New technology may solve the problem with glaring screens in sunlight

Posted by Lusth on September 4, 2012 12:09 pm 1

During a press conference of the newly founded Heterogeneous System Architecture HSA,which is a foundation of several technolgy compinies, there was a demo from a comany called Apical. They showed a of a new technology called Assertive Display to solve the problem with glaring screens in sunlight, and unlike several previous technologies Apical's solution is independent of screen types. Assertive Display works by adjusting the screen to the environment similar as the human eye. This technology doesn't only adjust the the backlight, it also uses sophistical digital processing to change each pixel in real time. This means that Assertive Display needs additional hardware to accomplish this at the moment, but Apical hope to do this completely in software in the future.

Apical-assertive-display-graphs_medium

via www.apical.co.uk

Here is two screenshots from their website using an iPad. The first one is a screenshot where they use a lower brightness to save power consumption while retaining a better image in sunlight. The iPad on the right is using the Assertive Display technology, and the one the left is a normal iPad.

Power-save-1024x376_medium

via www.apical.co.uk

The second image is an outdoor viewing example, and this time the Assertive Display is also on the right side and the normal iPad on the left. Apical claims that their can achieve a contrast ratio of 1000:1 in these conditions, while the iPad only offers a 10:1 ratio.

Assertive-display-demo-1024x376_medium

via www.apical.co.uk

Here is features of Assertive Display listed on their site:

  • Combined display power control and content adaptation
  • Real-time pixel-by-pixel correction via iridix
  • Full hardware core requiring no CPU load and no system memory
  • Low power design
  • Silicon-proven at geometries down to 28nm
  • Suitable for all display types, including emissive and reflective/transflective
  • Calibration tools

Here is the demo from the presentation, and the demo starts at 35:06:

HSA Foundation Keynote at IFA 2012 (via Charbax)

Alternatively follow this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caEPq4KvTTA&t=35m6s

Link to Apical's website: http://www.apical.co.uk/