Essentially, it's a 42-inch display that spurts out different scents as different advertisements play, luring people to come grab a flyer to lead them to the restaurant in question. This seems strange to me. And while yeah, I'm sure a screen puffing out clouds of ramen-scented gas is going to make me hungry, can't you see the slippery slope this puts us on? I don't want to have hackers take over these things and make all of Tokyo Station smell like farts or a locker room. Scent terrorism is knocking at our door, and we have to be vigilant at not answering. Stay strong, Japan. [Far East Gizmos via Oh Gizmo!]

It's pretty far down the road for any serious speculation, but rumors of an OLED-equipped iPod which would use less power by eliminating the backlight and offer better color reproduction have been flying for a while. And the 2.5-inch size matches what's currently found on the iPod classic, as well as the Zune 80 (Zune 80 uses a 3.2 inch screen, thanks Marx). Autumn 2009 is a long way off, and these could just end up in one of many OLED-equipped phones or PMPs already out there, so don't hold your breath on this one. [Bloomberg via Electronista]

[Guardian via Music Thing via Boing Boing Gadgets]

The expanded system features "70 high-resolution Dell 30" displays, arranged in 14 columns of five displays each. Each 'tile' has a resolution of 2,560 by 1,600 pixels—bringing the combined, visible resolution to 35,640 by 8,000 pixels, or more than 286.7 million pixels in all." To power this beast, the system utilizes 18 Dell XPS 710/720 computers with Intel quad-core CPUs and dual Nvidia FX5600 GPUs. All in all we are talking about 100 processor cores and 38 GPUs cranking out 20 teraflops of peak processing power and 10 terabytes of storage (which increases due to the on and off campus OptIPuter infrastructure). Now, that is a geek orgasm.

Hiperspace is already being used for a wide array of research applications including seismic activity models, climate-change predictions, the structure of the human brain. The full details are available in the press release below.

UCSD News Release

July 9, 2008

UC San Diego Unveils World's Highest-Resolution Scientific Display System

Calit2 Also Releases New Version of CGLX Cluster Visualization Framework

As the size of complex scientific data sets grows exponentially, so does the need for scientists to explore the data visually and collaboratively in ultra-high resolution environments. To that end, the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) has unveiled the highest-resolution display system for scientific visualization in the world at the University of California, San Diego.

The Highly Interactive Parallelized Display Space (HIPerSpace) features nearly 287 million pixels of screen resolution - more than one active pixel for every U.S. citizen, based on the 2000 Census.

The HIPerSpace is more than 10 percent bigger (in terms of pixels) than the second-largest display in the world, constructed recently at the NASA Ames Research Center. That 256-million-pixel system, known as the hyperwall-2, was developed by the NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division at Ames , with support from Colfax International.

The expanded display at Calit2 is 30 percent bigger than the first HIPerSpace wall at UCSD, built in 2006. That system was moved to a larger location in Atkinson Hall, the Calit2 building at UCSD, where it was expanded by 66 million pixels to take advantage of the new space. The system was used officially for the first time on June 16 to demonstrate applications for a delegation from the National Geographic Society.

"Amazingly it took our team less than a day to tear down the original wall, relocate and expand it," said Falko Kuester, principal investigator of the HIPerSpace system. "The higher resolution display takes us more than half-way to our ultimate goal of building a half-billion-pixel tiled display system to give researchers an unprecedented ability to look broadly at large data sets while also zooming in to the tiniest details."

Kuester is the Calit2 Professor of Visualization and Virtual Reality, and associate professor in the Jacobs School of Engineering's departments of Structural Engineering as well as Computer Science and Engineering. He also leads the Graphics, Visualization and Virtual Reality Lab (GRAVITY), which is developing the HIPerSpace technology.

Calit2's expanded HIPerSpace is an ultra-scale visualization environment developed on a multi-tile paradigm. The system features 70 high-resolution Dell 30" displays, arranged in fourteen columns of five displays each. Each 'tile' has a resolution of 2,560 by 1,600 pixels - bringing the combined, visible resolution to 35,640 by 8,000 pixels, or more than 286.7 million pixels in all. "By using larger, high-resolution tiles, we also have minimized the amount of space taken up by the frames, or bezels, of each display," said Kuester. "Bezels will eventually disappear, but until then, we can reduce their distraction by keeping the highest possible ratio of screen area to each tile's bezel." Including the pixels hidden behind the bevels of each display, which give the "French door" appearance, the effective total image size is 348 million pixels.

At 31.8 feet wide and 7.5 feet tall (9.7m x 2.3m), the HIPerSpace is already being used by a wide range of research groups at UC San Diego, which want to be able to view their largest data sets while also drilling down to the smallest elements on the same screen. A team from the Center of Interdisciplinary Science for Art, Architecture and Archaeology (CISA3) went to Florence to laser-scan the main hall of the Palazzo Vecchio, and the center's researchers at Calit2 can now manipulate the computer model, depicting all 2.5 billion data points and explore the space in real time. Other scientists model the impact of seismic activity on structures, climate-change predictions, the structure of the human brain, to name a few such applications.

In order to run simulations and explore data interactively, the developers of the HIPerSpace have built into the environment a large computer and graphics processing cluster. The wall is powered by 18 Dell XPS 710/720 computers with Intel quad-core central processing units (CPUs) and dual nVIDIA FX5600 graphics processing units (GPUs). A head node and six streaming nodes complete the hardware pool for a total of 100 processor cores and 38 GPUs. Thus the HIPerSpace system offers roughly 20 teraflops of peak processing power and 10 terabytes of storage, but its access to computing and storage capacity increases dramatically because the wall is an integral part of the National Science Foundation-funded OptIPuter infrastructure on, and beyond, the UCSD campus, including the so-called "OptIPortal" tiled display systems (some with as few as four tiles) that are the primary end-point for scientists using the infrastructure.

"The HIPerSpace is the largest OptIPortal in the world," said Calit2 Director Larry Smarr, a pioneer of supercomputing applications and principal investigator on the OptIPuter project. "The wall is connected by high-performance optical networking to the remote OptIPortals worldwide, as well as all of the compute and storage resources in the OptIPuter infrastructure, creating the basis for an OptIPlanet Collaboratory."

"We have full access to the OptIPuter resources, which drastically increase the CPUs, GPUs and storage at our disposal," added Kuester. "Nodes are interconnected via a dedicated gigabit subnet and tied into the OptIPuter fabric with a 10 Gigabits-per-second [Gbps] uplink."

In addition to 10Gbps connectivity to resources at nine locations on the UCSD campus, including Calit2 and the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), the OptIPuter provides the HIPerSpace system with up to 2Gbps in dedicated fiber connectivity with its precursor HIPerWall at Calit2 on the UC Irvine campus (and its roughly 205 million pixels). As a result, scientists can gather simultaneously in front of the walls in San Diego and Irvine and explore, analyze and collaborate in unison while viewing real-time, rendered graphics of large data sets, video streams and telepresence videoconferencing across nearly half a billion pixels.

HIPerSpace is serving as a visual analytics research space with applications in Earth systems science, chemistry, astrophysics, medicine, forensics, art and archaeology, while enabling fundamental work in computer graphics, visualization, networking, data compression, streaming and human-computer interaction.

In particular, HIPerSpace is a research testbed for visualization frameworks needed for massive resolution digital wallpaper displays of the near future that will leverage bezel-free tiles and provide uninterrupted visual content.

Release of CGLX Version 1.2.1

The most notable of these frameworks is the Cross-Platform Cluster Graphics Library (CGLX), which introduces a new approach to high-performance hardware accelerated visualization on ultra-high-resolution display systems. It provides a cluster management framework, a development API as well as a selected set of cluster-ready applications. Coinciding with the launch of the expanded HIPerSpace system, Calit2 today announced the official release of CGLX version 1.2.1, available for downloading at http://vis.ucsd.edu/~cglx . "There is no reason why you need to start from scratch every time you want to program an application for a visualization cluster," said CGLX developer Kai-Uwe Doerr, project scientist in Kuester's lab. "CGLX was developed to enable everybody to write real-time graphics applications for visualization clusters. The framework takes care of networking, event handling, access to hardware-accelerated rendering, and some other things. Users can focus on writing their applications as if they were writing them for a single desktop."

With the emergence of OptIPortal technology, ultra-high resolution multi-tile display environments are no longer limited to a few select research facilities with highly specialized research teams supporting them. As a result, an intuitive yet powerful development framework is needed that supports fundamental research while enabling experts as well as novice users to utilize these systems. From a high-level view, CGLX creates a distributed, parallel graphics context and manages its state and events transparently - allowing the user to focus on content and context rather than how render nodes and displays are combined to show the final visual. CGLX enables OpenGL programs, developed for a single workstation, to be executed on a large-scale tiled visualization grid with minimal or no changes to the original code. The distributed nature of the framework supports and encourages the development of programs to generate visual analytics infrastructures, which enable researchers to collaboratively view, interrogate, correlate and manipulate data in real time with visual resolutions well beyond a single workstation. Key features of the framework include:

- Cross-platform, hardware-accelerated rendering (UNIX and Mac OSX support);

- Synchronized, multilayer OpenGL context support;

- Distributed event management; and

- Scalable multi-display support.

Applications using CGLX include a real-time viewer for gigapixel images and image collections, video playback, video streaming, and visualization of multi-dimensional models. The CGLX framework is already used by nearly all 90 megapixel-plus OptIPortals worldwide, and it is available for Linux (Fedora, RedHat, Suse), Rocks Cluster Systems (bundled in the hiperroll), and Mac OSX (leopard, tiger for ppc and Intel). CGLX is so flexible that it can even be scaled down to run on a commodity laptop. "With CGLX," explained Falko Kuester, "researchers can finally focus on solving demanding visualization and data analysis challenges on next-generation visual analytics cyberinfrastructure."

More than 800,000 frames from the Spitzer Space Telescope were stitched together to make this portrait of dust and stars radiating in the inner Milky Way. An application developed for the HIPerSpace wall allows Calit2 to display this and other large data sets locally while connecting to remote storage clusters.

Two researchers in Kuester's lab - Kevin Ponto and So Yamaoka - are developing visual analytics techniques to display gigapixel imagery at interactive (real-time) speeds on ultra-high resolution displays, notably the HIPerSpace wall. In a forthcoming publication, Ponto and Yamaoka demonstrate an application they developed on top of CGLX for use on the HIPerSpace wall. It uses OptIPuter networking to connect to remote storage clusters hosting target data sets, including the Spitzer Space Telescope Survey (for which each image of the inner Milky Way is 24,752 by 13,520 pixels), and NASA's Blue Marble visualizations of the Earth at monthly intervals (86.4 million x 43.2 million pixels).

"These ultra-scale visualization techniques load data adaptively and progressively from network attached storage, requiring only a small local memory footprint on each display node, while avoiding data replication," explained graduate-student Ponto. "All data is effectively loaded on demand in accordance with the locally available display resources." Added fellow Computer Science and Engineering Ph.D. student Yamaoka: "A render node driving a single four-megapixel display, for example, will only fetch the data needed to fill that display at any given point in time. If the viewing position is updated, the needed data is again fetched, on demand."

NASA says that this system will be key to visually analyzing massive data sets. These goes from peeking at black hole collisions to studying global weather patterns, and the design of the new vehicles needed for future manned space programs, as well as assisting in the safety of existing ones. Using hyperwall-2, NASA engineers will be able to analyze re-entries for the space shuttle.

NASA Develops World's Highest Resolution Visualization System



MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. The power to visualize highly complex information in a way that's easier for the human mind to grasp is taking a giant leap forward with the advent of NASA's new hyperwall-2 system unveiled today at Ames Research Center.

Developed by scientists and engineers in the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division at Ames, the 128-screen hyperwall-2, capable of rendering one quarter billion pixel graphics, is the world's highest resolution scientific visualization and data exploration environment. The new tool enables scientists to quickly explore datasets that otherwise would take many years to analyze.

The 23-foot-wide by 10-foot tall liquid crystal display wall is being used to view, analyze, and communicate results from NASA's high-fidelity modeling and simulation projects supporting the safety of new space exploration vehicle designs, atmospheric re-entry analysis for the space shuttle, earthquakes, climate change, global weather and black hole collisions.

"The hyperwall-2 offers a supercomputer-scale environment that is truly up to the task of visualization and exploration of the very large datasets routinely produced by NASA supercomputers and instruments," said Bryan Biegel, NAS deputy chief. "The system also will be used to get highly detailed information on how NAS supercomputers are operating, enabling staff to quickly and precisely diagnose problems or inefficiencies with the supercomputers or the software running on them."

Designed and developed by the NAS visualization team in partnership with Colfax International, Sunnyvale, Calif., the system is powered by 128 graphics processing units and 1,024 processor cores, with 74 teraflops (one teraflop equals one trillion floating point operations per second) of peak processing power and a data storage capacity of 475 terabytes (one terabyte equals one trillion bytes). The hyperwall-2 allows researchers to quickly determine trends across an array of related simulation results, or to view a single large image or animation. It would take nearly 600 video game consoles to equal the hyperwall-2's graphics processing capabilities.

"We are proud to continue partnering with NAS as it offers advanced, innovative solutions for high-performance computing," said Gautam Shah, chief executive officer, Colfax International. "As NASA Ames successfully responds to support the visualization and data analysis needs of researchers to maximize the understanding of scientific results, Colfax International is pleased to be part of the hyperwall-2 visualization cluster project," Shah added. Colfax previously built a "mini" hyperwall for NAS used for demonstrations at national conferences.

With a direct, high-speed connection from the supercomputers at NAS, including the Columbia supercomputer, hyperwall-2 will enable NASA to meet its increasing needs for advanced visualization and analysis of large, high-dimensional simulation results.

With more than 100 times the processing power of the original 49-screen hyperwall developed in 2002 by the NAS visualization team, hyperwall-2 will be integrated with the team's software tools. This includes a state-of-the-art concurrent visualization framework to provide NASA scientists and engineers with ultra-high resolution images and videos to explore results of their research and analysis.

[NASA]

Really, this is so amazingly cool that it requires a whole lotta of equally cool music.

God bless Dread Zeppelin, Robert Plant's favorite cover band*.

* Yes. It's a fact. Led Zeppelin + Reggae + Elvis = WIN.

[Trendhunter]

Despite it's name, the JW Treadmill desk can accommodate just about any exercise machines you have in the house. It also features electronically controlled monitor height adjustment and a variety of optional laminates, bumper molding and frame colors to match your decor. Unfortunately, precisely how much one of these desks will set you back is not known, but I have no doubt that it will be expensive—especially when customized. [Treadmill Desk via Born Rich]

Right now, Holografika—the manufacturer—has two displays that work with Windows and Linux systems: the HoloVizio 128WLD and HoloVizio 720RC. These screens act like windows, with objects appearing to recede or pop out of the surface. As you move, you can see the object change perspective like any natural object, with no jumps, an effect that is called continuous motion parallax, which is key to achieve true 3D displays.

According to Holografika, there's also no need for head tracking or positioning, so many people can see the objects at the same time, with no discomfort of any kind.

HoloVizio 128WLD
Aspect ratio: 16:9
Screen size: 32" (792 mm) diagonal, 672 mm x 420 mm
3D resolution: 9.8 Mpixel
2D equivalent resolution from one angle: 512 x 320 pixel
Input: 4 x DVI-I or DVI-D monitor cable (single link)
Compatibility: PC & WorkStation
Viewing angle: 50° horizontal
Color: 16 Million (24 bit RGB)

HoloVizio 720RC
Aspect ratio: 16:9
Screen size: 72" (~1800 mm) diagonal. 1600 mm x 900 mm
3D resolution: 34.5 Mpixel
2D equivalent resolution from one angle: 1080 x 600 pixel
Input: Gigabit Ethernet (CAT6) or Infiniband
Compatibility: PC & WorkStation
Viewing angle: 50° – 70° horizontal
Color: 16 Million (24 bit RGB)

The price of each unit is probably the gross domestic product of Costa Rica. [Holografika via GizMag]

HP Introduces World’s First Affordable Color-critical Display

BERLIN, June 10, 2008 – HP today introduced its new color-critical computer professional display, available for less than a quarter of the cost of competing offerings.
The HP DreamColor Display features a new liquid crystal display (LCD) that provides a range of more than 1 billion colors in a 30-bit, LED-backlit display. The display is now shipping worldwide for a U.S. list price of $3,499.(1)
The display is the result of an unprecedented technology collaboration with DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. (NYSE: DWA) and addresses an increasingly critical need for affordable and consistent color accuracy in the animation, game development, film/video post, broadcast, product design and graphic arts categories.
The HP DreamColor display is expected to disrupt the economics of color management, making it possible, for the first time, to have a color-critical LCD display on every desk to make color checks, redesigns and multiple proofs a thing of the past.
“With the new DreamColor display, HP has broken through barriers that have existed in display technology for the past decade,” said Ed Leonard, chief technology officer, DreamWorks Animation. “The new DreamColor display packs a list of significant advances into one amazingly powerful display, enabling an unprecedented level of color management and fidelity in our production process. It’s a digital filmmaker’s dream.”
Designed for professionals for whom accurate color management is essential and consumers who seek to use only the best in technology innovations, the HP DreamColor display achieves more than 64 times the colors available on mainstream LCDs. Reds, blues and greens are visibly deeper, blacks are four times darker and whites are adjustable.
The DreamColor display is designed to match the requirements of professional industry standards and includes one-button access to seven pre-sets covering all the important color space standards. The display also includes a night vision interface for darkroom working conditions.
“Until now, accurate and standout color has been out of reach for the majority of digital content creators,” said Jun Kim, vice president and general manager, Displays, Personal Systems Group, HP. “Our DreamColor display advances color accuracy for the world’s storytellers – our most demanding of customers of performance technologies.”
The new HP DreamColor display includes the HP DreamColor engine software, which manages the display to deliver reliable, accurate, easy color, every time, and the DreamColor calibration kit for precision calibration.
The HP DreamColor LP2480xz is the first display to be introduced under the HP DreamColor Technology initiative, a two-year technology collaboration between HP and DreamWorks Animation that aims to deliver accurate color that remains consistent from application to application, device to device, and medium to medium. HP introduced the first printers built on the DreamColor engine in March 2007.

Professor Vertegaal forsees drink cans with RSS feeds or movie trailers, and touch-sensitive computers that change shape when you need them for different purposes. It's a combination of three-dimensional multi-touch, flexible display technology and smart materials like e-ink. Vertegaal even compares our use of current "flat" computer technology to life in the novel Flatland, and argues that the future is going to be about 3D computing and displays.

To this end, his Human Media Laboratory at Queens University is working on projects and prototypes of these things for real. There's a Coke can with RSS feed; a completely foldable paper computer, which lets you navigate an ebook much more "naturally" by turning the pages; and a workbench that simulates a display on any object, using front-projection for now, but with the aim of having stand-alone devices when the technology catches up.

This last sort of multi-shaped, smart material computer "would be a final frontier in the design of computer interfaces that turn the natural world into software, and software into the natural world" he says, in an upcoming publication in the Communications of Association of Computing Machinery. And yes, it all seems very neat, but do we really want animated movie clips on our morning box of Cheerios? What do you think, guys? [Physorg via ]

The Revolution Desk comes in three sizes—48, 60 and 72-inches as well as a variety of colors. As far as monitor size is concerned it appears that the rotating panel is restricted to 19-inches max, which is a disappointment—but I can still see it becoming popular in both office and domestic settings. Prices range from $500 to $700. [Versa Tables via The Design Blog]

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

AUO will also release a superthin, 1.9" TFT display that is .63 mm thick, while the 8" multi-touch TFT panels that veer away from the trend of multi-touch glass panels. Can you say handheld tablet UMPCs? [InfoSyncWorld]

The only problem is that they forgot that if it's electronic, chances are that it will be hacked, no matter what. According to Samsung SDI and Bundesdruckerei, however, their ePassport will be completely manipulation-proof. The thing is even heat-resistant, so it can be laminated to avoid access to it. The display itself won't use any batteries: it will be activated by a reader that won't require any contact, which will transmit electricity using induction. Jason Bournes and plastic surgeon junkies of the world, rejoice. [OLED Info]

Plus, the solar charging properties of the compounds means that there would be no need for a traditional power source. When applied to a surface, the OLED screen could run under the power that it generates for an indefinite amount of time. It could even be applied to the back of cellphones to provide a constant charge. Again, this sort of technology seems seriously out there, but the researchers believe that they can have a working prototype up and running within two years. I'll believe it when I see it. [Tech Radar via OLED-info]

[smason]

As you can see from the image at the top of the post, the digital display shows a wide angle image while a centered frame illustrates the viewing area provided by the lens. The patent also illustrates that this wide preview mode would be accessed via a button placed near the lens mount and that it will most likely show up on DSLRs—whether that means high end models only remains to be seen. However, as with all patent applications, there is no guarantee it will ever see the light of day. [Photography Bay]

According to Toshiba, HD processing that once took an hour now only takes 10 minutes. And though the SpursEngine chip can handle graphics processing for games, no PC games are currently optimized for the chip, rendering it useless. But game development built around the processor is in the works. Tentatively, the Qosmio will also feature gesture based controls via webcam, but will lack the usual Blu-ray drive, 1080p resolution and TV tuner. But it will only run for $1700, shaving about $1300 off the price.

As for the TV, it will make use of Sony's Cell microprocessor for realtime HD upscaling, recording of multiple channels, and "displaying video as if it is being viewed through opera glasses" (whatever that means). The Qosmio notebook is planned for a 2008 release while the TV will hit stores in Fall 2009. [Electronista and Gadgetress]

The hydraulically operated jumbo TVs are expected to weigh an astonishing 66,000 pounds and deliver true 16:9 aspect ratio for direct usage of 720P HDTV signals. Other features include an LED element pitch of 15mm and a brightness range up to 10,000NITS—so the TVs are not only bigger, they should also be significantly brighter than anything else out there. How long it will take to get these screens built has not been determined, but one thing is for sure—when all is said and done they should be a big hit with an audience (and advertisers).

If only we could play games on it.

Here's some clarification from the manufacturer:

- It's Not A Projector. Some of the bloggers seem to think that this is a reflected-light solution (a "Just get a bigger projector" or "projectors will never work in bright sunlight") indicating that they didn't understand (despite the giant headline) that this is a non-projected LED screen - light-emitting diodes / LEDs are transmissive light and are easily capable, with a sufficiently large array at state-of-the-art output devices, of operating clearly in dazzlign sunlight. At night, you actually have to turn them down or they become absolutely blinding (but in that dance-party application...Hey...). Just For Fun - we first determined that Moore's Law also applied to displays when testing a small, prototypical ultra-bright screen during the XPRIZE flights of SpaceShip One out in the Mojave Desert - the SpaceShip had to be launched at dawn when the wind was calm, so that meant capturing the live camera downlink and putting it up on some kind of display. The one we were able to put together, using (what were then) the only super-bright LED modules available in a kludge on a trailer, gave us and thousands of people in attendance the opportunity to witness the first time that a privately built spacecraft left the Earth's atmosphere, live against the blazing early-morning desert sunlight. Since then we've evolved the MEGASCREENS concept that you see today.

- The Resolution Question. These screens take a bone-stock 720P signal in, the actual number of lines works out to around 660 due to the physical limitations of what you can fold up and take down an American road. With a dot-pitch of 15mm you can only pack so many lines into a semi-trailer. Going to the next smaller size (10mm is the current state-of-the-art for outdoors with an IP65 environment rating, the smaller sizes can't take heat or water) makes the thing almost look blurry at a distance (we've tried) and would generate a staggering amount of heat for little picture-gain. SO after a lot of calculating, trial-and-error plus input and advice from literally the world's leading experts on these LED products, we came to 15mm. The point is that we can feed a normal, HD-SDI (the pro HD line standard which has little in common, unfortunately, with the HDMI consumer standard) signal into the system, the video processor works out the scaling-down to 660 lines, with almost no downgrading that is visible to the naked eye, and we have a beautiful picture.

- The Other Resolution Question. It's funny that someone mentioned "1080p" - first of all, there is no true network standard for 1080p, we went around the entire broadcasters' convention last week (NAB) and found that only digital cinema people care about it - even Yoda (aka Gary Demos, the American father of HD...there is a Japanese counterpart to him...) believes that for "your (meaning, My) kind of content, 720p is the right format" which is good enough for me. Oddly, before reading that blogger's comment, the only person who had pushed me on the 1080p issue was Mark Cuban. Anyway, from a physical standpoint, taking 15mm pitch LEDs and building a 1080-sized screen would not fold up sufficiently to roll down a road in America. But if and when that becomes practical, we'll be there, Dude. For the next 3-5 years, though, and pending a big evolution of that technology, we'll be very happy to blow our minds with 720p at ridiculous brightness levels, playing Halo from 1,000 feet away.

Press Release:

BIG MOVING PICTURES & STRONGBASE USA SIGN PARTNERING AGREEMENT TO PRODUCE THE WORLD'S LARGEST MOBILE HDTV SCREENS

April 30, 2008

LAS VEGAS, NV (APRIL 30, 2008) - Big Moving Pictures Inc. (BMP), the creator of the 'rolling television network' concept, and Strongbase USA today announced the signing of a unique agreement to create the largest mobile LED screen displays ever produced to make BMP the undisputed leader in on-site audience engagement systems.

Raising the bar for "state of the art" at just under 40 feet wide by 22 feet high (more than 40 percent larger than current screens) MEGASCREENS will be the first LED displays to ever provide full HDTV resolution in daytime outdoor environments.

Big Moving Pictures will transport MEGASCREENS to the largest events in the United States and Canada where they will augment and enhance the audience experience at air shows featuring the US Navy Blue Angels, US Air Force Thunderbirds and open-wheel auto races such as the NHRA and Indy.

"We are building a 'rolling television network'," said BMP President & CEO David Knight, "with everything that a television network normally has - cameras, graphics, performers, and supported by national advertisers - but using giant screens to reach large audiences instead of their home TV sets."
Utilizing the worlds' largest mobile televisions, Big Moving Pictures will be able to capture and command the attention of millions of viewers nationwide at many of the most popular annual outdoor events.

State-Of-The-Illumination-Art

MEGASCREENS will be built using the brightest Light-Emitting-Diode (LED) technology available. Essentially an evolution of the video display systems currently used in stadiums or rock concerts, MEGASCREENS are the biggest and most powerful LED-based display solution yet devised.

"There is simply nothing out there in the world of big screens even close to these - MEGASCREENS will be forty percent bigger and about 200 percent brighter than any current mobile outdoor screen," stated Knight, "plus they can withstand the rigors of the aviation and motorsports environments, including the ability to be situated next to runways, on oceanfront piers and even barges in the water, taking punishment from high winds and saltwater bombardment."

Knight explained "This is an extreme engineering challenge, which is why we elected to partner with the most successful maker of LED-based video systems in the world, Strongbase through their American arm, Strongbase USA."

Going To The Source

Big Moving Pictures spent nearly eighteen months doing prototyping and test performances using a wide variety of vendors' outdoor LED display units and found that none of the well-entrenched products could meet BMP's specific technological, environmental and scalability needs. At the end of this search, BMP elected to work directly with the company that has been providing LEDs and related componentry to most of the display industry: Hong Kong Strongbase Investment Group through Strongbase USA, which handles North American sales, service and marketing for its parent.

Through its tight engineering partnership with Strongbase BMP has been able to move its development plans forward more quickly to the mutual benefit of both companies. "Our work with and for BMP is taking us into new territory, with the production of the most powerful mobile screens in the world," said San Wang, Managing Director of Strongbase USA. "The challenges posed by this development and manufacturing effort are placing us at the forefront of the LED display systems world, leading to new and advanced products which all of our customers can take advantage of," Wang continued.

Why The Rolling Television Network & MEGASCREENS, Now

Advertisers have learned that they cannot rely entirely on in-home media to reach and motivate consumers. Recognizing a unique opportunity Big Moving Pictures developed its "Rolling Television Network" which offers advertisers the opportunity to connect effectively with consumers at many extraordinarily well-attended outdoor events.

Through its unique alliances with many of the most important air shows that feature the US Navy Blue Angels and US Air Force Thunderbirds jet teams Big Moving Pictures will give millions of attendees unprecedented views inside cockpits and from the pilot's point of view as well as insights into who the pilots are through 90-second "Meet The Team" exclusives.

BMP's programming is supported by commercials for major brands that run during intervals in the action. The company will announce additional partnerships in the motorsports and music categories within the coming year.

Why Strongbase USA

It was the need for big, bright, super-clear images in outdoor venues combined with transportability for city-to-city movement that drove BMP to seek a partner in the MEGASCREEN development effort: Strongbase USA was the undisputed winner. "We are extremely confident in our ability to support this development partnership like no other manufacturer," stated Greg Hawkins, Director of Sales & Marketing for Strongbase USA. "Big Moving Pictures is a detail-oriented, business-focused group who treat this effort as core to their business. We are thrilled to partner with them on the MEGASCREEN project."

MEGASCREEN Truck Open

High Definition, High Visibility Outdoors

The Big Moving Pictures/Strongbase developed MEGASCREENS are the first mobile screens to provide a true HD display for crisp, ultra-bright viewing by hundreds of thousands of audience members at an outdoor event. Using the 720P standard for high definition supported by many broadcast networks such as ABC, Fox, and ESPN where the progressive-scan format offers better imaging for sports and with a projected 5-7 year life MEGASCREENS will be available to serve the needs of Big Moving Pictures and other users in the action sports, movie, music, product launch, and videogaming industries for a long time to come.

About Big Moving Pictures

Big Moving Pictures is the first company to monetize advertising on outdoor television screens at large events on a national scale. Although superficially similar to the systems of production trucks and outdoor LED screens seen for years at baseball games, NFL, NASCAR and others, BMP applies a new, Silicon Valley-style angle that makes it possible for advertisers to conclusively reach their target consumers, and introduces the ad-based revenue model to large spectator events — this works thanks to BMP's total integration with the event itself — there is no competing 'signal' coming over the sound system or screens that could confuse or distract the audience — in every sense of the word, Big Moving Pictures becomes one with the show.

About Strongbase USA

Strongbase USA is a full color display manufacturer and content provider, specializing in custom design applications using light emitting diode (LED) technology, including but not limited to: indoor and outdoor display solutions, engineering design services, portable video walls, mobile video display solutions, stadium and arena scoreboards, and custom content software development. Strongbase USA is the North American Division of Hong Kong Strongbase Investment Group, the largest full color display manufacturer in China with over 3,000 display installations worldwide, is currently listed on the London, Hong Kong and Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

About MEGASCREENS

Weighing 66,000 pounds and hydraulically operated, the MEGASCREENS are trailer-mounted for maximum portability and rapid deployment into a given situation. Typical time from arriving onsite to displaying video will be under one hour, done by a single technician or truck driver. Image area sizing will be 39.4'W x 22'H in a true 16:9 aspect ratio for direct usage of 720P HDTV signals. LED element pitch is 15mm, brightness range up to 10,000NITS. HD video transmission to the screens will be accomplished by laser-based, digital microwave or fiber optic cabling systems.