A new research development offers the potential to re-focus a photograph after it has been taken and provide a use for the higher and higher pixel resolution that sensors are capable of. Researchers at Stanford University have developed a way to refocus photographs after they have been taken. The technique involves placing a special filter in front of the image sensor that breaks the image up and allows the camera to record a lot of the extra information that is encoded into the light coming from a scene but which conventional photography and its capture methods ignores. The image if taken formally The image processed for a near focus point The image processed for a far focus point The research team comprises Ren Ng, Marc Levoy, Mathieu Bredif, Gene Duval, Mark Horowitz,  and Pat Hanrahan … Read entire article »

Popular futurist and technologist David Smith (Vice President, TFI) states “These trends are of great consequence to those involved with global business, technology business process, science and universities, government agencies, federal labs, corporate labs, and technology savvy consumers.” Press Release Once again, Technology Futures, Inc. (TFI) provides important emerging technology trends for 2006 and beyond developed through our 27 years of forecasting, strategy, and analysis work. Popular futurist and technologist David Smith (Vice President, TFI) states “These trends are of great consequence to those involved with global business, technology business process, science and universities, government agencies, federal labs, corporate labs, and technology savvy consumers.” He adds, “Comparing this year’s trends to TFI’s list of trends for 2005, we see the trends as being still on the mark, with continuing progress being made … Read entire article »

US patent application by an Australian company for a multi-color inkjet pen Yes, yet another interesting use of the inkjet technology, this time in a pen. Australian company Silverbrook Research Pty Ltd has filed US patent application number 20050265770 for a pen that uses multiple ink heads to be able to print variable width lines and in multiple colors. The patent naturally allows for a wide number of devices that can include various combinations of features. Some of these features including using a pressure sensitive ball tip not only to guide the pen but to control an attribute of the ink, such as line width, one or more control buttons that allow control of other features, such as ink color, and sensors in the pen to allow things like line shape to … Read entire article »

SAMSUNG Electronics Develops World’s First 40-inch a-Si-based OLED for Ultra-slim, Ultra-sharp Large TVs Press Release Samsung Electronics, the leader in TFT-LCD technology, has successfullydeveloped the world’s first single-sheet, 40-inch active matrix (AM)OLED ( organic light-emitting diode ) for emissive flat panel TVapplications. The high-definition-compatible OLED prototype has a widescreen pixel format of 1280×800 (WXGA) driven by an amorphous silicon(a-Si) AM backplane to permit faster video response times with lowpower consumption. S Samsung’s 40-inch OLED panel was demonstrated for the first time at theworld’s largest display industry event, Society for Information Display(SID) 2005 International Symposium, Seminar and Exhibition in Boston,May 24- 27. Manufactured on Samsung’s fourth generation (4G) production line with amother-glass size of 730mm x 920mm, the new OLED prototype combines allof the traditional features of emissive OLED technology, including wideviewing angle, thin package size, … Read entire article »

Epson Creates World’s First Large Full-Color OLED Display Using Original Inkjet Technology Seiko Epson Corporation (“Epson”) has used its original inkjet printingtechnology to successfully develop the world’s first large-screen(40-inch) full-color organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displayprototype. It is easy to forget that Epson used to sell computer monitors andactively works on LCD technology for many applications. OLED technologylooks like a good one to provide cheaper, larger and better largedisplays than LCD or plasma. Like most new technologies, there havebeen issues with sorting out the manufacturing process. Epson isaddressing this. Self-luminescent OLED displays, which offer outstanding viewingcharacteristics, including high contrast, wide viewing angle, and fastresponse times, are widely seen as the leading candidate for the nextgeneration of thin, lightweight displays. One of the major obstacles totheir realization, however, has been the perceived difficulty offorming organic … Read entire article »