TDK's transparent OLED display
TDK has been showing off its new OLED film at the CEATEC conference in Chiba, Japan. This flexible film surface can even show images while bending, giving it an immediate advantage over glass displays. TDK hopes to begin production of the film displays within one year, so it might not be such a long time before we see them popping up in our mobile devices.
Besides mobile phones displays, TDK sees this film material as a good fit for wearable electronics. Indeed, one of their mannequins at the TDK booth was sporting a wrap-around wristband display on its arm. This is reminiscent of some bendable prototypes displayed by Sony at last year's CEATEC... which, incidentally, have yet to see the light of day.
TDK's transparent display can only be viewed on one side, which means that if it were used in a mobile phone, you could see your screen but it would be kept private from people on the other side.
While I didn't hear TDK allude to this possibility, I can't help but wonder if this type of thin, flexible display could be used in augmented reality glasses. An eye-piece that was exhibited by the company (see photo above) indicates that it's likely thinking along these lines, too. If so, then TDK might consider teaming up with one of the other CEATEC standouts – Docomo's AR Walker – to replicate the AR glasses featured in the famous Japanese anime Dennou Coil.
Take a look at the video below for more on TDK's OLED film display.
