Is it your dream to one day be able to sit wherever you want, reading a full color, web connected, constantly updating, flexible news reader? Walking around freely, but conveniently and fully informed with internet speed? That day may be coming sooner than you might think. Or maybe not soon enough, depending on how attached you are to the dream.
The New York Times BITS blog spoke to Nicholas Colaneri, director of the Flexible Display Center at Arizona State University. He explained that just because we have flexible displays, it doesn’t mean we will have flexible devices in the marketplace for another few years.
He said, “The display panel itself is only a small part of the battle, all the ancillary electronics, the power, transistors, and circuitry are all things today that are not yet fully flexible at large scales.â€
We can expect to see flexible displays in the marketplace in the next three to five years, Mr. Colaneri said, but this is just the screen technology. The other components are a little further out.
First we can expect to see larger external screens rather than smaller readers. Colaneri said, “Flexible is a major part of the discussion because longer range there is an interest in larger area displays that can be rolled up and stored somewhere.â€
If we wish hard enough, the flexible technologies continue to advance, and the correct resources are applied to research in this area, we may only have to wait another five years, at best.Â
Flexible E Ink devices (the screen technology in the Kindle and Sony Reader), could be available, possibly, in the next five to seven years.
Completely flexible OLED devices (there are some interesting videos online of Sony’s full color flexible OLED displays) could be in the marketplace in the next 10 years.
Tags: Internet Speed