Nikkei Business Daily reported that Sharp will supply Sony with LED backlight units (BLUs). The article does not specify for what application, but my guess is LCD TV. Sharp and Sony already work together: Sharp Display Products where Sharp owns 66% and Sony the rest. This development, if true, will strengthen ties between the two companies. Source: PRAD

Acer’s S243HL is a 24-inch LCD monitor sporting a LED backlight. An edge-lit white LED backlight to be more specific. Acer claims the S243HL is the thinnest monitor on the market today. At 15 mm (0.59 inches) it is quite thin! The design is quite angular as you can see. Specs include: 1920 x 1080, 2ms GTG, 250 cd/m2, 170/160, 68% NTSC.

That last spec is terrible. Normal CCFL-based LCD monitors sport a 72% NTSC color gamut. Another let down is the LCD panel’s bit depth: 6 bit + Hi-FRC. Typical monitors use an 8-bit LCD panel for more accurate colors. Price is an expensive €379 (about US$563) and will be available later in November. Source: TFT Central

Pranav Mistry, a PhD student in the Fluid Interfaces Group at MIT’s Media Lab and inventor of SixthSense, demoed the technology’s potential at TEDIndia: paper laptop being one fantastic idea. Source: TED

Sewell’s Minideck USB to DVI, VGA and HDMI Display Adapter makes use of DisplayLink’s DL-195 chip that provides up to a resolution of 2048 x 1152, a significant improvement over previous generation USB-to-DVI/VGA adapters that maxed out at 1600 x 1200 or 1680 x 1050. Price is US$99.95. Source: Sewell via Engadget

The Olympus PEN E-P2 is available for pre-order at Amazon. It’s a bit on the expensive side at US$1,099.99 but it does have some enhancements over the original E-P1: continuous AF tracking mode for both stills and videos, full manual exposure control in movie mode, optional microphone jack adapter, CEC compliance, articulating VF-2 EVF included. Source: Engadget

Need optical zoom on your iPhone? Princeton certainly thinks you do. With its iZoom you get 8x optical. The case is not optional. Source: Akihabara News

We’ve seen Pixel Qi’s LCD perform quite well in direct sunlight. Mary Lou Jepsen snapped a photo showing how well Pixel Qi’s screen does inside an office. Regular glare-type and matte-type LCDs don’t look like they did as well. Mary Lou Jepsen also answers some questions in a video interview. Source: Pixel Qi

Ever wanted to connect your notebook PC to your TV wirelessly? Now you can thanks to AMIMON.

On November 18, 2009, AMIMON made available its WHDI modules for notebook PCs. With WHDI you can connect your notebook PC to a WHDI-enabled HDTV wirelessly using the 5GHz unlicensed band. The WHDI modules come in a mini-PCI form-factor of 50 x 30mm and in a standard PCI SIGR-compliant Display-Mini card form-factor of 44.4 x 26mm. Notebook-spec WHDI modules can deliver fully uncompressed 1080p 60Hz HD signals. Wireless latency can be an issue but AMIMON’s AMN 2120/2220 WHDI chipsets have a latency of 1 millisecond or less. AMIMON expects notebook PCs with WHDI modules in 2010.

Watch a simple YouTube video showing how AMIMON WHDI technology works. There’s even a PlayStation 3 sending WHDI signals… Source: Amimon

LED is In: The trend is clear: get rid of CCFL and replace it with LED for the backlight in a LCD TV. Why? LEDs are more energy efficient. LEDs when used in an edge-lit configuration can allow for really thin profiles. LEDs are greener as they do not make use of mercury, a carcinogen, used in CCFLs. LEDs in a direct-lit formation can be used in conjunction with local dimming technology to bring about some spectacular contrasts and deep blacks.

Direct-lit LED Backlight: Philips’ 9704 LED Pro line of LCD TVs seem to be using a direct-lit LED backlight as the depth (without stand) is 89 mm or 3.5 inches (source: The Home Cinema Centre–you can find the full product specification here). It’s not very thin but it isn’t very thick either. To compare, Samsung’s UE40B7020, a 40-inch LCD TV with a LED backlight, has a depth of just 29.9mm or 1.18 inches (source: Samsung UK). Unless you absolutely must mount your LCD TV on the wall and make it as flush to the wall as possible, I would recommend going with a slightly thicker LCD TV that uses direct-lit LED backlight technology. I’ll tell you why.

Dynamic Contrast Ratio: Philips states a 5,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio. Yes, we all know that stratospheric dynamic contrast ratio specifications like this one are not to be trusted. But there are two exceptions. Stratospheric dynamic contrast ratios are definitely possible with OLED TVs and LCD TVs with LED backlights combined with local dimming. Although I haven’t seen the 9704 LED Pro line of TVs from Philips with my own eyes, I expect the picture quality to be exceptionally good with contrasty pictures and deep blacks. The thinner edge-lit LED backlight technology cannot be paired with local dimming as of now so it will not have contrast ratios as good. But if you wait just a bit LCD manufacturers are working hard to marry local dimming and edge-lit LED some time in 2010.

Motion Blur Not a Problem: Frequency is 200Hz, quadruple the normal 50Hz that is standard in Europe. But we all know that 100Hz or 200Hz won’t do much to reduce motion blur. If you haven’t already, read “Mid to High-End LCD TVs: Motion Blur a Non Issue“. The article explains what DisplayMate’s Dr. Raymond M. Soneira found testing for motion blur on mid- to high-end LCD TVs: motion blur is a non-issue. Maybe it’s just psychological: we like bigger numbers that might mean better technology. 200Hz sounds much better than 50Hz, doesn’t it? The response time is very fast at just 1ms, probably a gray-to-gray (GTG) specification.

Ambilight Spectra 3: Philips has a unique technology called Ambilight that surrounds the TV itself with colors that reflect the video content. The overall effect is a more immersive viewing experience. The 9704 LED Pro line has Ambilight Spectra 3 that automatically adjusts both color and brightness of the surrounding light.

Expensive: The 40-inch 40PFL9704 and the 46-inch 46PFL9704’s LED backlight also helps with energy conservation: the 9704 LED Pros are up to 50% more energy efficient than previous models. You need to connect five video sources? Go ahead. These two models come with five HDMI ports. Availability is slated for December with the 40PFL9704 going for £1,799 (around US$3000) and the 46PFL9704 requiring a hefty £2,499 (about US$4,100).

Source: “Philips releases new LED Pro HDTVs” – Ubergizmo, via Engadget

Wired’s parent company Condé Nast plans to work with Adobe to transform traditional magazine content for upcoming digital devices, including the fabled iTablet from Apple, which I hope is real. The background music isn’t conducive to reading magazines so I recommend muting. Without the distracting music you can concentrate on what’s going on in the video: interactive animated graphics, gesture recognition, portrait/landscape reorientation, etc. Cool.