World's largest digital non-emissive display

At the SID 2008 event last week, Kevin Luczkow of the Kraft Group discussed their use of large area displays in a new sports exhibit hall they are building. The Kraft Group's assets in sports and entertainment include the New England Patriots, the New England Revolution and Gillette Stadium.

The poster will be - to our knowledge - the World's largest digital non emissive display, measuring 40 foot long and 5 foot wide. Four such posters will be used. Kevin described that they had looked at a range of different display technologies but in particular easy viewing in sunlight was important.

The technology comes from an Israeli based company called magink. The company also has offices in London, UK. It is a full colour digital ink display, which can refresh 60 times in a second, enabling video to be played. The company describe the technology as, "This proprietary technology provides high resolution, high contrast, full-colour, low energy consumption and cost effective digital display applications to a broad array of global industries." The cholesterol-like material is arranged like a DNA chain of molecules. Change the pitch on the helix by, say, adding pressure, and the colours change enabling movement

An example of the display on a billboard picture in use in London.

Another example is shown below.

Source: magink

The displays are non emissive, so need ambient light to view them, but have the advantage that the brighter the ambient light, the more readable they are. The anticipated lifetime is seven to ten years depending on UV conditions.

Emissive electroluminescent displays have also been used for large area advertising, but these are better suited to night time or dark conditions when the effect can be more easily seen.

In tomorrow's article on Printed Electronics World we will cover how Clear Channel - the largest outdoor media company, are moving to digital billboards.

For more attend Printed Electronics USA www.IDTechEx.com/peUSA