Third-Annual I-Zone Call for Papers
The Innovation Zone (I-Zone) at Display Week is one of the most exciting places on the show floor. Nowhere else in the world will you see, in one location, so many prototypes and discoveries that will change the future of the display industry in years to come. Two recent examples are a new film-type plasma display that rolls up like a windowshade from Shinoda Plasma Co., Ltd., which won a 2013 Best Prototype Award, and a microfluidics-based technology that enables transparent physical buttons to rise up from a touch-screen surface from Tactus Technology, which won in 2012.
On June 3 and 4, at Display Week 2014 in San Diego, California, the Society for Information Display will once again host the I-Zone, a forum for live demonstrations of emerging information-display and display-related technologies. The I-Zone, which is sponsored by E Ink, offers researchers space to demonstrate their prototypes or other hardware demo units for two days free of charge at the premier display exhibition in North America. The committee is actively encouraging participation by small companies, start-ups, universities, government labs, and independent research labs.
Proposals to demonstrate new displays, input technologies, and innovations in related fields such as lighting and organic electronics are now being solicited. Technologies should be in the pre-product stage, and demos that will be shown for the first time in a public forum at I-Zone are especially encouraged. Submissions are due by March 1, 2014.
To submit your proposal, please visit http://www.sid.org/About/Awards/IZone.aspx. For any questions related to the 2014 I-Zone, please contact Professor Jerzy Kanicki at kanicki@eeds.umich.edu.
SID-Mac Meeting Features UHD
The difference between UHD and 1080p TV imagery was one of the topics addressed by Claudio Ciacci, Test Program Leader for Video at Consumer Reports, at a special presentation for the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the Society for Information Display in Yonkers, New York, last fall. According to Ciacci, UHD does offer a better picture than HD, but the differences may be not be so apparent in typical home-viewing situations, and lower prices and more content will be necessary to make these sets more appealing to the average consumer. For more on UHD and 1080p, see his blog at: http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2013/10/ultra-hd-vs-hd-tv-is-ultra-worth-the-extra-money/index.htm. Ciacci also gave a brief overview of TV testing procedures at Consumer Reports and reported on LCD/LEDs, plasma, and OLED TVs.
Also presenting at the meeting was Evan Donoghue, Thin Film Scientist at eMagin Corp., who reported on EuroDisplay 2013. He focused on OLED advances at EuroDisplay, as well as advances in other materials that would affect OLED microdisplays. Matt Brennesholtz, a Consultant and Senior Analyst with Insight Media, discussed advances in projection technology that had occurred since Display Week 2013 in Vancouver. He focused on projectors with solid-state illumination, including lasers, LEDs, and hybrid systems.
– Jenny Donelan