[HN Gopher] A flexible and durable "electronic" fabric that can ...
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A flexible and durable "electronic" fabric that can be used as a
display
Author : sjreese
Score : 71 points
Date : 2021-03-13 13:16 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.shine.cn)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.shine.cn)
| pengaru wrote:
| Isn't this basically thread-sized "EL Wire" [0] woven into a
| fabric?
|
| The hard part presumably is turning it into an addressable
| matrix, not simply weaving it into a fabric.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroluminescent_wire
| Taniwha wrote:
| el-wire has two electrodes, one in the core and one usually
| spiraling around the outside, I think in this case the
| spiraling one is shared with one electrode and the EL glowy
| stuff as weft and the other electrode as warp - when you light
| them both up a bit of EL stuff glows
|
| Now usually it take a 100v AC signal to drive EL-wire and it
| will give you a nasty shock if you're not careful I'd be a bit
| leary about using this fabric (plus because it's multiplexed
| I'd guess they're probably driving it with more than 100v to
| get any brightness)
| roughly wrote:
| Just to cut this off at the head: The second video on the page
| shows the fabric being used as a display with animations. See it
| here:
| https://obj.shine.cn/files/2021/03/11/d1a7a108-37b8-422b-966...
| dgellow wrote:
| Playing Doom on your sleeve. That's next level stuff.
| teucris wrote:
| The paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03295-8
| f6v wrote:
| Remember how one if the main characters of the "Three body
| problem" woke up from hibernation in the future, and every
| surface was a display? That's cool tech and all, but do we need
| more displays?
| Severian wrote:
| The real game changer will be self-assembling displays sprayed
| on a surface. Imagine a spray can where you could put a display
| anywhere with wireless connectivity.
| etxm wrote:
| For sure.
|
| I need my business casual button up to turn into a Hawaiian
| shirt at happy hour and a Mr Cleaver-esque pajama top when I
| get home.
|
| Wearables 2.0
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Depends on how they're used. I can think of 20 ideas right now
| for where I'd find ubiquitous displays useful - from walls
| changing colors (in lieu of repainting) or even displaying
| images (with head tracking it becomes a single-player
| holodeck), through infinite whiteboards, being able to read or
| work on digital stuff in arbitrary locations, to subtle status
| displays on blended items...
|
| Hell, I'd love to have the wall above the wardrobe display a
| few lines of text from a book, so I can read it while cleaning
| the living room, with my little kid not being able to see it
| (due to differences of eye level) and thus not becoming
| distracted from independent play (or helping in cleaning) by an
| active computer screen.
|
| And that's just personal use; there's even more potential
| application in shared spaces, in industrial use, in healthcare,
| ...
|
| But if these screens are to be controlled by corporations,
| sneak ads everywhere and otherwise not interoperate with each
| other, and with every device there is? Then I don't want that
| to exist.
| kurthr wrote:
| This is interesting, but durability and cost will be a huge
| factor in investment or adoltion. Reading about the illumination
| control electronics also sounds like describing it as a "display"
| in the common usage is not accurate. Without a lot of new
| electronics it's just an illuminated pattern controlled by the
| loom.
|
| That's still potentially valuable, but you won't see arbitrary
| moving images any time soon. It might be possible to use many of
| the passive matrix methods to allow changes at low resolutions,
| like segmented displays.
| ABS wrote:
| again, what about the second video on that page showing
| animations?
| Firerouge wrote:
| It definitely still looks like a segmented display, with
| large pixel units each comprised of a few strands.
|
| It's likely using weaved vertical and horizontal fibers, with
| it scanning through each horizontal fiber, triggering the
| vertical lines in tandem to illuminate a pixel at crossing
| points in the row.
|
| A sort of scanning matrix display
| roughly wrote:
| > durability and cost will be a huge factor in investment or
| adoltion
|
| Depends - fashion products often have high cost and low
| durability.
| h2odragon wrote:
| archive link: https://archive.ph/jvbSH
| neolog wrote:
| I would like an e-ink version of this.
| Animats wrote:
| Ah, more flexible electroluminescent wire. Nice. Coming soon to a
| Burning Man camp near you.
|
| Not a display technology until someone figures out how to turn
| small sections, not just entire strands, on and off.
| ABS wrote:
| isn't that exactly what the second video on that page shows?
| Animats wrote:
| Oh, OK, I only saw the first video. It looks like those big
| squares are the pixels. Now the problem is making the drive
| electronics flexible.
| roughly wrote:
| The last video seems to show the fabric operating as a display:
| https://obj.shine.cn/files/2021/03/11/d1a7a108-37b8-422b-966...
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(page generated 2021-03-14 23:00 UTC)