JOLED: A mid-air display based on electrostatic rotation of levitated Janus objects
Since the advent of HDTV, the number of pixels in a display have been the source of forum flame wars. This gave rise to an interesting experimental display technology by the University of Sussex. The technology is called JOLED and it measures a tremendous 7 x 6 voxels height & width respectively.
This gets more interesting according to the university. They specify that each voxel is a tiny multi-colored sphere which is suspended in the mid-air by an array of ultrasound speakers. These create high-intensity and high-pitched sound waves which are actually inaudible but forceful enough to hold the spheres in place.
But to make these spin & exhibit different colors at varying moments is something else altogether. The key to this rotation seems to be the spheres that are coated with titanium dioxide which is also used to purify air when mixed with concrete. When these would be exposed to an electrical field it will cause them to rotate.
Researcher Deepak Sahoo said in a canned press release quote, “JOLED could be like having a floating e-ink display that can also change its shape.” But don’t worry, this won’t be replacing your 4K TV anytime soon. Yet it’s still pretty cool.
Don’t expect these to be sitting on your desk. The university suggests that it may wind up like many of the Disney research projects and use it the commercial or tourism setting. Revealing the changing patterns of carbon footprints could be an example to this.
“We also want to examine ways in which such a display could be used to deliver media on-demand,” University of Sussex’s Sriram Subramanian said. “A screen appears in front of the user to show the media & then the objects forming the display fall to the ground when the video finishes playing.”
