‘Next Coffee Table’

Samsung Shows Tabletop Display at Infocomm That Could Someday Be Used for Home Gaming

June 15, 2012 by Rebecca Day|Top News

LAS VEGAS -- Transparent displays and a horizontal touch table based on the Microsoft Surface platform were among the commercial flat-panel products Samsung showed at Infocomm this week that could one day make their way to the home market, Samsung spokesman Jason Redmond told us. Small versions of the transparent displays, which allow an image to overlay clear LCD glass, could be used on a refrigerator door, he said.

Samsung also showed its 40-inch SUR40, developed with Microsoft to incorporate Microsoft Surface platform with PixelSense technology. PixelSense gives LCD panels the power to “see without the use of cameras,” according to the companies. The Surface-enabled tabletop displays allow the tabletop display to see and respond to touch and real world objects placed on it, according to Redmond, who said Samsung and Microsoft collaborated closely on the technology to “bring the touch experience up to a level that users expect from smartphones and tablets.” The individual pixels in the display see what’s touching the screen and that information is immediately processed and interpreted, according to the Microsoft website. The tabletop display can recognize up to 50 points of simultaneous touch, making it applicable for gaming, collaboration and product marketing in a retail environment, Redmond said.

The Samsung displays with PixelSense will debut this summer, embedded into Le Metier cosmetic counters in Nieman Marcus stores, Redmond said. For store customers getting a real-life cosmetic make-over, the makeup artist will use the display to enable customers to “take a picture of the code” used for their cosmetic profile, he said. When customers go to another Le Metier counter in another store and show the code stored on the smartphone to the countertop display, the display will identify the profile, including which cosmetics were used, how they were applied and with what brushes, he said, all based on data stored on the smartphone that’s recognized, processed and interpreted by PixelSense.

Retail applications for the technology will be followed by use in education and training programs, Redmond said, and eventually the technology will arrive in the home. “Maybe this is the next coffee table,” he said. For touch capability to make it to TVs will require content and technology advances, he said. “The content isn’t there” to support touch in TV technology, although Samsung has touch capability for its LCD panels up to 82 inches, he said. That’s based on infrared touch, which is less precise than the capacitive touch screens used in smartphones, he said. The glass “doesn’t exist” for a large capacitive touch screen at this point, he said, “so you'd have to transition to infrared touch or optical touch, which is not nearly as sophisticated as what kids would be used to on smartphones or tablets,” he said. The technology isn’t there to support “that kind of interaction,” he said, but “technology changes every year so with a little more engineering I'm sure we'll figure out to make that happen as well."

Samsung also showed at Infocomm the transparent all-in-one NL22B, a showcase display for the retail market that would enable a store to reveal products behind glass while using the screen to highlight specific information it wants to convey. The displays are based on traditional LCD technology, Redmond said, with edge-lit lighting instead of a backlight and the filters removed so viewers can see through the display to what’s behind it. All the electronics for the panel are located in the base of the unit which also holds a media player, he said. The display, first shown at CES, will debut in commercial products in August, he said. Future uses could be as a display on a refrigerator door that enables consumers to read information on screen while also seeing the contents of the refrigerator, he said.

LG also showed transparent displays at Infocomm. The company’s 26- and 47-inch models offer Full HD 1080p resolution in the 47-inch model, and 720p resolution in the smaller size, it said. The displays are targeted for use in retail applications and museum exhibits as digital signage, but LG said applications in the future could expand to use by architects and end-users. The clear panels are embedded with LG’s In-Plane Switching technology, which LG said offers a wide viewing angle.

Infocommm Notebook

Sharp showed off its big screens at Infocomm this week, including 70-, 80- and 90-inch LED-lit LCD displays. The 90-inch digital signage model is slated for delivery in a month, George Vlach, regional sales manager, told us. An Aquos TV version of the 90-inch display is expected to be announced Monday at a press conference in New York. Sharp also showed prototypes of professional 4K2K product delivering 3,840 x 2,160-pixel resolution, which it said will be available in 32-, 60-, 70-inches, including a 60-inch prototype shown as a tabletop touch screen display for use in the healthcare industry. Particularly impressive on the 70-inch LED-based 4K2K model were renderings of satellite images, spreadsheets and CAD drawings, showing minute detail on the big-screen display. The high-res lineup will be available in Q1 2013, Vlach said. When those hit the home market will depend on demand, he said. The displays “could cross over into the Aquos line if the demand is there,” he said. Sharp flat-panel displays are starting to eat into the company’s projector business at the larger screen sizes because “they're more affordable,” Vlach said. He said the company is looking at how to weed out “the wrong projectors” that large-screen displays are replacing. Overall the company is looking at having “nice balance” of projectors and displays, he said, as there will “always be a demand” for projectors in the education and large-venue markets. At the same time, Sharp was touting its Video Wall capability at Infocomm, including an array of 136 LED-lit 60-inch displays serving as the backdrop for the upcoming show “Surf: The Musical,” due to premiere June 22 at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas. Sharp sponsored a preview of select numbers from the show Wednesday evening at the Planet Hollywood showroom, which used the displays as visual enhancement for the storyline. Video content included still landscapes to accompany the main character’s journey from Manhattan to Los Angeles, Batman-inspired captions during a fight scene and an impressive use of a Ferris wheel video to give the impression that characters sitting in a Ferris wheel car on stage were actually moving around the wheel.

Philips touted the modular design of its TVs at a press conference at Infocomm this week. The company announced it is the first TV company to offer DirecTV Residential Experience, a service for hotels that’s designed to give consumers the same channel lineup and user interface they experience at home. Philips will make the DirecTV service available through modules that fit into Philips-branded TVs designed for the hospitality market, said Joe King, senior director of sales hospitality for P&F USA, the licensee for Philips Hospitality in North America. The TVs will begin rolling out to hotels this summer, King told us. The service initially was designed using a set-top box, but Philips took the circuitry from an add-on box and put it into a module that slips into a port on the back of TVs, King said. The modules are removable for servicing or replacement, he said. For hotels, the modules replace a head-end cable system that could cost $25,000-$30,000, King said, leading to cost savings and the ability to offer more HD channels. The embedded product will be available at the end of the month, and Philips is also targeting hospitals, bars and restaurants with the technology, he said. The module solution eliminates the need for connecting cables, an extra IR blaster and separate power supplies, he said. Philips also introduced OPS-enabled displays based on Intel’s Open Pluggable Specification, which enable users to insert a PC module into a digital signage display. Philips’ 42-, 46- and 55-inch displays can show content from any of nine different OPS products available due to the modular design, said Craig Rathbun, director of sales and marketing for MMD, licensee of Philips Commercial Signage products. By adding an OPS PC module, users can bypass optional connections and deploy systems faster and in higher volumes, he said.