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By Richard Shim, ZDNet
News
Big Blue claims its high-definition flat-panel display reads like
the printed page. But it won't be available to consumers for five
more years.
IBM Corp. on Friday announced that it has begun shipping a high-definition
flat-panel display offering paper-quality resolution -- a decade
ahead of schedule.
The new display offers an image quality that is twice as good
as is currently available on LCDs, but it won't be available in
retail stores for another five years, according to IBM officials.
Industry analyst Ross Young from DisplaySearch had predicted that
mass production of such displays was more than 10 years away, but
IBM drastically undercut that estimate.
The U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
in California is the first customer to receive the new 22-inch panels,
will ship more displays in 2001. Because the screens are not available
for the general public, they do not have product names.
Priority for high-end
customers
Kai Schleupen, manager of the display, design, and electronics
team for IBM's Watson Research center, said the new displays will
initially go to high-end companies who need the technology first
-- in the medical, financial, and government markets.
The new displays have a 3,840-by-2,400 resolution, which translates
to 204 pixels per square inch, or 9 million pixels overall. LCD
panels on the market today have in the range of 88 to 110 pixels
per square inch.
The new displays have an aspect ratio of 16 to 10, which will allow
users to view two full-sized pages side-by-side on a screen.
Schleupen called the new displays a step closer to the paperless
office. He also said it is intended to be used as a desktop monitor
and to go into some notebooks.
New horizons
But Young also sees other, more exciting horizons for the new display
technology.
The 22-inch displays will be a niche product for high-resolution
applications," said Young. "IBM has shown they can do
it at 22-inch, but the challenge is to do it with smaller sizes."
Young cited e-books as a great opportunity for these higher-resolution
displays, but sees power management as a major obstacle.
"Typically, higher resolution means higher power consumption,"
said Young. "Once they figure out better power management,
e-books would be a great fit."
IBM
Ships World's Highest-Resolution Computer Display
Reprinted from IBM
Research
Yorktown Heights, N.Y., November 10, 2000 -- IBM is shipping the
world's clearest computer display -- 12-times sharper than current
displays -- 10 years sooner than industry experts said it was possible.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory in California is the first customer to use this breakthrough
display. IBM plans to ship the displays to other customers in 2001
and license the patented technologies to other manufacturers.
With 200 pixels per inch and more than 9 million pixels in total
on its 22-inch screen, the new display is as clear as an original
photograph and 4.5-times sharper than top-of-the-line high-definition
television screens.
Applications for this technology are wide-ranging, encompassing
any field that requires extremely high resolution images -- telemedicine,
weather forecasting, publishing and graphic design, product development,
satellite mapping and more.
This technology could eventually make its way into displays for
laptops, desktops, handhelds and other computing devices, making
the viewing of video and digital photos a completely new experience.
"When IBM showed a prototype of this technology in 1998, many
in the industry predicted this display wouldn't be ready for mass
production until at least 2010," said Ross Young, President
of Display Search, a leading display market research firm in Austin,
Texas. "The technology can change the way computers are used
in a wide range of areas where extremely high-resolution images
are required, and I am impressed that IBM is able to produce them
today."
The Ultimate Display for the Ultimate
Supercomputer
The Livermore Lab will use the displays to study the operation
and aging of nuclear weapons using 3-D model simulations that are
crunched by the world's fastest supercomputer -- the ASCI White
machine IBM shipped to the Lab in July.
The resolution on this screen is so precise it can be used instead
of wall-sized theater screens, allowing expert analysts to operate
independently at their desktops. Lawrence Livermore is expected
to receive about 10 more of these high-resolution displays by mid-2001
to further this research.
"The success of the IBM ASCI White supercomputer to simulate
the physics of nuclear weapons has presented another massive challenge
for our Lab: finding a practical way to interpret and understand
the enormous amounts of data generated by the supercomputers and
the advanced computer codes they employ," said Dr. David M.
Cooper, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory CIO and Associate
Director for Scientific Computing. "To study this data properly,
we need to view and understand these 3-D visual models. The resolution
offered by the IBM displays makes that possible on the desktop."
Wide-Ranging Applications
Users who need to view large volumes of complex data will benefit
from the high-resolution and high-content displays, significantly
reducing eye strain and the need for printing hard copies.
The new IBM displays can help revolutionize:
- Medicine
-- speeding
treatment by replacing conventional film X-rays. Physicians will
be able to view digitally photographed X-rays immediately on the
display. The X-ray images could also be sent online to specialists
around the world for instant feedback and counsel.
- Automotive
-- improving safety and saving millions of dollars by automating
design. Crisp digital images can replace hundreds of hand-built
design models for all the different parts of the car, allowing
for instant changes and speedier development.
- Weather Forecasting
-- improving early warning forecasting. Large printed satellite
maps and photographs can be replaced with photo-quality digital
images, allowing meteorologists to quickly interpret weather patterns
and instantly share them with colleagues around the world.
- Design
-- increasing productivity.
Designers ranging from publishing, fashion, furniture, home building
and beyond can save time and reduce eye strain through high-resolution
displays, while also reducing the need for printing.
IBM has been working on this new display technology in its research
labs in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., and Yamato, Japan, since 1995. The
new active matrix liquid crystal display is based on research that
allowed the IBM team to use aluminum instead of molybdenum and tungsten,
metals traditionally used in displays. IBM has also demonstrated
the use of copper in experimental displays and plans to use copper
in future display technologies. Aluminum and copper are better conductors
and make low-cost, high-resolution possible.
IBM is a registered trademarks of International Business Machines
Corp. All other trademarks, registered trademarks and service marks
are the property of their respective owners.
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