Will the new organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screens face their most serious challenge for the crown of the 'future of flatscreen technology' from the current incumbent, the humble LCD?

At the risk of disappointing those who have been eagerly awaiting the OLED, the LCD might still hold out if the products on show at the IFA in Berlin are anything to go by.  On its IFA stand in Berlin, Philips unveiled a 32-inch, full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) LCD television that is only 8 mm thick!  You can see a video of the new screen here.



Without quite saying it was all over for the OLED, Philips was certainly pushing its new LCD.  Here’s why the manufacturer reckons it’s still onto a winner:

• LCD technology is mature.  Apart from one very small model only available in Japan, the OLED is still in the prototype stage

• The lifetime of the components in this new LCD is the same as that of regular LCD screens, or around 50, 000 hours.  OLED technology, on the other hand, still shows worryingly short lifespans and this has been confirmed by users of the small numbers of units already on sale in Asia.

• This new Philips model will sell at the same price as current 32 inch full HD screens.  No official price has been confirmed for Samsung’s 31 inch OLED screen, but rumor has it that it could well retail for several thousand euros.

As soon as we get an LCD technology which is sufficiently well-refined, with a decent contrast (we have seen plenty of models get past the 1000:1 barrier in our labs) and whose response time means that afterglow is not a worry, what more can OLED bring?  Even better contrast?  Do we even need better contrast?  And is that really worth the investment for a product that might end up being overpriced and  short-lived?

It’s a hard act for the OLED, whichever way you look at it, and the LCD has certainly not breathed its last just yet.  It’s by no means impossible that the OLED, already victim to several years of delays, has missed its moment.  It might well bring too few innovations at too high a price to justify the leap of faith to a whole new technology.

The 8 mm TV in the flesh ...

Microsoft have just released a second beta of the next version of their browser, Internet Explorer 8 .  A new set of features, dubbed "InPrivate"by the company, and designed to protect users’ private information, has already provoked concern amongst Internet advertisers.

One of these features  allows users to wipe clean all traces of their session, including the history of the pages they have visited and the cookies left.  Without cookies, advertisers will be less able to follow the browsing habits of individual surfers in order to target them with ads.

This is not the most controversial feature, however.  The ability for users to block elements coming from pages other than the one they are looking at would stop adverts such as those generated by Google (and Microsoft themselves) on other sites.

It seems that advertisers were far less worried when similar functionality was added to other browsers.  An extension to Firefox, for instance, AdBlock, has performed more or less the same role for several years without generating so much comment as Microsoft’s proposition has within a few months.

But with around 70% of the market-share, a change in the behavior of Microsoft’s browser is a different story.  If most of Internet Explorer’s users turn on the InPrivate functions, sites which rely on advertising could see their revenues plummet, not just because ads aren’t displayed any more, but because those that are might no longer be as well-targeted.

Nevertheless, search engines will still be able to include ads with their results based on a user’s search terms, and sites will be able to include scripts within their own domain instead of hosting them externally.


The final version of Internet Explorer 8 is due at the end of the year.  You can download beta 2 here, but Windows XP users should know that if they install SP3, they will not subsequently be able to uninstall Internet Explorer 8 beta to go back to IE 7, the current version.


> Description of InPrivate

It's not worth making do without memory any more : the price per GB is falling fast.  We found this 2 GB Transcend card, for example, for only 2.28 € (not including shipping).  Even at the other end of the scale, 16 GB cards are becoming much more affordable. 

So, a simple question: are all of these cards the same?  They must all work at the same speed, right?  No, actually.  There are huge differences between cards, which can end up meaning it takes ten minutes or so longer to download all of your photos.

Another question posed by our selection of SD cards is the compatibility with micro SD cards.  The PNY 4 in 1 we tested shows that using a MicroSD with an adaptor can be an attractive solution if you have lots of devices (compact digital camera, GPS, mobile phone …), but the transfer rates aren’t as good as with dedicated SD cards.

The new tests we’ve added to our ongoing survey are as follows:

• Lexar 2 GB and 4 GB
• PNY 4in1 4 GB and Optima 8 GB
• Transcend 2 GB
• Verbatim 8 GB and 16 GB

> Ongoing survey: SD cards

The GeoEye-1 should be launched on Thursday at 19:50.  An imaging satellite capable of photographing the surface of the earth, it will capture images at a resolution of 41 cm for military purposes or 50 cm for civilian users.

Without reference to any fixed point on the ground, it will be able to identify the position of an object on the surface of the Earth to within three meters, and will cover an area of 350, 000 square kilometers a day, an area the size of Germany.  Its polar orbit follows the rotation of the Earth, so it will always be 10:30 am local time in the area the satellite is photographing.

Of particular interest to us, though, is the fact that search engine Google has signed an agreement with GeoEye and will be the only provider of online maps to use the new satellite’s images.  The company’s name is also on the side of the rocket that will send the GeoEye-1 into space.  (Photo: GeoEye).

The pictures captured by GeoEye will only be as precise as the best coverage which is already available in Google Earth and on Google Maps, but they will allow ‘gaps’ where only low-resolution imagery is currently available to be filled in.  The new images will also allow more regular updates and for more consistent lighting because of the orbit fixed at 10:30 am local time.

You can follow the launch of the new satellite on the GeoEye website.