E-Ink Will Change the Face of Displays

When Pioneer introduced their Organic EL displays back in 1998, it changed the industry forever. OEL required less electricity to run, produced less heat, and could produce much more vibrant colors and depth than regular liquid crystal. And at CES we saw a few manufacturers introducing full-color Organic LED TVs. So what's next? E-Ink, that's what.

E-ink has a lot of characteristics that will make a pretty handy technology in the mobile electronics world. Just in case you weren't aware, this is the same technology used in Amazon's Kindle and Sony's Reader e-books. The tech is 40% thinner than typical LCD's, can be cut into odd shapes, requires less power and withstands higher and lower temps than LCD, and is flexible/bendable. The first application in the automotive world will come from Delphi, used in their new alarm/keyless entry key fobs. Seems like a pretty good fit. I wonder when or if we'll start seeing it used in radio displays? Organic LED seems like the best bet for radio displays at the moment, but who knows... Maybe e-ink will go full color one day and pass up OLED.

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Source: Electronista via Gizmodo

USB Gets Locked Down

I was walking by the Delphi booth when I noticed a display with a number of different iPod looking connectors and docks. I stopped to glance and noticed that all of the USB items on display featured a positive locking system. Old school installers might remember in the good old days when products used DIN plugs that required a bunch of effort to pull out, but the upside was that you never had to worry about a loose connection.  One of the problems with putting home and portable stuff into a car is that a lot of the home audio connectors like USB, RCA, headphone plugs, etc. weren't really designed for an automotive environment with high and low temperatures, vibration, repeated removals and insertions and things of that nature. Now, with Delphi's idea, in order to remove a USB plug, you have to press down to pull out the connector. Not a bad idea if you ask me.