Company Develops Lighting Sheets Consisting Of Tiny LEDs.

Technology Review (10/28, Bullis) reported, "Nth Degree Technologies hopes to replace light bulbs with what look like glowing sheets of paper." The company "makes its light sheets by first carving up a wafer of gallium nitride to produce millions of tiny LEDs-one four-inch wafer yields about eight million of them. The LEDs are then mixed with resin and binders, and a standard screen printer is used to deposit the resulting "ink" over a large surface." The article reported that "on addition to the LED ink, there's a layer of silver ink for the back electrical contact, a layer of phosphors to change the color of light emitted by the LEDs (from blue to various shades of white), and an insulating layer to prevent short circuits between the front and back. The front electrical contact, which needs to be transparent to let the light out, is made using an ink that contains invisibly small metal wires."  

Device Turns Any Surface Into An Interactive Touchscreen.

Technology Review (10/19, Graham-Rowe) reports, "A new prototype can transform a notebook into a notebook computer, a wall into an interactive display, and the palm of your hand into a smart phone display. In fact, researchers at Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University say their new shoulder-mounted device, called OmniTouch, can turn any nearby surface into an ad hoc interactive touch screen."

        Popular Science (10/19, Boyle) reports, "A Kinect-style infrared depth-sensing camera builds a dynamic 3-D map of your environment, using reflected infrared light to calculate surfaces even as you move around. The laser pico-projector adjusts accordingly, compensating for the surface's shape and size to prevent distortion." The device "is able to distinguish finger-shaped cylindrical objects, and can sense whether fingers are 'clicking' or hovering over something."
        The New Scientist (10/18, Aron) "One Per Cent" blog also covered the story.