Mannerisms

One of the great enabling technologies, which could trigger a spate of new applications for mobile products, could be on the streets by the end of the year.

Folding or rollable displays are the breakthrough which will allow the recovery of those huge investments in 3G licences and networks, the substantial investments in TV to the handset (DVB-H and DVB-T), and the investments in those high-speed download and upload technologies (HSDPA and HSUPA) which are designed for mobile video.

The reason why video-to-the-handset has so far proved resistible by consumers is clearly for one main reason: the size of the screen on a mobile handset.

It would be a pain to watch an episode of a soap on a two or three inch screen, or watch a football match where you can’t see the ball. Jack that up to five inch or six inch and you have a reasonable proposition.

People might well pay a tenner a month for a mobile TV subscription if a five or six inch screen was the viewing proposition.

Now the Philips spin-off Polymer Vision is saying it will have a mobile product out on the streets by the end of this year which will have a rollable screen. It will also have wireless connectivity. Beyond that it is saying little.

The display on the Polymer Vision product will be monochrome. Colour versions are two to three years away. But, although colour will clearly provide the big boost to video-to-the-handset, the greater significance is the fact that, after 12 years of development at Philips labs, this technology is nearly commercially available.

Polymer Vision say they are selling at the product level, rather than the component level, because they have customers asking for finished product. However, the intention is for the rollable screens to be sold at the component level eventually.

No other company, to my knowledge, is so close to making rollables a commercial reality.
Some companies, like Sharp, talk of flexible displays, but noone else is envisaging a rollup anytime soon.

This could be the start of anexplosion in new applications for mobile devices, a boost to flagging high-end handset sales and, at last, a chance for the mobile telephone network operators to recoup some of the many billions of dollars, pounds and Euros they invested in 3G.