exploring the posibilities, ponder with me.

ok, there was a short note about this new technology in today's Post Express and it set me to thinking = You could make a film specifically designed to be displayed on one of these new TV's that features parallel alternate endings, simply modify plot important visual clues, characters expressions, veiled intentions, etc... So that if you were viewing from the right or left side you would come away with a different interpretation of the films outcome. There could even be actors playing evil and good through just their facial expressions and on screen actions, the audio stream wouldn't have to be different at all. of course if you were sitting dead center I guess you would be hopelessly lost. I think it could be a pretty neat experiment, using new technology to push the limits of cinema audience interaction. I'm sure it would take some experimentation to figure out how to make it work as I have envisioned, or maybe it's not possible, I'm trying to find a deeper technical explanation then the press release from Sharp that seems to be the core of these news stories.

Friday 15th July 2005
Sharp puts LCDs into perspective with simultaneous dual displays
1:30PM

No smoke but a few mirrors. Sharp has been showing off its new LCD technology and uses mirrors to demonstrate the clever things that can now be done with viewing angles.

As well as a monitor that can switch its viewing angle from wide to narrow - to ensure the private display of information - the Japanese electronics giant has also developed a screen that can display one thing when viewed from the right and another when viewed from the left.

The new LCD (pictured top), when used for television, could certainly solve living room disputes such as whether to watch an investigative documentary on third world gender politics on BBC2 or the latest Coronation Street Omnibus on ITV1. Both will be possible as long as the viewers sit well apart (the mirror shows the image the viewer on the left would see).

Sound is still a problem of course, but no doubt the boffins are working on that as we write... More seriously, possible uses of the LCD include the display of a TV broadcast on the right screen, while displaying an Internet browser, or other application, on the left screen. Another option mooted by Sharp is an 'in-vehicle display' where the driver may view a map but the passenger views a DVD movie. The possibilities are endless. Almost.

According to Sharp, the system works by 'superimposing a parallax barrier on a TFT LCD to cause the light from the backlight to separate into right and left directions'. This makes possible a display in which the view differs depending on the angle at which the screen is viewed.

Moving on, possible uses for the anti-snooping, switchable-angle LCD (pictured below) include notebooks that preserve the privacy of user info when travelling on trains and planes and such like. Another use may be in ATM-like machines, which will employ the narrow angle when a customer is entering their personal details, and will use the wide angle for general advertising when the terminal is not in use.

It works by overlaying a switching liquid crystal material on an ordinary TFT LCD, which prevents light from going out to the left or right, thus turning a wide viewing angle to a narrow viewing angle.

Both LCDs are about to go into mass production.