Smart LCDs with swiveling crystals promise better viewing at all angles
Almost all LCDs demand you to put them straight in front of you for that crystal-clear viewing experience, a slight change in angle results in a distorted or a blurred image. Swiveling screens are a bit better, but are not a complete panacea. However, some Taiwanese researchers have rightly sensed and cracked the bug by making the crystals in the screen adjust automatically to give you a clear picture no matter from where you are viewing it.
The secret behind this unique maneuver of the display is a miniature camera that tracks the position of the viewer and feeds the location to the software, which further controls the liquid crystals within the display to produce the best possible image.
The brightness of each pixel in an LCD is controlled by alternating the angle of the liquid crystals held between two polarizing elements. By using these crystals as a valve, the amount of light entering and leaving them can be controlled.
These researchers hope that their display can be used in laptops, computers and even handheld devices like a cell phone. Initial trials of the screen have been promising and researchers are now working on simpler, infrared sensors that track a user by the position of their eyes. If this research comes out to be as fruitful as the initial one then we can very soon expect to have a laptop display that can be viewed from various angles and that too without paying much for the technique.
Via: New Scientist Tech
