Tag Archives: Large display

Visit of Light Blue Optics about touch and pen

April 17, 2014

I’m traveling in Cambridge, England today. I had a chance to visit Light Blue Optics (LBO). Dr. Nic Lawrence, director of product management, and Ms. Evelyne Donnaes, Software team leader at LBO, showed me their touch and pen technologies.

The last time I visit LBO in Cambridge is about 6 years ago when they were developing laser based pocket projectors. Since 2011, LBO has changed business direction and developed optical touch technology. LBO’s expertise is in the touch software, which they named Light Touch.

In January 2014, Light Blue Optics and Promethean announced the integration of LBO’s advanced Light Touch™ technology into ActivWall – Promethean’s newest digital classroom projection offering.

Figure: Promethean ActivWall with Light Blue Optics touch technology

LBO Promethean

Source: Promethean and LBO

The ActivWall is an interactive digital surface that may be positioned both “front and back” in the classroom. In order to design digital classroom surfaces that allow multiple groups of students to simultaneously collaborate, the new ActivWall features Light Blue Optics’ unique Light Touch™ technology that supports differentiated pen (i.e. the system identifies whether the contact is a pen or touch and operates accordingly) and up to 20 simultaneous touches. LBO also claims their system is lower cost than competitors.

Detail analysis, comparisons of touch and pen technologies can be found in our monthly report: Touch and Emerging Display report, April 2014 issue.

Thanks for reading.

Jennifer and team

 

Curved 105-inch displays at CES are LCDs (not OLED)

March 31, 2014

In the weekend, I read a famous consumer electronic publisher’s article about the 105-inch curved display at CES; it indicated they are curved OLED screen:

Figure: Image of the publisher’s statement about 105-inch curved display

CEA wrong about 105 curved OLED deco

Source: a famous consumer electronic publisher

That statement is wrong. Both LG and Samsung showed several curved display at CES 2014, but the 105-inch curved displays are LCDs, not OLED.  The largest curved OLED demonstrated is 77-inch so far (not count the type that tile many OLED displays together). It’s a bit of heartbreak to see that this famous consumer electronic publisher spread the wrong information.

As I wrote in our mission: I’m concerned about these people and the people they advise. I feel as a Ph.D. and experienced technology analyst, I have the responsibility to provide to my clients correct knowledge, up-to-date information, forward-thinking analysis, and best business strategies.

Touch Display Research has published CES 2014 analysis report in January, it provided detail analysis of all the curved LCDs and curved AMOLED.  

O-Film increases touch panel revenue

October 2, 2013

I met Vico, Simon and Johann in California recently, the marketing team of O-Film, and the one-hour meeting turned to two hours. The team is very knowledgeable on the touch screen industry. O-Film is headquartered in China with sales offices worldwide. Their touch panel products include ITO-film type touch panels, metal mesh film touch panels, and One-Glass-Solution (OGS).

Figure. O-Film’s touch panel

O film touch

Photo by: Jennifer Colegrove, Touch Display Research Inc., 2013.

Many Taiwan touch suppliers consider O-Film a strong competitor, since O-Film has recently landed orders from not only Chinese but also Taiwanese ODM/OEMs.

I asked O-film if they have met with companies in Silicon Valley such as Apple, HP…. They smiled and said, “Whatever companies you can think of, we’ve talked to them.”

Touch Display Research believes that high conductivity transparent conductors could fit best on large size projected capacitive touch panels. We forecast the ITO-replacement market will grow to about $4 billion by 2020.

More analysis about O-Film can be found in our ITO-replacement report and Touch and Emerging Display monthly report.

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer and team

Taiwan touch manufacturers grasp new opportunities

August 8, 2013

(Editor’s note: Dr. Jennifer Colegrove will be traveling to Taipei, Taiwan later this month to speak at the International Display Manufacturing Conference (IDMC) and to visit TouchTaiwan 2013.)

“I am honored to be delivering a special forum at the conference, and eager to meet Taiwan’s touch screen manufacturers and emerging display manufacturers,” said Dr. Colegrove.

Jennifer will be speaking on August 28th, 13:20-13:45 at a special forum of the IDMC conference which is in conjunction with TouchTaiwan exhibition. Contact her by email: jc@touchdisplayresearch.com

 IDMC touchtaiwan

Blog:

Taiwan is one of the most active regions in touch screen manufacturing. In 2006-2007, Apple’s iPhone brought revolutionary changes to the touch screen industry. Touch panel companies at the forefront such as TPK, Wintek, Youngfast, J-Touch rode the wave and grew rapidly.

Recently, display and touch screen integration have become necessary to reduce cost, weight, and thickness. This has led display manufacturers such as AUO, Innolux (used to be named ChiMei Innolux), and CPT to grasp an opportunity and supply the new devices.

In 2013 a wave of new opportunities and challenges are approaching. Touch Display Research analyzed the growth opportunities in:

  1. Large smart phone (>5”)
  2. Touch technology for notebook and all-in-one PCs
  3. ITO-replacement materials
  4. Multi-touch and simultaneous pen writing
  5. Touchless control

I am honored to be delivering a special forum at the conference and eager to meet Taiwan’s touch screen and display manufacturers.

Jennifer and team

Sony moving in the right direction: Emerging displays and touch playing a key role

August 5, 2013

Sony Corporation has lost money five years in a row. However, during both this May and August Sony announced good news: it swung back to a profit in its fiscal fourth quarter (FYQ4 ended on March 31st) and fiscal first quarter (FYQ1 ended on June 30th). The main contribution to this new profitability is “lifted by the first black ink in 3 years at its long-struggling TV business” as indicated by Wall Street Journal on August 1.

So far, I think the new CEO Kazuo Hirai is steering Sony in the right direction, and emerging display and touch technologies are playing a key role:

  • As we covered in the monthly “Touch and Emerging display report”, Sony has released several 4K TVs. Sony has adopted QD Vision’s quantum dots on some of its TVs for better color and lower power consumption.
  • Sony is still manufacturing AMOLED professional monitors and successfully selling these at high price, leading to profitability
  • Sony is planning a flexible e-Paper display (from E Ink) tablet with pen-writing function by end of this year.
  • Sony added more pen-writing notebook PCs.
  • Recently Sony has unveiled SmartWatch 2 with a larger 1.6” 220×176 touch display (the original SmartWatch has a 1.3” 128X128 OLED display).

Figure: Sony upcoming flexible display tablet with pen

E ink Sony Mobius

Photo by: Touch Display Research Inc.

Although a profitable quarter is good news, the profit of FYQ1 is only 3.5 billion Yen, a 0.2% profit margin. It is still left to be seen if Sony can maintain profitability the entire fiscal year.

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer and team

 

LG and Samsung drop lawsuits; Samsung may adopt LG’s OLED technology

 

Feb 21, 2013

On Feb 20th, Korea Times reported that LG Display has dropped its injunction against Samsung Display Corporation.

Samsung and LG have had a fierce competition for decades. Recently the Korean government has become involved and ordered the two companies to talk to each other. Several weeks ago, Samsung dropped its lawsuit against LG Display over OLED technology. Yesterday, LG Display dropped its lawsuit against Samsung over IPS LCD technology.

The announcement comes after Samsung surprisingly decided to adopt LG’s white OLED plus color filter technology. According to Samsung officials the company will start the manufacture of AMOLED with white OLED plus color filter technology in late 2013.

I believe this cooperation is mainly caused by progress by other regions in AMOLED. See our “Large AMOLED TV Summary and Comparison” of LG, Samsung, Sony, AUO, and Panasonic.

Figure. Large AMOLED TV Summary and Comparison

oled tv tablet with cr

Source: Touch Display Research, Touch and Emerging Display Monthly Report, Jan. 2013

In January 2013, LG Electronics officially launched the 55” OLED TV with 1080p resolution in the South Korean market, priced at about $10,000. LG later announced that it would bring the OLED TV to the U.S. market in March 2013, priced at $12,000.

On the other hand, Samsung has no follow-up of when to bring its 55” OLED TV to the market yet.

LG’s 55” OLED TV uses white OLED plus RGBW color filter method for the color patterning, and using oxide TFT for the backplane. Samsung’s 55” OLED TV demo uses RGB chemical vapor deposition and LTPS TFT for the backplane. Current commercialization situation confirmed that LG’s method is more achievable, or can achieve higher yield and lower cost in 2013.

Sony, AUO, and Panasonic brought OLED TVs to a higher level: Ultra HD (4K) resolution. Samsung and LG’s OLED TV stayed at FHD (1080p), but they made them curved this year.

With the other region’s AMOLED competition, it’s a good decision for LG and Samsung to cooperate. Will Samsung adopt white OLED method to only TV or to other size AMOLED?  What is the pros and cons of white OLED method? Will Samsung abandon (bottle up) its other color patterning technologies? More analysis can be found in our Touch and Emerging Display monthly report.

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer and team

Microsoft Jeff Han keynote about touch and pen technologies

Jeff Han keynote with cr2I volunteered for SID (Society of Information Display) Bay-Area chapter, and helped with organizing the first 1-day “Display and Touch Technologies of the future 2013” conference as a conference co-chair. After 5 months of preparation, the 1-day conference was held on Jan 16th, 2013, and it was overwhelmingly successful with 160 attendees.

Microsoft’s Jeff Han and Intel’s Achin Bhowmik gave keynote presentations.

I had the honor to introduce the morning keynote: Jeff Han, General manager of Microsoft office division. Jeff Han was famous about promoting multi-touch since 2006, 1 year before the Apple’s iPhone in the market. Han was the CEO, founder and chief scientist of Perceptive Pixel since 2006. Han was named to Time magazine’s listing of the 100 Most Influential People in The World in 2008. His company was acquired by Microsoft mid-2012.

Jeff Han brought a 50” touch screen display demo to this 2013 conference. In his keynote, he first showed the video of touch being used by CNN for the president election news. Then he introduced some advanced research that Microsoft is doing. He walked to his touch display and demoed the touch and pen writing. He said, “When you are in the drawing mode, then you want to go to the next page, you do a swipe. But the screen shows you a line. Now you realized that you are in the drawing mode, not the touch mode. Then you have to go here, click this button to switch to touch mode. You see, that break the flow.” He emphasized that with simultaneous touch and pen technology, user can have the smooth flow.

As Jeff Han emphasized that with simultaneous touch and pen technology, user can have the smooth flow to work on the touch display.

Another touch company has touch and pen technology is N-trig. N-trig’s DuoSense had been adopted in several notebook PCs, such as the HP’s touchsmart 12.1”. DuoSense also was adopted in the HTC’s flyer tablet.

The most successful (with the high volume sold) touch and pen device might be the Samsung’s Galaxy Note. It’s a hybrid of phone and tablet (some people call this phablet). The Galaxy Note’s touch is the combination of an on-cell projected capacitive AMOLED with a wacom digitizer pen beneath the OLED display. Samsung reported that the original Galaxy Note sold 10 million units in 10 months. The Galaxy Note II is even more popular, with 5 million units sold in 2 months.

Thanks for reading.

Jennifer and team

Touch Display Research Inc.