THE TECH-LICIOUS: DISPLAY SCREEN

Vision-correcting display lets users ditch their reading glasses

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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img alt="Researchers at UC Berkeley claim to have created a vision-correcting matrix for display sc..." height="358" src="http://images.gizmag.com/hero/vision-correcting-display.jpg" width="640" /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px;">We've seen a number of </span>glasses-free 3D<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px;"> technologies in recent years, most famously in </span>Nintendo's 3DS<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22px;">, but now researchers at the University of California at Berkeley and MIT have created a prototype device that allows those with vision problems to ditch their eyeglasses and contact lenses when viewing regular 2D computer displays by compensating for the viewer's visual impairment.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The prototype device consists of a screen printed with a matrix of pinholes measuring just 75 microns in diameter and separated by gaps 390 microns wide. This printed pinhole screen was then inserted between two layers of clear acrylic and attached it to an iPod display. Using an algorithm that takes into account a person's eyeglasses prescription, the screen is able to compensate for an individual's specific visual impairment by adjusting the intensity and direction of the light emitted from each screen pixel.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In this way, by way of a technique called deconvolution – a process of reversing optical distortion similar to that used to correct images on the Hubble telescope’s distorted mirror – the light from the image that passes through the pinhole matrix will be perceived by the user as a sharp image.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In a trial to test this set up, the team used a camera whose lens was adjusted to emulate farsightedness in a human eye, and then displayed images to that camera. When the image-correcting matrix was placed between the screen and the observing camera, the image resolved into sharp focus.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"Our technique distorts the image such that, when the intended user looks at the screen, the image will appear sharp to that particular viewer,” said Brian Barsky, UC Berkeley professor of computer science and vision science who is leading the project. "But if someone else were to look at the image, it would look bad."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Currently, the device also requires that the viewer remain in a fixed position for the matrix to be effective. However, Fu-Chung Huang, who is lead author of the study, says that eye-tracking technology could be used in future to allow the displays to adapt to the position of the viewer's head. He says the team also hopes to add multi-way correction that would allow users with different visual problems to view sharp images on the same display.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In addition to common problems such as farsightedness, the team says the technology could one day also help those with more complex problems, known as high order aberrations, which eyeglasses and contact lenses are unable to correct.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"We now live in a world where displays are ubiquitous, and being able to interact with displays is taken for granted," said Barsky. "People with higher order aberrations often have irregularities in the shape of the cornea, and this irregular shape makes it very difficult to have a contact lens that will fit. In some cases, this can be a barrier to holding certain jobs because many workers need to look at a screen as part of their work. This research could transform their lives, and I am passionate about that potential."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The research team's will present their findings at <a href="http://s2014.siggraph.org/" style="background-color: transparent; color: #1e8dd7; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">SIGGRAPH 2014</a> (Special Interest Group on Graphics and Interactive Techniques) conference in Vancouver, Canada on August 12th this year. Their paper is published in the journal <i><a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2601122&CFID=395543916&CFTOKEN=48556190" style="background-color: transparent; color: #1e8dd7; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">ACM Transactions on Graphics</a></i>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The following video shows the prototype screen in use, and explains some of the background to its development.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/6V2x3nLQdA0?feature=player_embedded" style="background-color: transparent;" width="640"></iframe></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">SOURCE-<a href="http://www.gizmag.com/vision-correcting-display-glasses-obsolete/33173/" target="_blank">GIZMAG</a></span></div>
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Vision-correcting display lets users ditch their reading glasses

We've seen a number of glasses-free 3D technologies in recent years, most famously in Nintendo's 3DS, but now researchers at the University of California at Berkeley and MIT have created a prototype …

31 Jul 2014

"Nano-pixels" hold huge potential for flexible, low-power, high-res screens

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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img alt="Still images drawn with the 'nano-pixel' technology that each measure around 70 micrometre..." height="358" src="http://images.gizmag.com/hero/nano-pixel-display.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Still images drawn with the 'nano-pixel' technology that each measure around 70 micrometres across, which is smaller than the width of a human hair (Photo: Oxford University)" width="640" /></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #444444; line-height: 22px;">STILL IMAGES DRAWN WITH NANO PIXEL TECHNOLOGY</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The Retina displays featured on Apple's iPhone 4 and 5 models pack a pixel density of 326 ppi, with individual pixels measuring 78 micrometers. That might seem plenty good enough given the average human eye is unable to differentiate between the individual pixels, but scientists in the UK have now developed technology that could lead to extremely high-resolution displays that put such pixel densities to shame.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Led by Oxford University scientists, a research team has created a prototype device that features pixels just 30 x 30 nanometers in size. The high resolution potential of the technology was discovered while the team was exploring the link between the electrical and optical properties of phase change materials (PCMs) that can switch from an amorphous to a crystalline state.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">By sandwiching a seven-nanometer thick layer of the PCM Germanium-Antimony-Tellurium (Ge2Sb2Te5 or GST) between two layers of transparent electrodes made of indium tin oxide (ITO), the scientists discovered they could "draw" still images within the sandwich "stack" using an atomic force microscope. They then found that the "nano-pixels" could be switched on and off electronically, creating colored dots that could be used as the basis for an extremely high-resolution display.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"We didn't set out to invent a new kind of display," said Professor Harish Bhaskaran of Oxford University's Department of Materials, who led the research. "We were exploring the relationship between the electrical and optical properties of phase change materials and then had the idea of creating this GST 'sandwich' made up of layers just a few nanometers thick. We found that not only were we able to create images in the stack but, to our surprise, thinner layers of GST actually gave us better contrast. We also discovered that altering the size of the bottom electrode layer enabled us to change the color of the image."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">But extremely high-resolution isn't the only impressive quality of the technology. The layers that make up the GST sandwich are created using a sputtering technique, which would allow them to be deposited as thin films on extremely thin and flexible substrates.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"We have already demonstrated that the technique works on flexible Mylar sheets around 200 nanometres thick," said Professor Bhaskaran. "This makes them potentially useful for 'smart' glasses, foldable screens, windshield displays, and even synthetic retinas that mimic the abilities of photoreceptor cells in the human eye."</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.gizmag.com/nano-pixel-high-resolution-display-oxford/32919/pictures#2" style="background-color: transparent; color: #1e8dd7; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img alt="Phase change flexible films in reflective mode created in the Advanced Nanoscale Engineeri..." src="http://images.gizmag.com/inline/nano-pixel-display-1.jpg" style="border: 0px; vertical-align: bottom;" width="392" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Additionally, like the power-saving E-Ink displays used in eReaders, all the pixels don't need to be constantly refreshed, as is the case with LCD screens. This means that only those pixels that actually change would need to be refreshed, significantly lowering energy consumption.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Furthermore, the scientists believe displays based on the technology could switch between a color e-Reader mode that saves power by relying on reflected light, and a video display mode that makes use of a backlight.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The team believes displays made using the technology would be easy to manufacture from inexpensive materials, while also being reliable as they would be solid-state. Amongst the wide variety of potential applications, the team highlights the technology's benefits for use in smart glasses, where the nano-pixels would allow even images projected at a larger size would offer very high resolution.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"Along with many other researchers around the world, we have been looking into the use of these GST materials for memory applications for many years," says Professor David Wright from the Department of Engineering at the University of Exeter, who is co-author of a paper detailing the technology. "But no one before thought of combining their electrical and optical functionality to provide entirely new kinds of non-volatile, high-resolution, electronic color displays – so our work is a real breakthrough."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Although the work is still in its early stages, the team has filed a patent for the technology and is fielding discussions on the displays with companies and investors through Isis Innovation, Oxford University's technology commercialization company.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">SOURCE-<a href="http://www.gizmag.com/nano-pixel-high-resolution-display-oxford/32919/" target="_blank">GIZMAG</a></span></div>
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"Nano-pixels" hold huge potential for flexible, low-power, high-res screens

STILL IMAGES DRAWN WITH NANO PIXEL TECHNOLOGY The Retina displays featured on Apple's iPhone 4 and 5 models pack a pixel density of 326 ppi, with individual pixels measuring 78 micrometers. That migh…

12 Jul 2014