Microsoft and Sharp make Longhorn compliant LCD

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SOFTWARE FIRM Microsoft has instructed Sharp to produce an ultra high resolution LCD to be used for the next operating system it will introduce, Longhorn. According to today's Nihon Keizai Shimbun, the spec called for a screen capable of displaying one billion hues, far beyond the 16.7 million hues LCD screens can currently handle.

Designers at Microsoft supplied the spec for engineers at Sharp to implement. The LCD is of such high resolution that it is likely also to be used for medical imaging applications and the like. That res is higher than ordinary televisions so it's expected Sharp will also use the technology in its own range of goggle boxes. While Longhorn doesn't officially debut until 2005, the LCD will be ready next year, just in time for other breakthrough technologies like PCI Express.

News source: The Inq

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(3 replies) #1 kioria on 21 May 2003 - 14:14

the questions is... how much!!!

#1.1 macrosslover on 21 May 2003 - 14:27

[neoquote=#1.0 by kioria]the questions is... how much!!![/neoquote] how many children do you have???

#1.2 djze on 21 May 2003 - 14:46

More than you can afford

This is for the ultra rich only i'm afraid

#1.3 badall on 21 May 2003 - 15:22

but it would be so nice to have this peice of hardware

(1 reply) #2 DjmUK on 21 May 2003 - 15:26

Bluddey hell that's a massive increase in resolution. Price is gonna' be extremely high, problably around the Plasma Screen pricings, which are about £4,000 (ish). BUT, if Sharp & M$ wanna' sell it for home users then it's gonna' be cheaper and a tidy size screen like the prototype Athens, around the region of 19" - 22". It all depends on it's price, if it's decent then I might go for it.

#2.1 SanGreal on 21 May 2003 - 19:53

Well Microsoft expects the tech to be "Mainstream" by Longhorn's launch in 2005, so I doubt it will be too expensive..

(4 replies) #3 noll3095 on 21 May 2003 - 15:38

One billion hues? Can the human eye even see that many colors? I didn't even think we could see all 16.7 million. Does anybody know what the resolution actually is?

#3.1 jkuy9 on 21 May 2003 - 16:42

I think it is like 12 million or so, however the eye can tell the difference between the colour depths but you cant tell how it is different (kind of like you cant tell what the difference between 192 and 256kbps MP3s)

#3.2 SanGreal on 21 May 2003 - 19:54

(true) 32bit is over 4 billion colors

#3.3 gameguy on 22 May 2003 - 06:28

[neoquote=#3.1 by jkuy9](kind of like you cant tell what the difference between 192 and 256kbps MP3s)[/neoquote] i can tell a difference

#3.4 JaggedFlame on 22 May 2003 - 12:33

Yes, but can you tell how it is different? That's what he was talking about.

#4 longwilli on 21 May 2003 - 15:59

wellas sharp with intally have a monopoly on the technology and the fact it is so high res you can easily expect larger screens to hold price tags of around from estimates i have heard of anywere between 4-8 thousand pounds :disappoin

(2 replies) #5 jkuy9 on 21 May 2003 - 16:38

my laptop does 1920x1200 (wide aspect) at 32bit and it is more than enough for home users. I think Microsoft might be going a little over the top with this, however they are normally pretty good with hardware.

#5.1 btallack on 21 May 2003 - 21:53

What laptop do you own? 17" powerbook?

#5.2 macrosslover on 21 May 2003 - 22:51

[neoquote=#5.1 by btallack]What laptop do you own? 17" powerbook?[/neoquote] no, the powerbook doesn't get that high a resolution. i'm not 100% sure about this, mostly 90%, i think the highest resolution is 1480*something alot of pc notebooks reach 1920, just look at dell and sony notebooks.

(2 replies) #6 DjmUK on 21 May 2003 - 17:23

And another thing, as we know Longhorn is extremely graphics intensive - I'm guessing this new monitor will do all the hard work. Longhorn will still run on our current CRT's / LCD's, but this new monitor will just make everything run a lot smoother. So in the end it's a choice, if this monitor is good and worth it - then who knows.

#6.1 MZatko55 on 21 May 2003 - 23:05

You may want to rethink that. Unless you are suggesting that the display is gonna be microsoft ripoff of imac and be all in one. Otherwise its still just a dumb screen with more precise electron guns and smaller pixel sizes.

#6.2 MZatko55 on 21 May 2003 - 23:23

blah blah blah

Last edited by 23592 on 21 May 2003 - 23:39

#7 Joshie on 21 May 2003 - 20:26

I'm not making any conclusions about this yet. MS is obviously very enthusiastic about whatever technologies they have up their sleeves at the moment, and to be honest I'm interested in seeing what they've got. Haters can go to hell for all I care; I like seeing new gadgets.

#8 darkmatter on 21 May 2003 - 21:28

hope it doesnt cost a large amount of money, cause the OS itself is a lot, and then go and have to buy a new PC, new moniter......I just stick with XP....

#9 Jason on 21 May 2003 - 22:22

"The LCD is of such high resolution that it is likely also to be used for medical imaging applications and the like"

(5 replies) #10 DjmUK on 21 May 2003 - 22:39

But who knows, Longhorn will be pre-installed on new machines during 2005 and these new machines may have this new monitor as part of the package. Or at least get a discount or special offer: For example, [b] OS: Longhorn Home (Pro upgrade £x

CPU: 6.14+ GHz [64-bit] [i](according to Moore's law)[/i] RAM: 1.5 - 2GB DDR HDD: 250Gb etc. etc.[/b] [b]SPECIAL OFFER:[/b] Save £xxx when buying this new monitor. Ah, we'll just have to wait and see.

#10.1 GiB WaKeR on 22 May 2003 - 01:11

Hmm... I wonder if the average home-user will really need 2gigs of RAM in just two years... (I mean heck, I have 1gig now but feel thats definetly over-kill) Well, after all the resources Longhorn will gobble I guess it might be feasible.

#10.2 rx-- on 22 May 2003 - 01:40

Only 250GB HD? By 2005 we will be up to 500GB-1TB at least.

#10.3 JaggedFlame on 22 May 2003 - 04:15

Moore's Law says the number of transistors per CPU doubles every so many years, not the actual CPU speed.

#10.4 DjmUK on 22 May 2003 - 13:41

[b]rx--[/b] yeah I know we'll have tha capacity of those hard drives, but an estimated average home user won't be needing all that space which is why even today the top spec computers over here around around 80-120GB. Upgrades are available, but I was talking on average...but yeah, 1Tb sounds about right

[b]JaggedFlame[/b] ah, didn't realise it was the amount of transistors rather than clock speed, I'll have to remember that. But around a 6GHz clock speed seems about right by then. But who knows

#10.5 Eldoen on 22 May 2003 - 13:53

I agree with the transistor statement that Jagged said. But according to Intels timeline we will be at around 10 to 12 Gigs on 32 bit processors in late 2k5. 64 bit processors have more timing issues to accomedate. so a 6 to 7 gig range on 64 bit processors may be correct. According to moores law btw, we will have a 1 billion transistor Processor in 2k7. Starting next year don't be supprised to start seeing more Dual processors in silicon. by 2k7, I imagine that mid range systems will even have dual cores. Not Hyperthreading but acutal dual cores. 1 billion transistors will accomedate 2 64 bit processors on the same core. and 4 32 bit processors easily. El

(1 reply) #11 mrk on 22 May 2003 - 02:04

pfft, what if you can't see eh? eh? Nice tech though, I'll be sure to get me one

#11.1 JadeWolf324 on 22 May 2003 - 03:28

if you cant see..why are u using such a high powerd monitor? lol

(5 replies) #12 Joshie on 22 May 2003 - 07:08

As an after-thought, I have to ask why Microsoft would want to put so much work into LCD technology. Are they telling us that we'll still be tinkering with LCD two years from now? That nothing better will have been introduced to the market? Clearly affordability of superior technologies doesn't matter, since this will likely cost a bit itself. There's a reason why I still haven't bought an LCD display. I hate them. I don't like how they look, and I think the technology is crummy. They're like the CD-ROM of display tech. They treat viewable angle ranges as if they were a [i]feature[/i]. About the only cool thing is the thinness, and I'd much rather see MS investing in something that [b]won't[/b] be a ripoff even after going mainstream.

#12.1 JaggedFlame on 22 May 2003 - 12:36

They're going the right way in terms of display. LCDs are much, much more common and cheap now than they used to be. And they'll continue doing so as long as new people keep buying them. My LCD is so much clearer than my CRT. I don't have any ghosting problems doing gaming, I have a wide enough viewing angle for it not to be perceptible, and the text is so much more readable. The only problem I have is the lack of certain resolutions and refresh rates, but that's probably been fixed in the five years since I bought this LCD.

#12.2 rx-- on 22 May 2003 - 12:47

OLED should someday replace LCD.. Benefits OLED has over LCD include: -Generates its own light (glows), no external light needed -Viewable from all angles -Uses 90% less power -Super fast refreshrate

#12.3 djze on 22 May 2003 - 14:19

OLED technology looks much more promising than LCD to me

#12.4 JaggedFlame on 22 May 2003 - 14:52

Hmm, never heard of it.

#12.5 Joshie on 23 May 2003 - 17:17

OLED isn't going anywhere. I read about it in Wired years ago, was absolutely taken with it, read all sorts about it, and... Still nothing. It's one of those miracle products that everybody would love to have, and even if it's perfectly possible and cheap to manufacture, display companies would probably rather go to plasma next. Or something. I gave up on OLED forever ago.

#13 DjmUK on 22 May 2003 - 16:46

[i]RE: 12.4[/i] [b]FOLED = Flexible Organic Light Emitting Diodes[/b] OLEDs are based on organic materials, some of them polymers, that emit light when a voltage passes through them. It doesn't use a glass display, but a flexible display. [url=http://www.howstuffworks.com/news-item61.htm]Source[/url]

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