3D TVs New Battleground for Plasma, LCD Display Makers

3D TVs New Battleground for Plasma, LCD Display Makers

Plasma display panel (PDP) technology makers are pinning high hopes on the emerging but uncertain 3D TV market to claw back market share after falling behind popular LCD flat screen backers.

LCD or liquid crystal display has led the replacement of cathode-ray tube (CRT) television, as its technological edge over PDP in producing smaller sizes helped it attract consumers trading in their bulky and boxy CRT sets. "PDP won't be able to challenge LCD as a mainstream flat panel technology as LCD also continues to evolve into better one," said Will Cho, an analyst at Daewoo Securities. "Having said that, it still does have strength over LCD, especially in 3D market. So the stronger 3D market grows, the better PDP technology will be able to recover," he said.

PDP has been a choice of technology in large sized panels over 40 inches, although LCDs are rapidly expanding into the market with free-falling prices. Prices of 42-inch LCD panel dropped around 40 percent over the past two years, which were moderated by severe glass shortages last year, according to industry data. LCDs account for around 70 percent of global TV market of around 210 million units in 2009, with CRT less than a quarter and PDP with only 7 percent, according to DisplaySearch. PDP makers are making a last-ditch effort on 3D TVs, which usually come in big size screens where PDP scores on pricing and boasts wider viewing angle and quicker response time.

Global TV makers including Samsung, LG Electronics and Panasonic Corp produce both LCD and PDP sets and if PDP takes off, then Panasonic, which is making the strongest push for plasma technology, might emerge as the biggest winner. "We believe plasma TVs are the best device to offer 3D images thanks to its high response speeds...and all this attention on 3D TVs is a strong tailwind for our plasma business," said Toshihiko Shibuya, a spokesman for Panasonic, the world's top PDP set maker. A 42 inch LCD panel costs around $340, while the same-sized PDP panel is 40 percent cheaper at around $200, according to analysts at Citigroup. PDP has also evolved into better display to overcome major weaknesses and its design has also got slimmer. Demand for 3D TVs will likely grow more than tenfold to 27.4 million units in 2013 from an estimated 2.5 million units this year, according to DisplaySearch. The research firm expects the ratio of plasma TVs to LCD models in the 3D TV market to come to one to three in 2013, indicating relatively strong standing of plasma TVs in the 3D arena. In the same year, LCD TVs are expected to outsell plasma models 15 to one in the overall flat TV market.

Researchers Design New Biomaterial That Mimics Muscle Elasticity

University of British Columbia researchers have cast artificial proteins into a new solid biomaterial that very closely mimics the elasticity of muscle.

The approach, detailed in the current issue of the journal Nature, opens new avenues to creating solid biomaterials from smaller engineered proteins, and has potential applications in material sciences and tissue engineering.

"There are obvious long-term implications for tissue engineers," says Hongbin Li, associate professor in the Dept. of Chemistry. "But at a fundamental level, we've learned that the mechanical properties we engineer into the individual proteins that make up this biomaterial can be translated into useful mechanical properties at the larger scale."

Li, Canada Research Chair in Molecular Nanoscience and Protein Engineering, and UBC colleague John Gosline, professor in the Dept. of Zoology, engineered the artificial proteins to mimic the molecular structure of titin.

Titin -- also known as connectin -- is a giant protein that plays a vital role in the passive elasticity of muscle. The engineered version-which resembles a chain of beads-is roughly 100 times smaller that titin.

The resulting rubber-like biomaterial showed high resilience at low strain and was tough at high strain -- features that make up the elastic properties of muscles.

"A hallmark of titin-like proteins is that they unfold under a stretching force to dissipate energy and prevent damage to tissues by over-stretching," says Gosline. "We've been able to replicate one of the more unique characteristics exhibited by muscle tissues, but not all of them."

The mechanical properties of these biomaterials can be fine-tuned, providing the opportunity to develop biomaterials that exhibit a wide range of useful properties -- including mimicking different types of muscles. The material is also fully hydrated and biodegradable.

UBC researchers Shanshan Lv, Daniel Dudek, Yi Cao and MM Balamurali also contributed to the study.

This research is supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Canada Research Chairs program, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada

Nikola Tesla Death Ray

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Nikola Tesla (10 July 1856 – 7 January 1943) was an inventor and a mechanical and electrical engineer. Tesla was an ethnic Serb born in the village of Smiljan, Vojna Krajina, in the territory of today’s Croatia. He was a subject of the Austrian Empire by birth and later became an American citizen. Tesla is often described as an important scientist and inventor of the modern age, a man who “shed light over the face of Earth”. He is best known for many revolutionary contributions in the field of electricity and magnetism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Tesla’s patents and theoretical work formed the basis of modern alternating current electric power (AC) systems, including the polyphase power distribution systems and the AC motor, with which he helped usher in the Second Industrial Revolution.
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After his demonstration of wireless communication (radio) in 1894 and after being the victor in the “War of Currents”, he was widely respected as one of the greatest electrical engineers who worked in America.[4] Much of his early work pioneered modern electrical engineering and many of his discoveries were of groundbreaking importance. During this period, in the United States, Tesla’s fame rivaled that of any other inventor or scientist in history or popular culture, but due to his eccentric personality and his seemingly unbelievable and sometimes bizarre claims about possible scientific and technological developments, Tesla was ultimately ostracized and regarded as a mad scientist. Never having put much focus on his finances, Tesla died impoverished at the age of 86.
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The SI unit measuring magnetic flux density or magnetic induction (commonly known as the magnetic field “B”), the tesla, was named in his honor (at the Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures, Paris, 1960), as well as the Tesla effect of wireless energy transfer to wirelessly power electronic devices which Tesla demonstrated on a low scale (lightbulbs) as early as 1893 and aspired to use for the intercontinental transmission of industrial energy levels in his unfinished Wardenclyffe Tower project.

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Aside from his work on electromagnetism and electromechanical engineering, Tesla contributed in varying degrees to the establishment of robotics, remote control, radar and computer science, and to the expansion of ballistics, nuclear physics, and theoretical physics. In 1943, the Supreme Court of the United States credited him as being the inventor of the radio. Many of his achievements have been used, with some controversy, to support various pseudosciences, UFO theories, and early New Age occultism.

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Tesla was awarded the highest order of the White Lion by Czechoslovakia.
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