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Flat-Screen TV Can Display 3-D Images T O K Y O, Sharp Corp., Japan's largest maker of liquid crystal displays, said today its researchers in Britain had developed a flat-panel display for either two- or three-dimensional viewing that does not require special glasses. The company added it aimed to set up a consortium including major high-tech firms such as Sony Corp and Microsoft Corp to promote the new technology. "In the same way that black-and-white TVs switched to color, we really think displays are going to switch to 3-D," Stephen Bold, managing director of Sharp Laboratories of Europe Ltd, said after a news conference. He expected the displays would initially draw interest largely for use in game machines, but would eventually be used widely in products from PCs to TVs. Three-dimensional displays that need no special glasses have been around for some time, he said. But the main challenge was making it possible to switch between the ordinary 2-D mode and 3-D with the push of a button, while providing the same image resolution in the 2-D mode as in a standard display without 3-D capability. Sharp's Oxford laboratory, which spent 10 years developing the technology, also struggled to keep costs low enough for the price not to scare away consumers. The company is initially aiming for costs no more than 50 percent above a conventional display, and hopes to bring that down to about 20 percent within a few years, Bold said. The screens can only be seen in 3-D from certain angles and distances, however, and a "sweet spot indicator" a small bar at the lower end of the screen appears solid black when the viewer is at an optimum position for 3-D. Bold said progress in 3-D screens was gaining momentum and in another decade they may be advanced enough for normal viewing by several users at once, without sacrificing image resolution. Mikio Katayama, general manager of Sharp's mobile LCD group, said volume production of the screens would start within the next few months and the first products using them would hit the market early next year. |