Toshiba to display new mobile screens

Toshiba America Electronic Components plans to show off a set of new displays for notebooks and cell phones at a monitor-centric industry trade show this week, including one that can capture images from printed materials.

The company will demonstrate several new products at the 2004 Society for Information Display International Symposium, Seminar and Exhibition in Seattle.

The 14.1-inch SXGA+ liquid crystal display (LCD), with 1,400-by-1,050-pixel resolution, weighs 330 grams, the company said. It incorporates two 0.3mm thick glass panels, compared with conventional displays, which use glass that's 0.5mm thick or greater. Samples are available now, starting at US$500 each.

Toshiba will also showcase a new 12.1-inch WXGA LCD for mobile notebook PCs with wide-format viewing areas. Wide-format notebooks that let consumers watch DVD movies or view two documents side by side have become more popular lately. The display, weighing 250 grams, offers resolution at 1,280 by 768 pixels and a contrast ratio of 600 to 1. It's available now, with samples starting at US$450.

Toshiba said it will unveil a prototype of a color 3.5-inch Quarter Video Graphics Array "system on glass" input display that can capture images directly via sensors within a thin film transistor LCD, along with a 3.46-inch QVGA organic light-emitting diode display. The displays are able to capture an actual-size image directly, using their embedded sensors. That technology could be used to capture data from a catalog, to read bar codes, to recognize and authenticate fingerprints for security purposes, or to import a private route map into a personal digital assistant from a navigation system.

Toshiba also plans to show a 12.1-inch SXGA+ LCD for Tablet PCs, which will be available as a sample in the third quarter, and a 5.6-inch widescrean VGA ultrahigh-resolution LCD for use in mini PCs. Samples of that system are available now for US$350 each.