It would appear Sharp’s getting sharper as they go with the introduction of their new species of LCD panel that would allow TV viewers to view two different programs, depending on whether you whether you sat on the left of the right.
“Take a typical family where the mother likes to watch dramas and the father likes to watch baseball or soccer. Now they can watch them together on the same screen,” Mikio Katayama, head of Sharp’s LCD business, told a news conference.
The only big problem with this picture is what you hear. So I’m watching the play-by-play of the Skins and the Cowboys but for some reason I hear the play-by-play of the Slytherins and the Gryffindors match. It’s a guaranteed to mess your ears. Sharp did suggest earphones or directional speakers to rectify this problem.
Sharp has lots of things in mind for using the “parallax barrier.” They’re suggesting cell phones and PCs and car navigation systems and all kinds of other things. So now you’re bombarded by even more images. They said in car the passenger could watch a movie and the driver could read a map. That’s a good thing. I like it better when the passenger read the map and the driver drove.
There are a number of commercial uses for this new feature. In two directional situations, people coming or going could get different ads. People can pack them into ATMs and the list goes on.
Sharp is looking to make about $90 million with this deal between now and March. So we can look at things from the right and the left. What I want to know is what happens when you look at it head on.
John Stith is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
