Most consumers appreciate the way gadgets keep getting thinner and lighter. But soldiers who use gadgets in the midst of extreme combat situations demand even more. That’s why Hewlett-Packard says it is working on a prototype of a solar-powered, lightweight computer display that can be wrapped around a soldier’s wrist.
The flexible display, just about 200 microns thick, could show data such as maps or directions. It will be powered by solar cells.
“Soldiers in the infantry carry enormous amounts of batteries and gadgets that can weigh up to 70 pounds,” says Carl Taussig, director of HP’s Information Surfaces lab, which is working on the project. “We could make it easier for them.”
The first prototypes will be offered to the military starting early next year, says Taussig.
The displays would be use E Ink’s display technology. But they will be manufactured using a roll-to-roll process, similar to the way ink is printed on paper.
Flexible displays are paper-like computer displays made almost entirely of plastic. The Army has funded research at Arizona State University’s Flexible Display Center that could bring in screens that are light and flexible enough to be rolled up and put into your backpack.
Flexibility isn’t just an advantage for the users. It also has the potential to simplify the process of display manufacturing. HP, and other companies, such as Ntera, are trying to create a manufacturing process that would allow the fabrication of thin-film transistor arrays on flexible materials such as plastic. The idea is to create displays that can be produced continuously, like newspapers rolling off a printing press, instead of the batch production that traditional displays use, which is more like the way cookies are cut. Roll-to-roll manufacturing would result in displays that are not just bendable but also relatively inexpensive to produce.
To create that for a real-world device, HP says it will have to re-engineer how the displays are made and powered. The company plans to use a black-and-white, low-power display technology from E Ink — the same technology that’s inside popular e-book readers such as the Kindle.
A thin layer of electronics will drive the E Ink screen. Optical and electronic components will be stamped onto the plastic. HP says it will work with a company called Phicot that it spun out recently to produce these displays.
Solar-powered cells that that are integrated into a piece of fabric will be connected to the flexible wrist displays.
The flexible wrist displays will be fairly small to begin with — around the size of an index card — but HP hopes that if they prove to be reliable enough, they can scale up production to slightly bigger versions.
“In the future, we think all displays will be made of plastic and our version of the Dick Tracy watch will be the first step towards it,” says Taussig.
See Also:
Top photo: Flexible solar cells printed on fabric/ HP
Inhabitat | 
Crimson Collective | Email this | Comments
