# Samsung Unveils Pencil-Thin TV



## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

http://www.e-gear.com/article/samsu...etbook-apps-store/1?sponsor=newsletter/weekly


> You could hear the collective "ooohhh" from the audience at Samsung's 2010 CES press conference when Tim Baxter unveiled what the company is calling the world's thinnest LED TV.
> 
> The response was justified. The 9000 flagship series (pricing and availability, of course, was not announced) was enclosed in a brushed-metal bezel and is about the width of a pencil. If the set wasn't bolted to a swing-arm mount, it looked like a stiff wind could carry it over the audience.


More....


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## BattleZone (Nov 13, 2007)

OLEDs will potentially be 1mm thick, and in the right application could literally be rolled out and glued onto a wall like wallpaper. Of course, OLED technology is still relatively new and very expensive, but just like LCD and Plasma, the costs will come crashing down as the technology becomes more and more common.

All of the handwringing about LCD refresh rates and such will be like talking about old dial-tuning TVs with fine-tuning knobs; old and quaint.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

There's also some cool paper-thin speaker technology coming out of China as well (I forget where I read about it.

Theoretically you could wallpaper walls with that for your surround sound... then wallpaper one wall with OLED... and that'd be pretty slick one day!


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## BattleZone (Nov 13, 2007)

Though I think it's going to take about 20 years before it's financially practical, I'd bet that people will have OLED film applied to their entire walls, and use a GUI (very possibly a touch-type interface similar to Minority Report or NCIS: Los Angeles) to create video windows, picture frames with rotating pictures, and literal "wallpaper" or other scenes when not actually watching TV. And, if you want, your whole wall can be the TV screen.

I also expect the "web cam" to finally, fully transform into "video phone" type technology, as we've seen in movies for decades.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

You know... you really could have "actual" virtual windows too..

By which I mean... mini wireless cameras could be installed on the outside of your home... and then your virtual window on the OLED wallpaper could actually display what you would see if you had a window on the wall.

'course that won't be a substitute for letting the sunshine in or opening a window for fresh air... but that would require a whole different kind of technology to implement (knock holes in the wall  )


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## BattleZone (Nov 13, 2007)

Right. All of those things are possible, and even more things we probably haven't figured out yet.

But, yes, all of those SciFi movies that show entire video walls is likely to be an affordable, mainstream capability within 20 years (and that could be an underestimation). All of those things are very possible TODAY, it's just that the cost is prohibitive. When you look at the rate that video sensors are growing and display prices are decreasing (and increasing in size), the end game is pretty clear.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

I really am looking forward to OLED in particular. IF/when that stuff goes mainstream and gets mass-produced to get the cost down to affordability for the average joe... It should almost instantly improve the look/feel/enjoyability of more things than we can even imagine.


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