usually connected to external speakers to create a home theater system. But smaller screens tend to be standalone, forcing users to accept poor audio as part of the package, says Evelyn.

The problem is also a result of how most consumers buy their HDTVs.  Retail stores currently hook up rows of HDTVs in a bid to compare the picture quality.  There’s no place there to determine the sound quality on each. “Quite often the video is running on as many of these screens simultaneously and the sound isn’t,” says Cugnini. “And even if it is, it’s not a good determination of how that audio will translate in your bedroom or living room.”

Emo Labs's Edge Motion Speakers Promise Better Sound for Thin Displays

Emo Labs uses a thin membrane made of polyethylene terephthalate (or PET, a plastic used in bottles) and two piezoelectric actuators. The actuators vibrate the membrane along the side, creating a force that is perpendicular to the motion. Emo Labs says it is negotiating with display manufacturers to embed its technology that users can see in TVs in the next nine months to a year.

Meanwhile, researchers at the University of Warwick hope to commercialize their flexible speaker technology by the end of the year.

Warwick Audio has created ultra-thin (0.2 mm thick) laminate panels that can be used to replace traditional magnet-and-cone speakers. Unlike Emo’s, Warwick’s speaker panels are not transparent. The company hopes to use them largely in public address system and displays.

The better sound quality will, however, come at price. Having a membrane in front of the display will result in about 4 percent loss in brightness, says Carlson. And then there’s the additional cost that stems from making the switch to the new tech. Eventually customers will have to pay more for their enhanced audio TV sets.  “Newer technologies cost more to implement so the street price of the TV will go up,” says Cugnini. Emo Labs estimates its speakers would add a 10-15 percent premium to cost.

But wouldn’t that be a small price to pay if Matt Giraud can sound better on American Idol, or Jack Bauer’s car chases on 24 boom just that much louder?

Top Photo:  University of Warwick creates flat, flexible speaker/ University of Warwick

Two-finger touch or multi-touch? Users don’t have to choose. It can be touch anywhere says French start-up Sensitive Object, which offers a touchscreen technology that goes beyond the traditional display area.

The company’s ‘Anywhere MultiTouch’ platform is based on the recognition of sound waves propagated in an object when the user touches it.

A user’s touch on a glass surface produces a pattern of sound waves that creates an acoustic signature unique to the location of the touch, says Sensitive Object. The company, which was created in 2003, says it has found a way to associate this acoustic signature to the user’s every action.  A glass panel equipped with two piezoelectric sensors, similar to what is used in some new flat speakers technology, is used to detect the sound waves and determine their acoustic signature.

The Anywhere MultiTouch platform can be used on various materials such as glass, aluminum and plastics says Sensitive Object.

The company  hasn’t disclosed how much its new technology will cost. For now it says this will be available at a “very competitive price.” The platform is Windows 7 compliant and offers handwriting recognition.

Sensitive Object hopes to bring its technology to cellphones, netbooks, laptops, PCs and portable games terminals. For app developers, the technology can be handy to expand how users interact with their devices, it says. For instance in case of a cellphone, a game app can require touch on any part of the phone instead of just the screen.

“Sensitive Object’s products are now used in various markets such as home automation, interactive point of sale or information desks and gaming,” says Bruno Thuillier, CTO of Sensitive Object in a statement. “We’re now addressing the handheld and consumer markets.”

[via UberGizmo]

See also:
Touchscreen Kit May Spur More Multi-Touch Apps
Video: MOTO Labs Shows Large Screen Multi-touch Prototype

Photo: (Pranav Singh/Flickr)

Touchscreens are already a big hit with cellphone users. But PC users largely remain chained to their keyboards and mouse.  N-Trig, which provides touchscreens for HP and Dell machines, hopes to change that by putting the technology into the hands of independent software developers — the same people whose apps helped propel the iPhone to massive success.

N-Trig has introduced a touchscreen kit for software developers that can be connected to any development PC. The kit, which costs $900, allows developers to display and test programs designed for touchscreens without having to buy computers that already have one.

“The advantage of having a dev kit  is that it allows you to use the CPU on a high end workstation for compile times but lets you test the multi-touch features in a box next to it,” says Frank DeSimone, senior director of research and development at SpaceClaim, a company that makes a 3D CAD-like product.  “Or you have to compile on a consumer laptop with a touchscreen and that isn’t as fast.”

Apple’s iPhone has made touch a much-desired feature on cellphones. But in PCs, touchscreens have yet to take off. Multi-touch (which involves use of more than two fingers on a touchscreen) is expected to get a boost once Microsoft releases the Windows 7 operating system, its successor to Vista.  Windows 7 supports gesture such as pinching and fingertip scrolling. Other Windows programs, such as Paint, will also include new brushes designed for multi-touch and features such as panning across a page in Internet Explorer. Earlier this year, Microsoft led a $24 million investment round in N-Trig.

But so far developers have had to buy touchscreen computers that feature the N-Trig display. Only three PCs — the HP TX2 and two Dell PCs — currently have it.  The N-Trig dev kit allows developers to turn any of their computers into a touchscreen enabled machine.

“The N-Trig kit can connect to a very powerful desktop computer,” says Harry van der Veen, CEO of Natural Interface, a Swedish company that offers multi-touch software products for applications such as digital signage and education. “You can easily move it around and it is attractively priced. The fact that it is mobile adds a lot of value to the product.”

And as more developers take to creating multi-touch based apps, N-Trig is betting demand for its touchscreens will increase driving the company’s fortunes.

N-Trig's digitizer box aims to kick start multi-touch apps.

“We are a hardware company but the only way that multi-touch on PCs will become mainstream is if independant software developers create applications such as games and productivity tools,” says Lenny Engelhardt, vice-president of business development for N-Trig.

The N-Trig dev kit box, also known as the digitizer, looks like a tablet computer with few controls. The touchscreen on the digitizer supports both stylus and finger touch and connects to the computer using a standard USB cable. The digitizer box can be moved to any Windows-based computer, though it does not work with a Mac.

“This way the developer community can have a touchscreen without buying a touchscreen computer,” says Engelhardt.

$900 for a touchscreen box may seem expensive, but N-Trig says developer shops can use a single box across many machines. And if there is significant demand for the kits, the company can bring down the costs.

Though Windows 7 won’t be available to consumers till 2010, developers interested in multi-touch will have to start working on creating and testing applications now, says DeSimone. “To be successful to get it right you have to start now,” he says.  “If you wait till Windows 7 is out it could be too late to design around the hurdles and have a quality product.”

Photos: N-Trig