A late Spring is finally stumbling its way into Southwestern Connecticut. The new green tree leaves gleam in the late afternoon sun, and the plantings are beginning to bloom. I transferred the first tomato plant outside today — the first of two.
In short, I’m not inclined to take a deep dive into an arcane subject, a dive that would demand extensive research and insightful, painstaking analysis. No. I need something I can write easily, so I can take a gin and tonic down to the Adirondack Chair on the patio before the sun gets low and the afternoon air turns chill. I need to extract some interesting springtime droplets from the data firehose that drenches me continuously, as I’m sure it does you. Here they are.
Droplet 1. Papercast recently announcesd new E Ink displays with a 7.5 fps refresh rate. That’s about 25% of what most of us would considered adequate for high-quality moving pictures but, as Papercast says, it “significantly exceeds the limitations of other e-paper technology in this sector.”
E Ink’s electrophoretic display film itself is unchanged. Papercast has designed a proprietary driver board with higher speed processing power to implement the fast refresh. On its website, the company shows videos of moving images on its display.
Droplet 2. Sony will ship its first 8K TV sets in June.
The Master Line Z9G sets feature HDR (of course) and full-array local dimming. The 85-inch version will have an MSRP of $12,999; the 98-inch, $69,999. That’s $4385 for each of those 13 extra diagonal inches.
Sony’s Z9G is the company’s first commercially available 8K TV set. Available in your choice of 85 or 98 inches starting in June. (Photo: Sony)
Droplet 3. EET Asia reports that Foxconn chief and multi-billionaire Terry Gou said the Chinese sea goddess Mazu told him he should run for President of Taiwan in 2020.
If Mazu said that, she has given Gou a formidable task. Most of Foxconn’s manufacturing is done in China, where Gou employs 1.2 million people. That makes him the largest employer in China, but his close ties to the Chinese government might not go over well with Taiwan’s pro-democratic voters. Sun Yu-lien, the secreatary general of the Taiwan Labour front, told EET Asia that Gou has a poor record on support of democracy and labour rights, and is scornful of multi-party politics. Gou has been quoted as saying “Democracy isn’t something you can eat like rice.” Analysts say that Gou has made it clear that, as president, he would move Taiwan closer to China.
Droplet 4. As a reader of Display Daily, you probably can’t help but know that SID Display Week is just 3½ weeks away.
Featured topics include automotive displays and foldable displays. Samsung’s having to delay the introduction of its new foldable phone (when evaluation units sent to journalists and analysts began to fail in embarrassingly large numbers), will not keep people from engaging in vigorous research and development on foldables. But let’s take a deep breath. Making foldable (as opposed to bendable) displays that are reliable, durable, and long-lived is not an endeavor for the faint of heart.
I must leave you now. The sun is still shining on my Adirondack chair. (KW)
Ken Werner is Principal of Nutmeg Consultants, specializing in the display industry, manufacturing, technology, and applications, including mobile devices, automotive, and television. He consults for attorneys, investment analysts, and companies re-positioning themselves within the display industry or using displays in their products. He is the 2017 recipient of the Society for Information Display’s Lewis and Beatrice Winner Award. You can reach him at [email protected]
