Since then we’ve seen flagship smartphones, mostly running Android, with displays first at 4-inches, quickly followed by 4.3 and 4.5-inches, now up to 5-inches and even beyond. You’d think that’s great if people want larger screens on their phones, and according to T-Mobile, 77 percent of their customers do. But can this growth in Android flagship phone displays actually hurt the most used mobile phone platform? It already has lost at least one customer.

See you later, Android!

Sascha Segan at PC Mag is done with Android and screen sizes are the sole reason. After speaking with several phone manufacturers, the issue is one of “moar”, he says: Consumers in the U.S. and Canada equate value with phones packed with as many features and top hardware components as possible. We want more screen space, more functions, more of everything in our mobile devices. So based on the trend of larger screens, Segan isn’t likely to switch back to Android any time soon, if ever. As he put it:

“But the Android world has been seized by the tyranny of moar. To switch back, I need a decent one-handed phone. Like about 25 million other Americans and Canadians, I take public transportation to work, and I really like to play games standing up.”

I know Segan personally as we’re peers in our industry and often see each other at trade shows and launch events. Truth be told, we’re both smaller than average in size. And yet, while I understand his complaint, I’m actually fine with larger devices. Why the difference? I am, and always have been (even with the original iPhone), primarily a two-handed smartphone user.

Could others follow suit? It depends on how big phones get

Regardless, Segan makes an excellent point. In today’s market — and likely for some time — if you want a top o’ the line Android smartphone, you’ll either need hands sized like Andre the Giant (and pants pockets to match) or you’re going to use your handset with two hands in most circumstances. Who knows; small tablets might replace smartphones for many as our perceptions of portability evolve.

There’s an alternative of course: Android phones start getting too big for a large audience and consumers turn to smaller devices that run iOS, Windows Phone or BlackBerry 10. Obviously, one person leaving Android due to flagship phone sizes isn’t even close to being a trend. Looking forward, however, this could become an issue if handset makers continue down this path.

And I see no reason why those who make phones will stop with the “bigger is better” approach to design. The top selling Android phones these days tend to be larger than average. Add in the fact that we now have high-resolution 1080p display panels, and there’s even more room for phone screens to grow.

After all, after a certain pixel density, there’s little benefit to cramming more pixels in a smaller screen. The new 1080p screens should still look just as good to most people on a 6- or 7-inch device as they do on the 4.7-inch HTC One or 5-inch Samsung Galaxy S 4. Maybe “moar” is better for now? If not though, opportunities for Android competitors could get as big as the screen on Android flagship phones.

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The protests focused on the government’s broad power to monitor, intercept and block any information from the Internet as well as to force companies to remove any material it finds objectionable from their servers. Foreign Policy explains the issue in a detailed article published last week:

The trouble started with the 2008 passage of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, whose Section 69 empowers the government to direct any Internet service to block, intercept, monitor, or decrypt any information through any computer resource. Company officials who fail to comply with government requests can face fines and up to seven years in jail. Then, in April 2011, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology issued new rules under which Internet companies are expected to remove within 36 hours any content that regulators designate as “grossly harmful,” “harassing,” or “ethnically objectionable” — designations that are open to a wide variety of interpretations and that free speech advocates argue have opened the door to abuse. It is thanks to these rules that the website of the hunger-striking cartoonist, [Aseem] Trivedi, was taken offline. Also thanks to the 2011 rules, Facebook and Google are facing trial for having failed to remove objectionable content. If found guilty, the companies could face fines, and executives could be sentenced to jail time.

The more immediate spark for the protests, however, was a recent court order requiring ISPs to block two Bollywood films from file and video sharing sites such as the Pirate Bay, Vimeo and Pastebin. Rather than block individual videos, the ISPs chose to block the services entirely, effectively removing them from India’s Internet.

Anonymous organized the protests through its Posterous blog and over its Operation India Twitter feed. The group also coordinated multiple distributed denial of service attacks throughout the week against the websites of government departments, political parties and the ISPs doing the blocking.

Image courtesy of Flickr user zigazou76

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The secret sauce of the research is layers of glass that are selectively removed to create microscopic cones. This nanotech innovation adds the desirable characteristics for this wonder glass.

From the MIT News site:

“The new “multifunctional” glass, based on surface nanotextures that produce an array of conical features, is self-cleaning and resists fogging and glare, the researchers say. Ultimately, they hope it can be made using an inexpensive manufacturing process that could be applied to optical devices, the screens of smartphones and televisions, solar panels, car windshields and even windows in buildings.”

The glass would essentially look nearly invisible because of the lack of glare, fog or any other visual cue that the eye can see. And the water beading attribute turns into a glass cleaner of sorts. Check this video showing the beads rolling off the glass and pulling dust where the droplets bounce off.

Obviously as the MIT News site indicates, this technology could be used in a wide array of products. If it can be lent to the touchscreen display market, phone and tablets could offer a more immersive experience: Interacting with a screen you can’t see would be more akin to interacting directly with the user interface elements.

Solar panels, too, could benefit from such an innovation. If solar panels installed on roofs and on the ground could repel liquid and even be self cleaning, that could help the panels provide as much optimal power as possible. Solar panels need to be cleaned periodically to work properly.

It may not even cost that much to include this tech in certain types of glass manufacturing. As MIT notes, “[I]n the future glass or transparent polymer films might be manufactured with such surface features simply by passing them through a pair of textured rollers while still partially molten; such a process would add minimally to the cost of manufacture.”

The only question I have left is: Will it hide all of the residue from those screen taps or will our mobile devices still be a magnet for fingerprints?

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Other sources speaking to Reuters said that Japanese companies are hopeful that the deteriorating relationship between Apple and Samsung will result in more contracts for them. Elpida Memory and Toshiba in particular are eager to win chip-making contracts, since Samsung has handled the foundry side of Apple’s A4 and A5 processor business, which are central components of the iPhone 4 and iPad 2, respectively.

Reports from earlier this year cited a similar display plant investment Apple was planning to make with Toshiba, to the specific exclusion of Sharp. Apple may have had a change of heart after demand for its devices continued to exceed expectations, or because, according to supply chain industry sources, LG Display recently ran into some issues related to the construction of iPad 2 LCD panels.

The renewed interest in Sharp was highlighted by MF Global FXA Securities in a note by analyst David Rubenstein on Wednesday. In the note, Rubenstein said it was “highly possible that Apple will make an investment in Sharp’s Kameyama plant to the tune of around $1 billion in order to secure a stable supply of screens for iPhones and iPads.” Sharp also announced in June that it would be changing the purpose of one of its TV plants to concentrate on making small and medium-sized LCD panels for smartphones and tablet devices.

More suppliers could hopefully result in fewer backlogs for Apple products, which means shorter waits for Apple customers. The iPad 2 only began being available to ship within 24 hours in the Apple Store at the beginning of August, nearly five months after its initial release. As for competitors, it could mean they have even more trouble finding adequate supplies to build iPad competitors at reasonable prices.

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Doubling the resolution of current Macs won’t create the kind of pixels per inch (ppi) that the iPhone 4 boasts, which makes it impossible for human eyes to discern any visible pixellation effects, but it will accomplish a resolution jump of the same magnitude as that which occurred between the iPhone 3GS and the most recent model. OS X Lion icons have a resolution of 1024×1024, double that of the current 512×512 icons found in Snow Leopard.

The apparent plans to double Mac resolution is also backed up by another source: MacRumors reports that Apple has built “HiDPI display mode” support into OS X Lion. HiDPI is what Apple uses in iOS to allow developers to provide both standard and 2x graphics in order to support both standard and Retina Display devices. It would seem to suggest that Apple is planning to provide Mac displays that operate at double resolution, but that maintain the same size for interface elements, making everything twice as crisp, just like on the iPhone 4.

OS X Lion is almost definitely launching in June, but that doesn’t mean we’ll see retina display Macs launched alongside it. Apple may just be building these features in now in anticipation of a later high-res display introduction. The MacBook Pro, for instance, is set for a major overhaul according to recent rumors, but that won’t arrive for at least another six months in all likelihood. A double resolution display would be a significant selling point if a total makeover really is in store for the machine. Of course, reports point to a possible June launch of refreshed MacBook Airs, which would make it a prime candidate for the first Retina Macs if they end up being the first Apple computers to ship with OS X Lion preinstalled.

I definitely expect Apple to make this leap sooner or later. It’s an inevitable progression, and one which the iPhone 4 set the stage for over a year ago. Were Apple not to leverage that tech in other product lines, I’d be very surprised. That the company is preparing for its arrival in Lion is a good sign we’ll see it reach shipping with Macs within the next two years (the general life cycle of a major OS upgrade), but it’ll depend on whether or not higher res displays become affordable enough to allow Apple to maintain margins without raising prices.

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Liquavista displays reduce power consumption much like the Pixel Qi screens currently found in the Notion Ink Adam tablet and Qualcomm’s promising Mirasol display technology. Instead of the standard option of using a backlight to brighten the display, a Liquavista screen has three options: reflective, transmissive and transflective. Indoors, the screen can act just like a traditional LCD display while outdoors, natural light can be reflected through the pixels for clarity and brightness, without a backlight consuming any power. Transmissive is the typical backlit technology LCDs have used for years, while using natural, passive light for reflective displays is a more recent development. Transflective both reflects and transmits light as needed to save power while still displaying a high-quality image.

So Liquavista has both a power-efficient solution and is outdoor-friendly. But how can an e-Ink type of display be used on mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets? The company says its electrowetting technology can refresh a screen up to 60 times per second, opening the door to the high frame rates needed for gaming, video consumption and other media activities on a handheld device. An early prototype Liquavista display was filmed by the BBC last year, and about halfway through the video, you can see a few examples of full-screen, color video playback.

Such frame-rates open the door for Samsung to incorporate Liquavista’s electrowetting technology into handsets, which could help boost battery life. Samsung currently uses its Super AMOLED technology in its Galaxy S line of smartphones, the Nexus S, and its two Windows Phone 7 devices. Super AMOLED is also a power-efficient technology, but can’t leverage the outdoor properties of Liquavista’s screens, so future Samsung handsets could look just as good outside as they do indoors, if not better.

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My (Too?) Many Monitors

First, you need some extra hardware. Obviously, you’ll need two extra monitors, in addition to the one built in to your computer, but that’s not all. You’ll also need to pick up a USB-to-video adapter. These come in many flavors. I’ve got a Sewell USB-to-DVI external video card ($79.95), but another good cheap option is the EVGA UV Plus+ ($69.99 for the UV16). Both options come with DVI-to-VGA adapters, so you can use either type of connection.

One of your monitors should be connected via your Mac’s video-out port (whether it be mini-DVI or Mini DisplayPort, depending on your machine’s age). You can get an adapter for that direct from Apple, or from third-party vendors. That’s the easy part.

Now, connect your other monitor using the USB-to-video device you decided upon. To do this, first install DisplayLink’s Mac OS X drivers. The latest version (1.6 Beta 3 as of this writing) can be found here. Without these drivers, no USB video cards will work with a Mac.

Once you’ve installed the drivers, plug in your second external monitor using the USB video adapter. Your screen should go blue, then extend to your new monitor. Use Displays under System Preferences to make any necessary adjustments.

Note that using DisplayLink to operate a third display with your Mac isn’t perfect. Because of restrictions Apple imposes on OS access for third-party software, the DisplayLink drivers don’t support 3D acceleration or OpenGL, meaning that keynote presentations won’t work properly, and video will be choppy. But if you’re using that third display to house an extra browser window, or even for photo editing, it’s more than up to the task. Plus, you can add up to four additional monitors over USB using this method (though separate adapters would be required).

DisplayLink’s been around for a while, but I remember when I was first testing a multi-monitor solution, it took me longer than it should have to unearth this solution. Hopefully now you won’t have the same problem.

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Sony’s announcement today that it’s developed a thin OLED display flexible enough to roll around a pencil (or any other 4 mm object) got me thinking about screens. The screen is quite literally our window to the web for computers, mobile phones, tablets and whatever other device we may have in our pockets, and anyone who walks outside with a Nexus One will quickly tell you that having a fast phone with neat apps doesn’t help when it’s a sunny day and your OLED touchscreen is subsequently so washed out that you can’t see anything.

Flexible screens are pretty cool, as are those you can see in the daylight. But when considering the use cases for mobile phones, laptops, e-readers or tablets, what screen functionality do we need? When it comes to e-readers in particular, some argue that screens that don’t emit a lot of light make reading more comfortable. But then again, e-Ink devices like the Kindle don’t have color, which most people consider pretty darn essential. Humans, barring an accident, disease or genetic defect, are visual creatures, and so as we take computing on the go and embed both connectivity and electronics into our tasks, the right screen is essential.

As I’ve noted previously, a greater emphasis on screen technology (and size) may change the dynamics in the semiconductor industry, in that beauty (nice screens) could soon cost twice as much as the brains (fast processors). But as Sony offers us an opportunity to add flexibility to our displays, the issue of figuring out what devices need in a display becomes that much more difficult. We may have a one-size-fits- all devices, but will we ever make a one-size-fits-all screen? Readers, is a single screen (or device) really appropriate for our needs? If so, what features should that display have?

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The Stallion cluster at the Texas Advanced Computing Center

When I read over the patent filings related to Apple’s 3-D interactive, hyper-reality displays that MacRumors is writing about today, I felt a little jolt of excitement wholly unrelated to the two cups of espresso I’d already consumed. What can I say? I’m a display nerd. And I think one of the areas most ripe for innovation is how we see the information we’re trying to consume. In other words, it’s time to start messing with our monitors.

Think about it. The web is rapidly moving to video from text and becoming increasingly personal, yet we’re still viewing it on a flat screen — sometimes two or three flat screens. The most prevalent computer of the next decade — the mobile phone– sports total screen space of some 4 inches. What if instead of merely viewing something on the screen, we could also interact with it? The basic building blocks for such an experience already exist in the form of gestural controls and touchscreens that use embedded cameras, as well as LCD screens with built-in optics to sense touch. And we have the processing power and the projectors.

So I’m hopeful that sometime in the next five years we’ll see the realization of the technology covered in Apple’s patent, which involves using a video camera to help the display react to the user’s position, or something similar. The office environment seems the most likely home for the initial innovation given the battery constraints of a cell phone (even a pico projector attached to a cell phone sucks the battery in no time). Already better visualization tools are used in the supercomputing space, but they consist mainly of several eye-popping monitors.

Frankly, I don’t want a screen; I want a projector equipped with a camera that allows me to move about my office to tackle different projects, conversations and news streams. That way I can orient myself physically in my work. Plus, a presence-awareness system could figure out what I’m working on based on my position and update my status for me.

Yeah, it’s far-fetched, but we have the cameras, the software to visually track people and ways to translate those movements into code a computer can understand. It would give our powerful CPUs something to do, while our graphics chips render the information on a wall, holographically or on a large curved display that spans a person’s visual field.

If adding a second display increases productivity between 9 percent and 30 percent, imagine what one could do if that display were both interactive and intelligent enough to figure out what you’re doing or alert you to information you need to know. If we’re gonna navigate our world in real time, we’re gonna need a better cockpit.

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January 2010 will mark the four-year anniversary of Apple’s first Intel-based Mac, the MacBook Pro. With Snow Leopard officially dropping support for PowerPC Macs and the next version of iLife and iWork likely to do the same, a perfect storm is brewing where Apple can begin to really push OS X to maximize the potential of the Intel hardware it supports. 2010 looks to be a big year in terms of hardware updates from Apple; here’s our roundup of predictions on what’s to come.

MacBook Pro

Just like where it started four years ago with the first Intel Mac, the biggest and most exciting updates will happen to the MacBook Pro. The good news? With the classic MacBook seeing updates recently that peg its specs a little too close for comfort with its older brother, the new MacBook Pro update should arrive sooner rather than later.

In terms of processors, I predict Apple will adopt the mobile variant of the Core i5 and Core i7 quad-core processors currently found in the latest iMacs. Though these mobile variants, also referred to by their codename Arrandale, only feature two cores, they also come laden with Intel’s better-than-previously-integrated-but-not-quite-as-good-as-a-standalone graphics chipset. Rumor has it that Apple isn’t a fan of this implementation (as right it shouldn’t be, desiring a dedicated professional graphics card for its high-end portable). How this will shake out is still a mystery.

For the past three years, Apple has followed a steady trend of doubling both the entry-level amount of RAM and the maximum RAM that its high end portables can support. It’s a great tactic on Apple’s part as it combats only incremental performance gains with every new processor release. 2010 should be no different, with standard models of MacBook Pros shipping with 8GB of RAM with a ceiling of 16GB.

The big news for the MacBook Pros will be the inclusion of the first Blu-ray drive. It’s been a long time coming but Apple is ready to go for it and ready to do it right. Blu-ray Superdrives will be available as an option (if not standard) on the 15” and 17” MacBook Pros.

Taking advantage of the brilliant resolution of Blu-ray, the 15” MacBook Pro will also feature a gorgeous 1920 x 1080 resolution display, packing the same number of pixels as the new 21.5-inch iMac and the current 17” MacBook Pro. Of course, this also means the 17” will get a display bump as well. 2560 x 1440 seems like a bit of a stretch, but one can always hope, right?

In regards to storage, I predict we’ll see MacBook Pros starting with 500GB hard drives on the low-end 13” model and maxing out at 1TB or 1.5TB hard drives on the high-end 17” model. Before the year is out, the high-end models might even have an option for a 2TB drive.

MacBook Air

The MacBook Air, due to it’s ultra slim and lightweight profile, will only see modest updates in 2010. Processors will be bumped to 2.26GHz and 2.53GHz (up from 1.86GHz and 2.13GHz). Hard drives on the portable will see modest size increases to 250GB SATA and 256GB solid-state drives. The next iteration of the MacBook Air will also ship with 4GB of RAM standard. Though it will be difficult for Apple to upgrade the processors, hard drives and RAM while still maintaining a profit, the price point of the MacBook Air is in a sweet spot at the moment that Apple doesn’t want to disrupt.

As a completely outlandish prediction, I predict that Apple will also release a standalone external USB Blu-ray drive for MacBook Air users and legacy users who wouldn’t mind the accessory. Price point? I’m betting $299.

MacBook

Everyone’s favorite little portable recently saw an overhaul just a few months ago. For 2010, the MacBook specs will tend towards the current MacBook Pro offerings. Standard RAM will increase to 4GB (though this may remain the max for this model) and the portable will ship with either a 320GB or 500GB hard drive as standard.

Mac mini

The Mac mini will likely see modest processor increases (2.53GHz on the entry-level and 2.6GHz on the high-end) as well as 4GB RAM and 320GB hard drives standard. Build to order options will include 1TB drives and the Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server will ship with two 1TB drives. I also predict that Blu-ray drives will be a build-to-order option as Apple is starting to recognize the importance of the Mac mini in the living room as a more robust alternative to the Apple TV.

iMac

The iMac saw a nice update in 2009 that shifted the aspect ratio of the displays from the Apple-familiar 16:10 to the more HD-familiar 16:9. As such, the entry-level iMac is capable of displaying 1080p video, if only there were a source to play it. Similar to the MacBook Pros, I also predict the iMacs will receive built-in Blu-ray drives on the high-end models, if not standard across the entire line. The iMacs will also see a shift towards the quad-core Core i5 and Core i7 chips reaching clockspeeds similar to the current Core 2 Duo iMacs (a little over 3GHz). A subsequent update later in the year could bring about even faster processors in the neighborhood of 3.2GHz to 3.5GHz. 8GB of RAM will become standard on these Macs with the ability to upgrade to 16GB if desired.

Mac Pro & Xserve

There is still life left in the Nehalem architecture as the Core i9 “Gulftown” processor will make its debut in these high-end Macs at some point next year. Manufactured on a highly efficient 32nm die, this six core processor will boost a clock speed of around 2.8GHz and outfit the Mac in both single and dual processor varieties. This essential “12-core” MacPro or Xserve will feature 8-10GB of RAM as standard and a maximum ceiling of 64GB of RAM. You don’t have to take my word for it though, just start saving pennies now.

The Elusive iTablet

And saving the best for last, we arrive at the iTablet. While many constantly peg Apple’s unreleased tablet as occupying the space between the iPod touch and the MacBook, I predict it is between the iPod touch and MacBook of 2010, not 2009. As such, I predict the iTablet to function like a Mac and run OS X. I predict the tablet to utilize an Intel Core 2 Duo processor around the 2GHz mark. Personally, I feel Apple will disappoint many if the device functions more like an iPhone (in terms of hardware specs, besting out the 3GS 600MHz processor with 256MB of RAM). While I wouldn’t expect the tablet to function as a workstation for heavy video rendering, Apple has shown a history of utilizing hardware that can pack a punch and really maximize the OS. I predict the tablet will feature between a 7” and 10” screen (personally I’m leaning towards the latter, despite rumor sites). The iTablet will also feature support for 802.11n for fast streaming of content like iTunes Extras across your local network, support for Screen Sharing for remotely administering other Macs and the ability to connect to an external display through a micro-DisplayPort connector. I also feel the iTablet will ship in two versions, differentiated by storage size (like every other Apple product ever) and feature a solid state drive like the iPhone and iPod touch. Though the iTablet may not feature a screen with high enough resolution for HD, I do believe it will support playback of HD video through an appropriate video out connector.

What’s Left?

Rumors of Intel and Apple co-developing LightPeak technology are becoming more commonplace and I predict we’ll see some announcement related to this in 2010. This high-speed optical connection might be essential to products like the iTablet that would benefit from its singular connection for power, data transfer, and HD video output. Or perhaps the technology could become employed in MacBook Pros, allowing use of one LightPeak connection to an iMac that provides power to charge the laptop, video signal carried to the iMac’s display and audio carried to the iMac’s internal speakers.

The white elephant still remaining in the room is of course Apple’s Display lineup. With a 24” LED display and a 30” display that barely beats the resolution of Apple’s new 27” iMac, I predict Apple will definitely be refreshing its display lineup. In particular, I expect the price of the 24” LED Cinema Display to drop to $699 and a new 27” LED Cinema Display, matching the same resolution as the iMac (remember, it’s 16:9, not 16:10) to arrive at $1299. I also predict Apple will introduce a new, high-end 32” LED display at $1799, the price point of the current 30” display.

All of these predictions are merely speculation, based on Apple’s history, rumor sites and published roadmaps from companies that Apple sources components from. While this article solely represents my opinion of what could be around the corner in 2010, I’d love to hear what you think or would like to see. Share a comment or two with your thoughts!

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