Today Sharp announced the plans to mass produce their “dual image” LCD screens. Since I do not read Japanese I cannot tell you too much about what Sharp said in their press release.
NOTE: this technology is out of conceptual phase and will be available in a Sharp or Sharp OEM’d product very soon.
Basically Sharp has developed a technology to allow 2 different source of video to be displayed on a single LCD monitor. This monitors projects a different image to viewer on both: left and right sides, of the monitor.
This technology will allow for some very interesting applications. Particularly in a car, where the driver could be viewing a GPS display and the passenger could be viewing a movie. There are also applications in the kiosk and ATM display area, where privacy is important to the user of the device.
Although, the practicality of using it at home for a TV will be limited, since the TV monitor with this LCD technology will also have to incorporate the MIT technology of “focused ultrasonic”, which MIT and DaimlerChrysler are researching on for in car audio.
The only application that I can think of initially for this technology in a TV monitor at home would be to allow members of the household to watch videos while someone else surf the Internet or work on a computer.
Each time i encounter technologies like this, it reminds me how fast technologies are really leaping forward from all angles (excuse the pun).