Video Display Breakthrough - Disruptive Technology

Corning is reporting an astounding breakthrough in video display technology. Talk about disruptive technology, this is one for sure.


Creating clear sharp video images largely depends on having pure red, green, and blue light sources. The challenge is having a light source that is bright enough with low energy consumption, and one that can be turned completely on and off at very high speed.


Until recently, lasers have been capable of red and blue light, but creating green has been a problem. In May of this year Corning announced it had found a way to solve production problems in creating synthetic green lasers. As reported in Forbes, Corning's components for green lasers could hit the market this fall.


Corning says: "With the rapid growth of ubiquitous high-speed wireless networks, we are entering a world where our mobile handsets will give us constant and interactive access to the worldwide network of information and multi-media content. However, small displays on mobile devices will limit the viewing experience. That’s where green lasers come in.

The Solution: Redefining the viewing experience with embedded micro-projectors enabled by Corning’s breakthrough green laser technology.

By applying its laser, optics, and modeling expertise, Corning developed a high-quality, compact, and efficient green light source for embedded micro-projectors that will play a critical role in the mobile display devices of tomorrow where consumers can play, view, and share with ease."


The biggest challenge in image technology is having the image bright enough, and believe it or not, black enough. Deep rich hues come from the ability to have the screen go completely black when the image is black. High speed lasers can do just that. When on, they are super bright. When off, they are completely off. We can expect a dynamic range of colors that is almost unheard of before, and in a very small energy efficient device.


So, what does this mean?


It merges two significant disruptive technologies: wireless and display. Not only will be able to connect ubiquitously, we will be able to project images onto any surface from a very small device - even a smart phone.


Display technology is usually the largest consumer of battery power in portable devices. Lasers are very efficient and will likely result in greatly extended battery life of portable devices in smart phones and laptops. As reported in Forbes, a smart phone could project a brilliant 6 foot diameter image from 6 feet away, and be able to play a 90 minute movie on a single cell phone battery charge.


Imagine a small projector in your keyboard, and no display monitor - use the surface of your desk or wall for display. Imagine a laptop with no display - simply a flip up white screen with a super bright image projected from the keyboard. Image projecting images and documents on a conference table, and moving them from person to person.


This short Microsoft video shows some of what may be possible utilizing new projection technologies.


More:

Corning on Green Lasers


Forbes: Getting a Green Light: Put a projector in your pocket.


ZDNet: Will Green Mean Go for Mobile Projectors?


Microsoft's 2019 Future Vision Montage: technologies that could be enabled by green laser projection.

New Media Overload - Return to Big Media?

The Internet is a wonderful tool for distributing new media content, and a wireless Internet allows us to have communication at our fingertips 24/7, wherever we are.


The benefits to content providers:

• The elimination of barriers between producers and their audiences. No longer does a person with ideas need to funnel them through a major media outlet to get them published. Everyone is on the same playing field - but that may change - read on.



• Due to the viral nature of new media, an idea can reach millions and become popular, literally overnight - or less.



• It can all be done very inexpensively. Not only is the delivery method almost free, content production is just a matter of software - much of it free.
  

The challenges:

• How do you get people to find you? 'Content provider' used to mean 'large media outlet.' Now it can mean a kid with a tweet. For 'old media' outlets: dilution of audience, confusion.
  


• How do you channel your message, if it becomes viral? Once composed - even for one person - a message can end up anywhere.



• How do audiences deal with the overload of information? There's so much of it - it arrives constantly - and in so many different ways. Email, text messages, Instant Messages, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, You Tube (now second in search to Google), RSS feeds, blogs, websites - etc.

Friend Feed is one attempt to compile it all, by pulling it all into one place. But, it doesn't reduce the volume. In fact, compiling sites may encourage us to crank it up even more.

New Media Overload is too much for anyone to deal with, no matter how much of a multi-tasker.

We can turn if off, run into the woods and listen to the birds. I tried it - the birds tweet more that we do.

So, what then? When we get overloaded, we scale back and simplify. We decide what's really important, center on it, and ignore the rest:

1. We choose close friends.


2. We choose what we resonate with.


3. We choose an interactive source that lets us do our own filtering.


4. We choose a trusted source can tell us what we need to know, what we should know.

A move back to larger media may be the answer. Maybe being on the same playing field is becoming the problem itself and we need some form of Big Media again to reduce the noise level.

The next Internet media opportunity may be with providers that offer perspective, meaning and context.

Comments welcome.

More:

Social media, attention, distraction and overload...

Social Media Overload Allows Web Apps to Shine

Too Many Choices, Too Much Content

Media Overload

US Wireless Rollout Update

Ubiquitous expansion of New Media is tied to the rollout of new mobile technologies. In the United States, the two technologies which remain at the forefront are WiMAX and LTE. Both promise city wide high speed wireless capabilities and are more popularly referred to as 4G, or 4th generation wireless.

WiMAX is the standard adopted by Sprint/Clearwire and is being marketed under the brand Xohm. It has been rolling out, albeit slower than expected, since late 2008. Sprint has operating WiMAX networks in Baltimore, Maryland and Portland, Oregon. Plans are for 2009 rollouts in Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Ft. Worth, Honolulu, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, and Seattle. 2010 plans include Boston, Houston, New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

LTE (Long Term Evolution) is being adopted as the 4G technology of choice by Verizon and AT&T - and is running about 2 years behind Sprint - with launches beginning in 2010. No specific markets have been projected yet. Hopes were that we might begin to see LTE this year, chip issues appear to be causing the delay.

More on Sprint's WiMax rollout
More on Verizon LTE rollout
More on Verizon chip delays
More on AT&T LTE rollout

When Is A New Medium A 'Mass' Medium?

Generally, human communication can take three forms:

1. Interpersonal communication.


2. Electronically assisted interpersonal communication (ie: the telephone).


3. Mass communication.

The steps of the communication process vary when a message is considered interpersonal or mass communication:

• SOURCE: Person, group or organization.


• ENCODING/DECODING (The process of putting a message into a channel such as video, audio, text, etc): Non-verbal, verbal or electronically assisted .


• RECEIVER: Person, group, organization, or large anonymous collection of people.


• FEEDBACK (positive or negative response from receiver back to sender): Immediate or delayed.
  

Until the advent of the Internet, scholars have felt that for a message to be considered 'mass' communication, it must meet the following criteria:

• SOURCE: Organization.


• ENCODING/DECODING: Electronically assisted.


• RECEIVER: Large anonymous collection of people.


• FEEDBACK: Delayed.

In my New Media class at Principia College, we are evaluating the relevance of specific new media as mass media. To help with that process we have been developing criteria for evaluating if a new medium is a mass medium. Here is what the class has come up with so far.

• SOURCE: Irrelevant. Even a message from a single person intended for another single person can become a mass message, independent of the sender's knowledge. Due to the 'viral' nature of new media, a message can become a mass message unintentionally, jumping from medium to medium with an ever expanding potential audience.


• ENCODING/DECODING: electronically assisted.


• RECEIVER: Large anonymous collection of people.


• FEEDBACK: Delayed.

Before the Internet, the creation of a message intended for a mass audience would require group effort and delivery through established media institutions. Today, a 'new' media message can become a self-disseminating mass message, independent of the intentions of the sender.

List Of New Media

I am currently teaching a Seminar in New Media at Principia College in Illinois.

I asked the class to come up with a list of new media. The list is not intended to detail every website, but to organize by type and list examples of type.

Here is what they've come up with so far:

VIDEO
Video in websites

Upload/Download Services
YouTube
Vimeo
Failblog
Today’s Big Thing

Archived TV Services
HuLU
Surf the channel

Movies
IFC

SMARTPHONE
Hardware
Blackberry
Palm Treo

Software
Skype
Open source software
Blackberry apps
iPhone apps
Automated calls
Web audio

AUDIO/MUSIC
Streaming
Internet Radio
Shoutcast
Pandora
Launchcast
Victor Reader Stream

Downloadable
iTunes
Foneshow
Stitcher
Slacker
Rhapsody
Jamendo
Audible
Recordings for blind
National Library Service
Bookshare

SOCIAL
General
Facebook
Twitter

Themed
Myspace
LinkedIn
Fanbase
Digg
Reddit
Stumble
HIS
IMDB Pro
Netlog
Classmates

PHOTO
Sharing
FlickR
Snapfish
Shutterfly

TEXT
Instant
IM
Text messages

Delayed
Email
Blogs
RSS Feeds
Newsgroups
Forums
e-brary

GAMES
Console
Flash
Portable
MMO
Nintendo DS
xBox Live
Playstation
Nintendo Wireless

SEARCH
General
Google
Yahoo
Hotbot
Jeeves
Lycos
Metacrawler
AltaVista
Livesearch

Themed
Anywho
Newspapers.com
Career sites

OTHER
Kindle
E-Commerce sites
Amazon
Ebay
Wiki
Wikipedia
Craigslist
GPS
Bit Torrent
Netflix
Frostwire
IMDB
Post Secret
iVillage
Alternate Reality Marketing
ftp
Sharing
Napster

AD INSERTION
Banner
Pop-Up
Contextual
Targeted
Google Ad-sense

FUTURE
Google talk
Direct brain transfer

The Driving Force In New Media Adoption

When a new medium is introduced, it begins in what is called the 'elite' phase. In other words, it 's expensive, not standardized, and generally a novelty for the rich and famous.

A standard is the critical factor in a new medium being adopted by the masses, or moving into the 'mass' phase.

For example, until the NTSC television standard was made in the United States, it was impossible for TV to establish a toe-hold in the hearts and homes of the general public. Once the standard was ratified in 1941, the rest is history. Yet, despite all the technological advances we have seen since 1941, a new TV standard (HDTV) did not become our mass standard for 68 years!

Why? Because the NTSC standard was primily a hardware standard - and changing hardware is very difficult.

Today, with the Internet becoming our new media delivery method, hardware is not so much an issue. A computer is a computer, and the Internet is the Internet. The new standards are now almost exclusively software standards. Consequently, a new standard can become a mass phenomenon almost overnight - as software is so quickly created, released, disseminated, and adopted.

ITunes, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Pandora, HuLu, .pdf files, the world wide web itself - are all the result of software standards.

The primary factor in the disruptiveness of new media is the standards issue. New forms of mass communication can displace others in months, rather than half-decades. But at the same time the standards issue is what creates the greatest opportunity.

Software Critical For Wireless New Media

New Internet Media (NIM) will become mainstream when wireless delivery becomes ubiquitous. Portability is the key, freeing audiences from their tethered computers to be able to access Internet media as easily as traditional media.

Ubiquitous wireless delivery requires the following:

1. Standards

2. Infrastructure

3. Devices

4. Software

We have enough new 4G (4^th generation digital wireless technology) standards to make wireless nationally viable. WiMAX and LTE (Long Term Evolution) are viable media delivery standards. But frankly, the consumer won’t care much about standards. Do they with HDTV? We have several HDTV standards on the street, but the average consumer isn’t concerned – because today’s television receivers can work with them all. Standards will not be a roadblock.

Infrastructure is being rolled out as we speak. Sprint/Clearwire is already lighting up cities with WiMAX as quickly as their finances will allow. Other large carriers are expected to roll out LTE in 2010. Infrastructure will not be a roadblock much longer.

When people talk about the wireless media future, the first question asked is: “That’s really great, but what will the devices look like?” Blackberries, iPhones and other media capable ‘smart’ phones are already in use by millions. We already know what smart phones look like.

However, with few exceptions, wireless can be put into common devices we already use. Why? Because a wireless requires three things: a chip, an antenna, and power – and you can put those in just about anything. And, you’ll want to. Why not make the dashboard of your car, your refrigerator, your clock radio, your briefcase wireless – so you can access Internet media with them? Device development will not be a major roadblock, as virtually anything can be made wireless.

That leaves software. With any device having the potential to be wireless enabled, the software - or user interface that makes the device work - will become the critical issue in New Media implementation. We need a software interface that’s simple to use and as universal as the operating systems in our computers.

We hear a lot of talk about standards, infrastructure and devices – but we need to hear more about the software being developed. Software will be the critical path item in the future of new media.