O Joy Divine: Big Cheap TVs Are Coming Soon

BAM! Long-time techno-geek reporter Kevin Maney has the scoop, er, SciScoop, from ringside! Take it away, Kevin….

Thank you, rickyjames. For a decade, scientists in prestigious labs worldwide have sweated over nanotechnology. They’ve worked at the outer edges of human knowledge, employing room-size, multimillion-dollar contraptions to try to create structures one-billionth of a meter across — the size of three or four atoms. And at last they have revealed a major outcome of this research — a product of magnificent importance to worldwide peace and happiness, not to mention the viewing of football games.

That would be: big-screen TVs.

Better: CHEAP big-screen TVs.

The welcome news comes from Motorola. Last week, it announced NED, which stands for Nano Emissive Display. As explained by Motorola scientist Jim Jaskie, NED could be used to make 50-inch-wide, one-inch-deep, flat-screen TVs with the picture quality of high-definition television, but at the cost of 32-inch traditional cathode ray tube TVs.

Today, a 42-inch flat-screen TV would run you about $5,000. A 32-inch CRT model — maybe $700.

“Existing factories could be modified to make this,” Jaskie says. Though Motorola won’t make NED TVs, it will license the technology to consumer-electronics companies that will. “We’re not talking about something that’s three years out. It will be sooner than that,” Jaskie says.

NED TVs are the most tangible result yet of research into carbon nanotubes, which are the early stars of nanotech.

Nanotechnology is about building structures smaller than anything ever made. One nanometer is one ten-thousandth the width of a human hair. Nanotech will allow researchers to devise materials and devices never before possible.

A nanotube is an artificially created lattice of graphite wrapped in a tube shape about 1.2 nanometers across. If you imagine Kraft macaroni and cheese for amoebas, that’s the size and shape you’ve got here.

Turns out that these nanotubes are, like tiny cannons, excellent for firing electrons at something — say, for instance, phosphors on a screen, which when excited by electrons can create an image.

But to make a nanotube screen, you’d have to lay down a layer of neat rows of millions of nanotubes in position to fire patterns of electrons at the phosphors. Until now, a factory would have had to practically paste on the nanotubes one at a time, usually at temperatures hot enough to melt whatever materials were in the screen.

Motorola’s breakthrough, Jaskie says, is a way to grow perfect fields of nanotubes right on a screen at low temperatures. It’s like a bald man discovering Rogaine when he thought his only choice was a hair transplant — the former being a much less painful and difficult process. “If you can place a seed where you want the nanotubes, you can grow them,” Jaskie says. “It becomes much easier.”

There’s more, much more, to Kevin’s exciting article, but first this word from your sponsor


6 thoughts on “O Joy Divine: Big Cheap TVs Are Coming Soon”

  1. Yes, this is not suprising in today’s comsumeristic world. Nanotech promises so many breakthroughs, and the first major one to be delivered? Bigger and Better TV’s for our viewing of entertainment. Pretty sad if you ask me, but certainly not surprising. I would like to see somthing like Self Replicating Systems. I have had a large interest in Celluar Automata as of late, and applying what we know about it with nanotechnology, something along the lines of engineered (artificial) life whom self replicate using a given set of algorthims… maybe.

    I know the big field of study now is tweaking bacteriums to do the work for us… but something along the lines I suggest is probably just as likely in the future. For now though I guess we are stuck with a better TV to watch whatever it is we watch now.. American Idol I guess?

    -Xanadu

  2. Nah…. but alas– “Dark Angel” exists no more except in the long-term memories of various males. RJ says he’ll take the big screen for “videos of historical interest.” Consumers, like the poor, we will have with us always– although I, too, hope this technology might eventually serve for more than entertainment purposes.

  3. …although I, too, hope this technology might eventually serve for more than entertainment purposes.

    A technology like this will have an immense impact on life in the developed world. If you live in a city, take a stroll sometime and contemplate the number of signs, posters, bills, flyers and window paintings you see– and imagine each and every one of them replaced by cheap, light-weight and durable high-res displays.

    This will not only rock the cityscape, it will blow open the doors of the ‘graphic designer’ profession, as all of these new displays will need custom or stock/tailored graphics to whirl and twirl in front of cutomer’s eyeball. Easilly adaptable Paintbox, Photoshop and Flash artists will be a high-demand profession… same goes for models and spokespersons.

    Even more profound than this cityscape sea-change will be the shift in computing, information gathering and entertainment. Regardless of the high ideals of the austere sci-fi afficianado, these new displays will redefine how we learn and play, which is a fine step forward for the human condition.

  4. Your visionary nudge is helpful. I’m obviously not technology oriented, so I struggle at times to understand long-term results of what might seem like high-tech play at the present.

    Mind you, I wouldn’t turn down a large screen t.v. toy, should a manufacturer want me to test drive one :-).

  5. Note, boys and girls, first and foremost, it’s not just a BIG TV or a CHEAP TV – it’s a HIGH DEFINITION TV (HDTV). These things are beautiful. Even in Circuit City you often don’t see the current expensive HDTVs set up running the highest resolution picture they’re capable of. When these things are set up right and get the right kind of signals (I’ve seen demos at electronics meetings) it is UNBELIEVABLE. It’s like you’re looking out of a window. Right now there’s a chicken and egg problem – few are broadcasting the HDTV signals because few have broke down and bought the expensive sets because few are broadcasting…you get the idea. If you could get a 50 inch HDTV for $700, this market would EXPLODE overnight.

  6. So I’d take a BIG SCREEN, CHEAP, HIGH DEFINITION TV if someone offered me one. I would even BUY one for $700… just to watch Jeopardy! during lunch. No telling how much better all those nanotubes could make Alex look.

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