The Society for Information Display honored six companies at Display Week 2012: Tactus Technology for best prototype in the new Innovation Zone and Dimenco, Fraunhofer COMEDD, LG Display, Ocular, and Samsung Display Company as Best-in-Show winners from the exhibit floor.

by Jenny Donelan

DISPLAY WEEK featured a new kind of exhibition within the exhibition this year – the Innovation Zone (I-Zone). The 23 exhibitors in the designated I-Zone space were chosen to participate on the basis of their cutting-edge research and their ability to demonstrate a working prototype at the show. The presence of these companies, many of them start-ups or research arms of larger institutions, enhanced the entrepreneurial aspect of Display Week and also gave show-goers a look at display technologies of the future.

I-Zone Prototype Winner: Tactus Technology, Inc.

Members of the I-Zone committee chose the best prototype from the I-Zone, announcing the winner, Tactus Technology, Inc., right on the show floor for its next-generation tactile touch-screen interface. The technology enables touch screens with buttons or other shapes that rise from the surface of the screen when needed and recede when not, leaving a flat surface (Fig 1). The Tactile layer panel uses microfluidics to produce the physical buttons and adds no extra thickness to a standard touch-screen display.

Fig. 1: Tactus Technology's tactile user interface uses microfluidics to create physical buttons that rise up from the surface of the screen on demand and recede back into the screen when no longer needed.

Best-in-Show Winners

Five companies – Dimenco, Fraunhofer COMEDD, LG Display, Ocular, and Samsung – won Best-in-Show awards at Display Week, the 49th annual SID International Symposium, Seminar, and Exhibition held in Boston last June. The 2012 winners were selected by a panel of display experts based on the significance of their development and/or product and for their ability to generate excitement within not only the display industry but also the general public and the media. The awards were open to all exhibitors on the show floor during Display Week 2012.

The Best-in-Show distinction allows SID to honor those developments that are often first showcased at Display Week, according to Robert Melcher, chairman of the awards committee. Says Melcher, "We were pleased to recognize five standout products from the impressive and diverse field on the exhibit floor."

Dimenco received a Best-in-Show award for its unique 23-in. eye-tracking, auto-adjusting stereo, and multi-view 3-D display (Fig. 2)and its large-area 56-in. multiple-view 4K x 2K display. Dimenco's glasses-free technology is based on a patented lenticular-lens technology designed to eliminate banding effects while providing a 150° viewing angle and 28 views. For more about Dimenco's autostereoscopic display, see the Display Week Technology review on 3-D in this issue.

Fig. 2: The 23-in. autostereoscopic display from Dimenco offers 28 views.

Fraunhofer COMEDD earned the Best-in-Show award for its AMOLED microdisplay with integrated photosensor, which could be applied for next-generation eye-tracking devices. The glasses shown at Display Week (Fig. 3) are designed to enable the user to view the real world while also being able to see virtual information. The embedded camera in the microdisplay captures the eye movements of the user to allow interaction with and control of the virtual information in a manner similar to a mouse.

Fig. 3: System designer Rigo Herold wears Fraunhofer COMEDD's interactive data glasses.

LG Display earned a Best-in-Show award for its 55-in. 3-D OLED TV with WRGB OLEDs and an oxide backplane in a thin form factor(Fig. 4). The TV represents a huge achievement in terms of large-sized OLEDs and also offers 3-D viewing with a film-patterned retarder and low-cost glasses. For more about this product, see the OLED Technology review in this issue.

Ocular was named a Best-in-Show winner for its 17-in. projected-capacitive multi-touch panel that supports 16 simultaneous touches(Fig. 5). This true multi-touch panel features the Atmel maXTouch mXT1716E controller and measures 400 mm x 258 mm. While supporting the 16 touches, it also has the sophistication to identify and disregard unintended touches.

Fig. 5: Ocular's 17-in. pro-cap panel supports up to 16 simultaneous touches.

Samsung was named a Best-in-Show winner for its impressive 55-in. AMOLED TV with true RGB OLEDs and LTPS backplane, and dual-view feature (Fig. 6). Samsung's 55-in. TV has an active 3-D design that preserves resolution and luminance with no crosstalk, using glasses that are much lighter and more comfortable than earlier 3-D counterparts. See more about this TV in the OLED Technology Review in this issue. •

Fig. 6: Samsung's 55-in. 3-D OLED TV also offers a dual-view feature that allows two people to watch the same set simultaneously while seeing and hearing different content.