This transparent LED display was being used by SK Telecom. Image:Meko
SK Telecom was showing its ability to support automotive data and had a car surrounded on most sides by a transparent LED display, which was unusual, but we couldn’t get much information on the display.
We reported on Think&Go, which has developed NFC antenna technology that can be mounted on the back of edge-lit LCDs, making digital signage ‘transactional’. The company had a display in the main concourse at MWC and was showing it operating with a smartwatch. (Think&Go Brings Transactions to Public Displays)
Think&Go combines NFC with digital signage. Image:Meko
Technicolor was at the show, but had no display-related news.
TechSee has a range of VR-based services for tech support. The company’s services allow remote operators to use VR/AR to better support clients with technical support calls, for example by seeing a range of connectors on an STB and with identification of the connections. This can reduce the number of call-outs.
VESA had a meeting room as well as being at Showstoppers. The group was promoting DisplayPort and demonstrating a dual UltraHD at 2160p60 display set up using a Synaptics hub. Following up the discussion we previously had at Showstoppers, Bill Lempesis of VESA told us that there is real interest in supporting 8K with V1.4 and even 120Hz operation can be supported if 3X DisplayStream Compression (DSC) is used. There is also a lot of interest in driving 8K displays from smartphones (!) and this is trickier because smartphones will want to use just two lanes for DisplayPort.
Vestel’s Phone Mosaic has a 42 x 12 matrix, so 504 handsets! Image:Meko
Vestel was at the show to mainly promote its mobile phones which are now starting to see success. The company told us that it is now the #3 brand in Turkey behind Apple and Samsung and that this has been helped by its strong channel. It took some time to get the phones up to the point that it needed to, but that has been achieved now. The latest Z10 has a 5.2″ IPS FullHD display and a Qualcomm 8940 chip with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of flash as well as microSD expansion. Cameras are 13MP and 8MP and features include fingerprint recognition. At the show, the company had set up a (successful) attempt to break the world record for an animated phone mosaic – which apparently take a lot of synchronisation!
The VR/AR Association was at the show to talk to and recruit members. It claims 3,000 members globally across the industry with around 50% of its members from the apps and content creation fields, but representing, it believes, every aspect of the industry. It has many specialist and focused groups on, for example, education and digital health.
ZTE was demonstrating Daydream. Image:Meko
ZTE was showing its Axon 7 Max that we reported on from CES and its Axon 7 which supports Google Daydream and was announced last year. The firm officially released its ‘End to End’ VR live technology which includes VR content capture, flexible networks, a video platform and VR SDKs. The technology can be used to transmit 360º content to VR headsets, STBs and smartphones with a delay of less than 2 seconds. The company also has the HC100 STB which is intended to provided excellent VR performance. ZTE was running a live demonstration of 5G, getting up to a gigbit of data throughput.
