displays

Intel touts multiscreen flexibility with 'display as a service'

HANOVER, Germany--Intel today debuted a technology called display as a service (DAAS) that it hopes will transform how people use their gadgets.

The technology breaks the hard link between a video source and a screen the way virtualization software breaks the hard link between an operating system and a processor. With DAAS, people can view what's on their tablet on a big-screen TV, mirror the same imagery on multiple displays, or link up multiple displays to create a single, bigger display.

Another possibility, which Intel Labs' Divya Kolar described on blog post, is to combine multiple devices' video onto … Read more

iPad Mini to bury 9.7-inch iPad in 2013, says DisplaySearch

The venerable 9.7-inch iPad will get buried by the iPad Mini in 2013, NPD DisplaySearch said today in a research note.

If January is any indicator it could be a pretty sharp shift. Shipments of 9.7-inch tablet panels (iPad) "collapsed," falling to 1.3 million in January from 7.4 million a month earlier, DisplaySearch said.

But 7-inch and 7.9-inch (many of the latter are the iPad Mini) panel shipments grew to 14 million from 12 million in the same period.

And it will get pretty lopsided for the whole of 2013, DisplaySearch said.

"… Read more

Images of alleged Retina iPad Mini appear on Chinese forum

Photos posted to a Chinese Internet forum of what appears to be the back casing of a future iPad Mini are leading some to speculate that the next version of Apple's smaller tablet may have a Retina display.

On the forum, the images show what seems to be an iPad Mini rear casing with a blue Apple logo and the word "iPad" in blue. Current iPad Minis, Apple Insider points out, have either black or silver detailing.

But the photos also seem to show that the casing is thicker than the one used for the current-generation iPad … Read more

Apple plans Q3 launch for MacBook Air with Retina -- report

Apple's MacBook Air could be next to get Retina display treatment, according to a new report.

The Mac maker is planning to bring the Retina display to the MacBook Air in the third quarter of 2013, Taiwan-based newspaper Economic Daily is reporting today, citing sources in the company's supply chain. The Retina display will come bundled in both the 11- and 13-inch MacBook Air models, according to the report.

Apple last week cut the price of its 256GB MacBook Air by $100, to $1,400. The move was a response to it dropping the price of its MacBook … Read more

Asia chatter predicts increase in cost of Retina iPad Mini

Chatter in Asia has it that the total cost of the iPad Mini could increase by almost a third -- though no word on whether that would impact price.

Commentary in Digitimes, which is close to the chain of component suppliers in Asia, said the jump to a Retina screen means adding costly display components.

If iPad mini adopts the Retina display, the dots per inch (DPI) will be higher and the brightness of the backlight modules will have to improve. This also means the number of LEDs used will...[increase the total cost] by more than 30% if it … Read more

Apple cuts MacBook Pro Retina prices, bumps specs

Apple today dropped the prices in its line of MacBook Pro laptops with Retina display while boosting processor speeds.

The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina now starts $1,499, or $200 less than before. The higher-capacity 256GB version costs $1,699, or $300 cheaper than the original price. The processor clock speed also gets boosted to 2.6 gigahertz from 2.5GHz.

The 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina gets a speed boost, with the lower-end version getting its clock speed bumped up to 2.4GHz from 2.3GHz, and the higher-end version getting bumped up to 2.7GHz quad-core processor … Read more

OLED displays? They're 'awful,' says Apple's CEO

Apple CEO Tim Cook is definitely not a fan of OLED displays.

Cook, speaking at an investor conference hosted by Goldman Sachs in San Francisco today, called the color saturation of OLED (organic light-emitting diode) displays "awful."

"If you ever buy anything online and really want to know what he color is, as many people do, you should really think twice before you depend on the color from an OLED display," Cook said.

Conversely, Cook called Apple's Retina Display a superior experience, noting that it is twice as bright.

That's a shot at mobile … Read more

Rarefied Retina MacBook Pros get priced closer to earth

MacBook Pros equipped with a Retina display are not exactly priced to move. Best Buy and Amazon are trying to change that.

Best Buy, for example, is now selling the 128GB version (model MC975LL/A) of the 13.3-inch MacBook Pro Retina for $1,549.99, $150 off the regular $1,699.99 price.

Need 256GB of solid-state storage with that gorgeous Retina screen? That model (MD213LL/A) is now $1,799.99, $200 off the regular price of $1,999.99.

The pricier 15.4-inch models with 256GB and 512GB solid-state drives (MC975LL/A and MC976LL/A, respectively), also … Read more

Hisense teases sexy transparent screens for commercial use

LAS VEGAS--Digital signage could vastly change in the next decade, especially if companies such as Hisense get marketers to sign on with transparent display technology.

One Hisense display, as seen above, adds 3D to a traditional transparent LCD. The demo illustrates how a real estate company could show off a real-life model town behind the LCD screen, while 3D video (passive glasses required) plays on-screen to show off some of the town's properties for sale.… Read more

iPhone 5's initial ramp too big to sustain, says DisplaySearch

Market research firm DisplaySearch said the reduction in shipments of displays for the iPhone 5 -- which reflect shipments of the phone itself -- is real but that it doesn't necessarily mean the device's popularity is suffering.

"We started hearing indications of cutbacks before the new year," Paul Semenza, senior vice president, analyst services, at DisplaySearch, told CNET today.

That said, he doesn't exactly have a negative take on demand for the iPhone 5.

"It was a very quick ramp up. The Q4 [estimate] was originally about 61 million displays [for the iPhone 5]...… Read more