Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’… keep those TVs rollin’… rolled up like a super-portable HD video display…
At CES 2016 in Las Vegas, South Korea’s LG Corporation unveiled the latest version of its rollable, one-millimeter-thick television screen. If the production version due out in several years is even close to this concept, it looks like we’ll soon be carrying around rolled up 55-inch TVs under our arms like it ain’t no thang.
The super flexible television (seen below) has an 18-inch high-definition screen with a resolution of 1,200 x 810 pixels, and can play video even as it is rolled up or bent out of plane. To achieve this extremely thin and flexible display, LG uses OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode) technology, which, unlike LCD tech, doesn’t require a separate layer for backlighting. And while this particular demo is small, LG says that the goal is to have rollable televisions as big as 55 inches. That can only mean one thing: Electronic newspapers that update in real time with video graphics, like the one from Minority Report, are on the way!
It’s not all high-definition screen-yoga glory however. Plenty of issues stand between proof of concept and in-home reality. For starters, the screen on display could only be rolled up in one direction and, according to many folks who were able to get their hands on the item, bending the screen reared a few dead pixels. OLED technology is also notoriously difficult and expensive to develop, which is why many of LG’s competitors (like Samsung) have chosen not to pursue it. LG also didn’t provide any cost estimates for a super-flexible 55-inch television, but odds are it’s going be a massive stack of something else that’s paper-thin and rollable.
But who cares if it’s finicky and expensive? We need televisions that can roll up like swattin’ newspapers, if only because robo-roaches are a real thing too.
What do you think about LG’s rollable television? Is OLED tech the future of visual displays, or is LG way off the mark? Let us know in the comments section below!
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HT: Mashable
Image: Mashable
