During May 18 and May 23, at the Los Angeles Convention Center, took place the international meeting of scientists, engineers, manufacturers and users that work or are interested in electronic information displays and display innovations.
Display Week 2008 hosted the 2008 Display of the Year Awards where the Society for Information Display awarded 6 products that proved during 2007, to meet the highest standards of technical innovation and commercial significance.

“Collectively, the 2008 award recipients have excelled at transitioning innovative products and technologies from ‘hot’ buzzword to ‘cool’ reality,” declared Dick McCartney, Chair of SID’s Display of the Year Awards Committee. “The significant number of nominations we received around the world speaks to the mounting prestige associated with these accolades across the global display community. On behalf of SID, I would like to truly commend this year’s award recipients’ ongoing commitment to innovation and to shaping the future of today’s display arena.”

The winners are:

Display Component of the Year

Gold Award: Luminus Devices PhlatLight LED Backlight Unit, which was the Silver Award winner for the previous year, and now its technology for LCD TVs requiring fewer LEDs, reduces significantly the cost and complexity of LED backlighting for large-screen TVs, enhancing brightness and color uniformity, besides enabling thinner LCD TV design thanks to the illuminated edges.

Silver Award: FUJIFILM Corp. WV-EA Film, which solves the problem of TN-mode LCDs that don’t have enough viewing-angle performance compared to other LCD modes. The Wide View film enhances the viewing-angle performance and allows users watch clear images at oblique angles, 160 degrees in both angles at 10:1. More than that, it contributes in impressive film thickness uniformity, together with the airflow control technology and a new additive that makes film thickness uniformity compatible with wide viewing-angle performance.

Display Device of the Year

Gold Award: Sony Corp. XEL-1 OLED TV, the world’s first OLED TV measuring 11 inches in diagonal and 3 mm thin, capable of delivering a high contrast, and a raspid response time and best color reproduction.

Silver Award: Samsung SDI 2.2-inch QVGA AMOLED Display, world’s thinnest 2.2-inch AMOLED model at 0.52 mm thickness, about the size of a credit card. It has a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels, 100& color gamut, 262K colors, 10,000:1 contrast ratio, featuring low-temperature polysilicon technology and 1,000x faster response time compared with the existent TFT LCDs.

Display Application of the Year

Gold Award: Apple Inc., iPhone, maybe the world’s most popular Smartphone with multi-touch display, accelerometer for automatic portrait/landscape switching, proximity sensor to detect turn off the display and save power when the user lifts the handset to the ear, and ambient light sensor that adjusts the brightness automatically depending on the light environment.

Silver Award: RealD Stereoscopic 3D Cinema Technology that uses a single projector and an active filter to switch between 2 different types of polarization in front of the projection lens, lading to smaller and lighter weight passive glasses, and easy upgrade from stereo presentation without the need to buy a new projector.

Chief Manufacturing’s Thinstall is the world’s thinnest flat panel TV mount of the moment, designed with the GlideLock technology for easy latching without requiring tools.

The new mount model is destined to fit UltraThin HDTV design, with no interference on cables, and the PAC520 In-Wall Box Accessory for plasma TV installation.

PSMT2015 is included in the Thinstall Series ans was designed especially for Hitachi 1.5 UltraThin HDTVs, featuring 0.49-inch depth and measuring 1/3 of the supported UltraThin flat panels it was developed for. It is compatible with Hitachi UT32, Hitachi UT37 and Hitachi UT42 TVs.

Sharp introduced a new HD LCD monitor line in its Professional LCD monitor series, featuring a slim form factor and networking capability.
Sharp TL monitors deliver 1920 x 1080 resolution, featuring thin and lightweight form, besides the new improved internal cooling with a fanless design and backlight system.

The models, among which we can mention the 46-inch TL-M4600 and the 52-inch TL-M5200, have 6 ms response time, low power consumption, 1500:1 and 2000:1 ontrast ratio respectively, input connectors for a wide range of devices such as DVDs and PCs, HDCP compatible HDMI, built-in web browser, optional attachable stereo speaker system, and landscape mode.

“The large-format display market continues to evolve, with increased needs for advanced functionality and connectivity in a reasonably priced package,” said Dan Wynne, senior director of marketing, Professional Display Division, Sharp Information and Imaging Company of America. “With the addition of this affordable monitor series, Sharp will reach a broader audience while offering superior image quality and improved compatibility, for reliability in a wider range of commercial applications.”

Sharp TL-M4600 will be available in June at a starting price of $3,995, while Sharp TL-M5200 is already available at $4,995.

Toshiba Matsushita Display Technology announced its new color active-matrix thin-film transistor liquid crystal display modules designed for industrial applications. They come with LED backlight and include the following models: a 5.7-inch QVGA 320 x 240, the 6.5-inch VGA 640 x 480, an 8.4-inch SVGA 800 x 600, the 8.4-inch 1024 x 768, and the 10.4-inch XGA 1024 x 768. All of them use replaceable, long-life backlight systems reaching 70,000 hours or 8 years of continuous operation.
Choosing a LED backlight system provides lighter weight, lower electrical noise, lower power consumption an wider adjustable luminance range.

<-250x250 Square - right->“These new, leading-edge LED-backlit modules are an important addition to our line-up and address a growing demand in a wide variety of industrial
LCD applications,” said Sean Collins, vice president business development, Display Devices and Components Group, for TAEC. “TMD continues to demonstrate a long history and commitment to the industrial market by providing displays that feature high brightness, wide viewing angles, wide
operating temperature ranges, and replaceable backlighting structures. The addition of these new LED long-life product will bring clear and further
benefits to industrial system designers.”

Toshiba Matsushita Display Technology established the mass production starting dates for the following months, and sample prices between $285 and $480.
The samples demonstrate 400 cd/m2 brightness, 400:1 and 500:1 contrast ratio, 140/120, 140/120 and 120/110 degree viewing angles on horizontal/vertical, and up to 5.9W power consumption.

Earlier this month, Pioneer has introduced the new Elite KURO Signature
Monitor series featuring high-definition capability and a set of elements for custom installations like high flexibility and adaptable.
One of the new functionalities brought by the new monitor series is the Optimum mode which analyses sound, images and light conditions to adjust the settings automatically.

The new KURO models have diagonals ranging between 50 inches and 60 inches, come with 2-year warranty and will be available starting with June, August and October at prices ranging from $5,000 to $6,500.

“KURO has set the standard in the industry for best-in-class and we are raising the bar again with the introduction of our new Signature Series of Elite KURO monitors,” said Russ Johnston, executive vice president of marketing and product planning, home entertainment business solutions group, Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc. “We identified a core need in the custom installation market to deliver unmatched KURO performance to a unique subset of discerning entertainment purists with a passion for entertainment. Our Elite monitors are hand-selected to ensure the most pristine picture and premium performance associated with the KURO name and our Pioneer brand.”