Monthly Archives: May 2017

Touch panels, flexible/curved/foldable display, smart windows, quantum dots are hot topics at SID 2017

May 27, 2017, by Jennifer Colegrove Ph.D.

I just returned from SID DisplayWeek 2017 in the beautiful Log Angeles, California. It was my honor to meet some of you in person.

Touch panels, flexible/curved/foldable display, smart windows, quantum dots are hot topics at SID 2017. Each of these fields has some as expected, and also has some surprises.

Figure: SID 2017 exhibition floor

Photo by: Dr. Jennifer Colegrove at Touch Display Research

Mr. Bob Miller, Senior Business Manager at Merck/EMD show us its liquid crystal smart windows in large format, see picture here. This is NOT PDLC (Polymer Dispersed Liquid Crystal), but only liquid crystal.

Figure: Merck/EMD Mr. Bob Miller demonstrate their smart windows

Photo by: Dr. Jennifer Colegrove at Touch Display Research

How many smart windows technologies are there? What’s the Pros and Cons of each type? Which company is investing in which? In the recently published “Smart Windows Transparent Switchable Technologies, Supply Chain and Market Forecast 2017 Report,” Touch Display Research Inc., analyzed 19 smart window technologies, which include 16 active smart window technologies and 3 passive smart window technologies. Some can be both active and passive. More than 130 companies working on smart window technologies are profiled in the report.

What are the surprises of each hot topic? More analysis of SID 2017 can be found in the “Touch and Emerging Display” monthly report.

Thanks for reading,

Dr. Jennifer Colegrove and team

 

DSC and digital pen market

May 17, 2017 by Jennifer Colegrove Ph.D.

Today, Digital Stationery Consortium (DSC) announced more new members and the formation of three new working groups.  Founded by Wacom in 2016, DSC is an association with the shared mission to advocate the value of digital pen, ink and paper.

Touch Display Research had a chance to interview Mr. Faik Karaoglu, Officer of the Digital Stationery Consortium and Senior Vice President of Wacom’s Platforms and Apps Business Unit. We asked their relationship with Universal Stylus Initiative (USI), another industry association. (Here is the blog about we interviewed Mr. Pete Mueller, Chairman of USI and Principal Engineer/Senior Technologist at Intel.) Mr. Karaoglu replied that they are not competing, rather they are complimentary to each other. USI is focusing on hardware: the active pen; DSC is focusing on the software and usage cases.

Digital pen input is very useful in education, certain language input, medical, finance, industry applications, and content creation. Active pen technology is superior to passive in terms of accuracy, pressure sensing, and input of fine line. In the recently published “Active Pen Technologies, Supply Chain and Market Forecast 2017 Report (Third Edition),” Touch Display Research Inc. forecasted that active pen usage will have rapid growth in the next several years.

Figure: Active pen 2017 market report

The active pen market has attracted over 120 companies. We analyzed more than twenty digital pen technologies, which include thirteen active pen technologies and eight passive pen technologies. The active pen industry is going through re-shuffling, market shares of leading pen protocols are forecasted in this report.

Thanks for reading,

Dr. Jennifer Colegrove and team