Eyes on the Screen

Telematics demands better screens -- which opens the door on a huge new market for electronic ink or organic displays.

The need for display screens with sharper resolution and better readability has also sparked interest in some companies that have little or no experience in the auto business -- like E Ink Corp. of Massachusetts. E Ink is best known as the developer of an electronic ink that it hopes one day will be used on paper-thin electronic displays with wireless attachments to the Internet, called electronic paper. But Dan Button, senior director of business development for E Ink, says the company has its eye on the auto market as well. Its recent deal with Toppan Printing of Japan to form a strategic partnership and develop color displays should help. Toppan is the world leader in color filter arrays, and it has already developed an integrated-circuit (IC) card for use in the nation's electronic toll collection system.

Masahiro Itoh, director of Eastman Kodak's organic light-emitting diode (OLED) operations in Japan, also says his company would someday be interested in finding car applications for its OLED displays, which have been released in prototype form in 1999 and 2000 and should be on the market by the first half of 2002 in digital cameras or cellphones. To make the displays adaptable to cars, Kodak "would have to do work on the levels of heat resistance," Itoh says.

Heat resistance is a key for display screens since car interiors can soar in temperature and displays embedded in the dash have to resist heat from the engine. Toppan's IC card was tested at temperatures of up to 90 degrees C, the company said.

In research centers and laboratories across the country, researchers are experimenting with different screens, sounds, and even smells to inform, alert, or wake up drivers. They're also trying out different buzzers and bells on test drivers. The aim is to inform and not distract the driver, but the task is daunting, to say the least. Timid drivers could practically develop nervous tics if all this new technology beeped and buzzed every time they veered slightly out of the lane or turned their head from the view of a high-tech camera to talk to someone in the back seat or get something out of a bag. But display technology is rapidly moving forward, ready or not.

Button is bullish on E Ink's chances in the car market because of the readability of its electronic ink, which consists of millions of tiny black and white microcapsules that are brought to the screen through negative or positive charges. The electronic ink is readable in intense sunlight as well as dim light, and Button says that's important for car displays.

"The biggest problem with displays in cars is you can't see the darn things," Button says. "When you move from the bright light outside to the dim light inside the car, you will ultimately see them, but you aren't gonna see them right away."

Display makers are brimming over with new technologies these days: OLED, electronic ink, an electroluminescent display unveiled by Sony earlier this year, and new versions of more conventional forms such as liquid-crystal displays, for example. Many companies developing new display technology say they will go after personal digital assistants, cellphones, digital cameras, and other products requiring small screens first, then move on to laptops, electronic paper, TVs, and cars in several years. With the first wave of these new screens scheduled for release later this year or early next year, the race for the car display market is approaching the starting line.