Is that a TV in your pocket?

While going through my daily ritual of checking my favourite news sites, I came across this article in The Guardian – about a new innovation from Siemens of paper-thin television screens. I’m more excited about this than I have been about any technology in a long time.

I had to find out more and was able to find this site on Siemens-USA site. Check out the picture links in the sidebar. Siemens says that the TVs can be developed at relatively low costs compared to LCD screens but they don’t specify how much cheaper. Potentially, this can change a lot of markets expecially the advertising and marketing arenas. They talk about putting these on pillboxes – can you imagine walking down aisles in a grocery store and seeing animations on different products – very Harry Potter like…. Wait till the day when companies integrate motion detectors in the vicinity so that when you reach for a product, you’ll get competitors vying for your business…

Seriously though, if Siemens thinks that this is viable on pillboxes and similar containers, the price point of this must be pretty low or is expected to be in the forseeable future. If it is that low, then other industries will jump on board as well. The entertainment industry will be over this – CDs will have clips of the latest video, movie tickets will show trailers, and magazines will be full of animations. Man, I would love to see how this plays out in Japan – they’re already nutty with technology out there…