Sharp Shows Dual-View LCD

BERLIN -- Sharp has begun mass production of a new LCD that can simultaneously display different information depending on which direction the screen is being viewed from, the company said this week during a news conference at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin. The Japanese manufacturer also named its first customer: General Motors.

Adam Opel, the German arm of the U.S. car manufacturer, plans to test the dual-view display in its Vectra Caravan model, according to Michael Kurpies, director of marketing at Sharp's German subsidiary.

The plan at Opel is to use the left side of the screen as a navigation system for the driver and the right side as an in-car entertainment center to show DVD movies.

Building a Barrier

The new LCD, which is on display at Sharp's booth, uses a number of proprietary technologies. One of them is a means to superimpose a so-called "parallax barrier" on an ordinary TFT (thin-film transistor) LCD. This and the other technologies enable the dual-view system to send light from the backlight into right and left directions, making it possible to show different visual content on the same screen depending on the angle.

Sharp sees the new dual-view LCD finding applications in other areas, such as PCs.

At the IFA show, the Japanese manufacturer also unveiled a 4GB hard drive-based MP3 player. The product, with the less-than enlightening name HR-MB35, supports MPC, WMA, and WAV files and promises 18 hours of playback from one charge.

The IFA (Internationale Funkausstellung) will run in Berlin through September 7.