Week - 14 Emerging Technolgies in Multimedia

Delivery Infrastructure OLED displays Solid State Hard Drives (SSDs) HTML5

OLED displays  OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diodes) is a flat display technology, made by placing a series of organic thin films between two conductors.  When electrical current is applied, a bright light is emitted.  OLEDs produce (emit) light they do not require a backlight.  This means that OLEDs can be made very thin and very power efficient when compared to LCD (which do require a white backlight).

The future - flexible and transparent OLED displays OLEDs are thin and simple - they can be used to create flexible and even transparent displays  Curved OLED displays, placed on non-flat surfaces  Wearable OLEDs  Transparent OLEDs embedded in windows  OLEDs in car windshields  New designs for lamps  And many more we cannot even imagine today...

OLEDs vs LCDs OLED advantages over LCD or plasma  Low power consumption - OLEDs are a far better choice for portable devices. It also makes OLEDs much more environmental friendly, and a candidate to be the white-light "bulb" of the future  Faster refresh rate and better contrast.  Greater brightness - The screens are brighter, and have a fuller viewing angle.  New types of displays - ultra-thin, flexible or transparent displays.  Better durability - OLEDs are very durable and can operate in a broader temperature range  Lighter weight - the screen can be made very thin, and can even be 'printed' on flexible surfaces

How do OLEDs work?  An OLED is made by placing a series of organic thin films between two conductors.  When electrical current is applied, a bright light is emitted.  For example, if one were to inject charge into one end of organic matter (like a pickle) and opposite charge into the other end, they can meet in the middle and excite a molecule, (which will glow) especially if it has a lot of sodium in it.

Where can I find OLED displays today?  Today you can find small (up to 3 or 4 inch) organic displays in many types of devices - mobile phones, A/V players, car audio systems, Digital cameras and PDAs. Lot's of companies are placing OLEDs in their products - Sony, Samsung, LG, Microsoft, and others.  The main attraction today is the small size, the low power consumption and the great brightness.  Google Nexus One 3.7" WVGA touch AMOLED Mobile Google Nexus One  HTC Legend 3.2" hVGA AMOLED Mobile phones HTC Legend  ASUS DR-570 6" OLED Tablet ASUS DR-570  LG EL9500 OLED TV 15" 1366x768, 1.7mm thick OLED OLED TV LG EL9500 OLED TV

Now for a little quiz Which one of the following best describes possible uses for OLED technology. Curved OLED displays, placed on non-flat surfaces Wearable OLEDs Transparent OLEDs embedded in windows OLEDs in car windshields New designs for lamps ALL OF THE ABOVE Home

Excellent! Home

Doh! Try Again Home

Doh! Try Again! Home

Solid State Hard Drives (SSDs)  A solid state drive is a storage device that uses solid state memory to store data.  While technically not a disk, a solid state drive will often be referred to as a solid state disk drive, or a solid state disk, in reference to the fact that, in some ways, it replaces the traditional hard disk drive.

Solid State Hard Drives (SSDs)  The principle behind solid state drives is that there should be no moving parts: no spinning platters, no moving heads.  Data is split into word length pieces and stored in memory.  It is then accessed almost instantaneously using unique system-wide addresses.  This behavior has been used in computer RAM for many years, but for a long time it was too expensive for manufacturers to consider using it as persistent storage in sufficient volumes to replace the hard disk drive.  Solid state disks use either NAND flash or SDRAM (non-volatile and volatile storage respectively).  NAND flash is so-called because of the NAND-gate technology it uses and is common in USB flash drives and many types of memory card.  NAND flash based drives are persistent and can therefore effectively mimic a hard disk drive. Synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM) is volatile and requires a separate power source if it is to operate independently from a computer.

Solid State Hard Drives (SSDs) Solid state drives may be preferred over traditional disk drives for a number of reasons.  While hard disk drives need to be spinning for the head to read sectors of the platter, and we have to wait for "spin up" time, the information on solid state drives can be accessed immediately.  Solid state drives also enjoy greater stability over their disk counterparts. Because there are no moving parts there is less that can go wrong mechanically.  Dust entering the device ceases to become a problem (and in any case solid state drives can be sealed air tight unlike disk drives which require a certain air cushion to function properly), and dropping the drive is less likely to cause damage to the data.

Now for a little quiz True or False? Solid state drives also enjoy greater stability over their disk counterparts. Because there are no moving parts, there is less that can go wrong mechanically. True False Home

“HTML 5”  HTML5, appears to be poised to take over the web developers world.  The W3C has taken the best parts from the various Web technologies and rolled them into, what is being dubbed the most powerful markup language to date.  Currently, web designers and web application developers are struggling with an ancient code that was written before many of the add-on's that we consider to be 'standard add-ons' today were even developed.  The 'big idea' behind HTML5, is that it will make standard many of the proprietary add-ons that feel standard now, but are not. (e.g. Flash, Silverlight, Applets, JavaFX, etc)  It's been said that the W3C has really listened to the community and planned for the future when architecting the abundance of new elements available.

“HTML 5”  HTML5 is a very powerful API which allowing developers the freedom to create more user-friendly applications while further distancing ourselves from reliance on Flash for saving data and intense animation. Some of the more notable parts added to HTML5 deal with:  Drag & Drop The drag and drop API defines an event-based drag and drop system. However, it never defines what “drag and drop” is. This API requires JavaScript to fully work as normal think drag and drop functionality. Drag & Drop  Video & Audio The audio & video APIs are massive upgrades in media embedding. Although support is limited right now, something like video embedding has never been easier: VideoAudio  Geolocation Geolocation is a very cool API available within HTML5. Its object can be used to programmatically determine location information through a device’s user agent (hint hint: mobile devices). Geolocation

“HTML 5”  HTML5 is going to help developers to build stronger, richer Web applications for years to come.   see HTML5 in action in this video Google wave uses HTML5 see HTML5 in action in this video Google wave uses HTML5