The Crystal Valley Conference and Exhibition was held from November 6 to 8 at Dankuk University in Cheonan, Chungcheongnamdo. The conference included a gymnasium's worth of booths and displays from the display industry. All manner of technical details of liquid crystal displays were on bawdy display for even the untrained eye to ogle. Also, new innovations in the display industry and new technologies are also available to see.
The most interesting thing that sticks out about this conference is the growing number of 3D display companies in the display industry. It used to be that only one or two booths at any given conference would be dedicated to three-dimensional displays. However, at this conference there is a small 3D movie theater that plays a short clip every 15 minutes, and there are several 3D companies with innovative products available. The most remarkable among them is NDIS, or Next Displays, which has developed both 3D displays and flexible displays, and is showcasing both products.
Their 3D display technology, which they refer to as Barrier LCD, is a glasses-free display technology. However, viewers must take care where they stand in relation to the display, because some angles are severely distorted. There are more than five different places where a viewer can see the LCD display and get a clear picture, and thankfully one of them is precisely in the front. The company has developed 3D displays as computer monitors up to 19 inches, for notebooks, PMPs, and UMPCs.
Another interesting innovation that stands out at this conference is a 70" fully high definition LCD display set up to stand like a mirror. The LCD faux-mirror, developed by Samsung, is touch-sensitive, and a 3D virtual mannequin is displayed on its surface. Users can navigate a series of menus by touch and place different sets of clothing on the mannequin.
They can also rotate the virtual dress-up doll and zoom in and out. The Samsung booth girl said that the innovation can help people to choose what kinds of clothing they want to buy. Next to the 70" LCD was an 84" LCD as well, displaying the graphical version of bus stop posters. The tag next to it said that the light was strong enough to see even in full daylight, and suitable for advertisement in all types of weather.
As the display industry continues to innovate, the innovation spills out into other industries with other possible applications. For instance, IONES, a leading manufacturer of LCD displays, has developed a new kind of welding technique for joining together different types of metals. The technique involves spinning a round bar of one type of metal such as cooper and pressing it against a stationary bar of equal dimensions, but of another type of metal such as tin. At a high speed of revolutions, the two metals fuse together. After cooling, the resulting fused bar is trimmed down and used in LCD displays. The company also uses the technique to carve grooves into a solid sheet of copper. The grooved copper is then used to make liquid-cooled heat sinks for various display technologies. But the revolutionary friction-welding technique can be used in any number of other industries that need alloyed bars of metal.
Judging from this Exhibition, displays are growing to be larger, thinner, more expensive and able to display 3D images. The trends here are not really surprising, but nevertheless are interesting to see as they develop. One wonders when the new revolutionary display technology will hit the market, but there is no sign of it yet. There are some whispers, however, that the new method of display will not be 2D, or 3D, but holographic technology. Holographic tables will be the wave of the future. But will the current market leaders be able to make the switch between the two Only time can tell.
