Remember the Qualcomm mirasol ebook reader prototype we we exclusively showed you yesterday? One thing we weren’t allowed to photograph – something Qualcomm rectified today – was one of the more interesting attachments they envisage potentially figuring highly: a snap-on gaming controller. The mirasol team won’t confirm any OEM names, but using the low-power displays in gaming hardware looks to be another potential avenue. Plus, after the cut, a video of the mirasol display in action.
Ebook readers are arguably coming of age, but don’t assume e-ink – and the push to produce color e-ink panels – have won the game quite yet. SlashGear met up with Qualcomm’s mirasol team today to discuss their latest display news, and while you might remember the technology from their early 1.1-inch single-color panels, they’re now showing off a 5.7-inch display capable of full color and video playback, with minimal impact on battery life. They’ve set themselves the target of having color ebook readers with mirasol panels on the market by the latter part of 2010, and are working with OEMs now to achieve that.
eStarling’s first digital photo frame was roundly panned for being user-unfriendly and having a shonky external wireless dongle. Now the company is back with a new version, and we’d like to think they’ve learned from their initial mistakes. The eStarling 802.11n Touchscreen Connected Frame lacks a snappy name but does, as the title suggests, get a WiFi b/g/n update to support the faster standard, as well as a new touch-sensitive interface.
3M are perhaps best known among geeky types for their self-adhesive privacy films, that can be used to shield monitors against prying eyes, but the company has also been investigating 3D technology. They’ve demonstrated a 3D display system that requires no special glasses; instead, it relies on backlighting control and a specially textured adhesive film that directs elements of an on-screen image to either the viewer’s left or right eye.
We’ve featured Ideum and their multitouch tables before on SlashGear, but the company have been in touch to flaunt their latest development: an ultra-wide touchscreen surface. Billed as “one of the largest contiguous multitouch tables ever developed”, the new table is based on the same optical touch recognition system as their standard MT-50 but has a 100-inch surface and an 86-inch viewable area, and can recognize over 50 different simultaneous touch points.
Video demo after the cut
Could we soon be looking at large(ish) scale, reasonably priced OLED and AMOLED displays? Probably not, at least when it comes to the pricing part, but both LG Display and AUO have announced mass production plans for their OLED and AMOLED panels, LG expecting to kick-start production in 2011 while AUO claims to be ready to start now.
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Acer has become the latest manufacturer to announce a multitouch-capable LCD monitor suitable for use with Windows 7. The Acer T230H is, at 23-inches, slightly larger than its Dell and HP counterparts, but offers the same Full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution. It recognizes one- and two-finger gestures, such as pinch-zoom and chiral-rotate, and has VGA, HDMI and DVI inputs.
The actual benefits of transparent displays are yet to be explained – beyond the sheer cool factor, of course – but that isn’t stopping manufacturers from announcing them. Both LG Display and Samsung Mobile Display have been flaunting their respective transparent OLEDs, the former having a full 15-inch OLED panel ideal for notebooks, while the latter has a 2-inch OLED panel intended for cellphones.
If you thought HP and Dell’s Windows 7 compatible multitouch monitors were desk-dominating at 21.5-inches, go away and fetch a cold-compress. Albatron have been working on their latest optical touch display, and it’s a full 42-inch whopper promising 1080p resolution, multitouch and gesture support. mobile+notebook grabbed some hands-on (literally) time with the behemoth.
Video demo after the cut
Nintendo are tipped to be readying a refresh to their DSi handheld, timed to coincide with the games console’s first birthday on November 1st. According to Nikkei, Nintendo Japan are readying a new DSi with dual 4-inch displays, rather than the existing 3.25-inch panels used in the current model.
Update: A Nintendo spokesperson has told Famitsu.com that “Our company isn’t doing any interviews [about this]. We think it’s a speculative article.” Neat sidestep, guys.
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