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Prysm Raises 100M In Equity Funding, Begins Volume Production Of Its Laser Phosphor Displays

Posted: 27 Oct 2011 04:27 AM PDT

prysm display

Behind the lasers and mirrors, Prysm is turning from a scrappy start-up to a major player. The company is announcing today an additional $100 million in equity funding, bringing their total raised financing to $135M. This latest round of funding comes Partech International and Artiman Ventures along with several global unnamed investors that wish to remain anonymous due to the innovative nature of Prysm’s technology.

The large round allows Prysm to start volume production of its displays as well as build a 150 member global support team. Amit Jain, founder and CEO of Prysm indicated in a released statement today that the funds will be used in part to train personal and support Prysm operations in 11 major worldwide markets.

Prysm, formally Spudnik, started demoing its novel large venue displays in 2010. The technology utilizes laser diodes and a surface-emissive phosphor panel in an affair much like that of a laser printer. Once directed by a mirror, the laser turns the phosphorus red, blue or green thus producing a flicker-free image that’s also void of motion blur. Prysm has built the LPD technology into panels that can be combined to produce a massive display. Best yet, it’s energy-efficient and an 80-inch screen only uses 100 watts; a 225-inch display (yep, they get that big) uses less energy than a hair dryer. Prysm states that amount is less than a third of today’s conventional displays.

Breaking into the display business is tough. Consumers and corporations alike tend to opt for traditional and proven technology rather than betting on upstarts. Despite the big claims of its groundbreaking technology, Prysm will be paddling against the display adoption current for a while. At least now they have the wind of an additional $100 to their back.


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Daily Crunch: The Walking Head

Posted: 27 Oct 2011 01:00 AM PDT

TCTV: TechCrunch Gadgets Webcast Presents A Little Nokia, A Lot Of Striiv

Posted: 26 Oct 2011 04:38 PM PDT

Your fine friends at TC Gadgets have gotten back together to discuss Nokia, Striiv, and the project Matt is building in his basement.

As we’ve often noted, we thrive on your feedback: do you want an MP3 of this show? A podcast? Longer, shorter? Fewer people? More kittens? We are at your service. We’ll be running the next show from China, so that should be a total hoot.

Canon Officially Unveils The Pixma Pro-1 Photo Printer

Posted: 26 Oct 2011 03:55 PM PDT

Pixma Pro-1

At a media even in the Big Apple, Canon today announced its latest flagship photo printer, the Pixma Pro-1. According to Canon, the Pixma Pro-1 is the world’s first A3+ printer to boast 12 separate inks.

Along with Photo and Matte black inks, there are three grey inks — dark grey, grey, and light grey — and six color inks, including Cyan, Photo Cyan, Magenta, Photo Magenta, Yellow and Red. The printer also comes with a Chroma Optimizer, which is meant to add richness to blacks and add uniformity to glossiness.

Compared to older Pixma models, the Pixma Pro-1 sports 2.5x larger ink tanks to allow for less ink cartridge replacements. The printer features front-opening panels for easy access, and a rear paper tray which takes up to 20 sheets of photo paper. The manual feed slot can handle heavier artsy papers up to 14-inches wide.

Canon has also doubled its input resolution compared to previous models, with 1200 DPI. The printer will feature Canon’s Easy-PhotoPrint Pro software, which can work as its own tool or as a Photoshop plug-in.

The Pixma Pro-1 photo printer go for $999.


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Company: Canon
Website: canon.com
Launch Date: October 27, 2011

Canon Inc. is a multinational corporation that specialises in the manufacture of imaging and optical products, including cameras, photocopiers, steppers and computer printers. Its headquarters are located in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan.

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Will The Future’s Pixels Be Micro-Mirrors?

Posted: 26 Oct 2011 02:37 PM PDT

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I unintentionally set off a nice little flame war last week when I criticized Samsung’s decision to go with a Pentile sub-pixel matrix for their new Galaxy Nexus phone, a display technology that doesn’t have an illustrious past and, while it may prove itself in this generation, still made me lose confidence in the phone. Sub-pixel layouts are something few people consider, but (as the Engineer Guy explains) all those pretty colors you see on your displays are almost always made up of a few tiny monochromatic dots. E-ink screens use one dot per pixel, but they are of course monochrome, and the Mirasol and Pixel Qi displays we’ve seen also use an RGB matrix. But research being done in Taiwan may combine the best of both worlds.

Wallen Mphepö, a researcher at National Chiao Tung University, has created a new kind of pixel that operates completely differently from existing technologies. The details are a bit scarce, as his research has not yet been published except as a summary in this article at the Economist (the image accompanying this article is just an illustration).

The way the new screens work is that each pixel, normally created by a set of sub-pixels, is instead a single mechanism: a 30-micron piece of zirconium oxide (you probably know it best as cubic zirconia) with a 1.23-micron layer of silver on top. But while you’d think the silver would act as the reflective layer, it in fact acts as the transmissive layer, allowing light to pass through and strike the ZrO2. By tilting the whole pixel mechanism using a micro-electromechanical system, the wavelengths of light allowed to pass through in and out are changed. And Mr. Mphepö claims that each single pixel can produce a full optical palette, or close to it.

This means that using this new style of pixel would instantaneously triple pixel density, or conversely, reduce the transistors and mechanisms necessary to create a given resolution by two-thirds.

The new screens have not been demonstrated; indeed, it is not clear whether Mr. Mphepö has even been able to stick more than one of these micro-mirror pixels together. And as usual, research like this take ages to arrive in consumer hands. But if it does what it claims to do, there are many companies that would buy it in a heartbeat and fast-track it to market to compete with E-ink (which dominates passive displays) and provide a full-color, low-power alternative to LCD-based tablets.

BlackBerry Bold 9790 Caught On Film Ahead Of Dubai Debut?

Posted: 26 Oct 2011 01:33 PM PDT

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RIM may be pinning their hopes on BBX, but that doesn’t mean they’re done churning out classic BlackBerrys. Case in point: the revamped Bold 9790 has been revealed in a new set of photos that doesn’t look like someone took them during an earthquake.

The 9790′s existence isn’t exactly a secret, but these images (courtesy of @moha87_) represent the most up-to-date look at what RIM is working on behind closed doors. Right off the bat, you’ll notice that the new Bold (on the left) sports a funky new “home row” of keys that already seem to have polarized the BlackBerry fanbase.

The rest of the improvements are a bit harder to discern: a 2.44-inch touch display sits up front, and a 5-megapixel camera rests on the back. It runs the BlackBerry 7 OS (naturally), and finally moves the charging port to the bottom of the device. Anecdotal evidence also reveals that it feels “lighter and slimmer” than the current Bold 9700.

Interestingly, the Twitter account belongs to a gentleman named Mohammad Al Bastaki who just happens to live in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Could it be a simple coincidence that RIM and Porsche Design are holding an event tomorrow in that very city to show off their exclusive new collaboration? Maybe — it doesn’t exactly scream Porsche, but I’m half-hoping that this design takes the stage instead of the angular nightmare we saw last time.

Tokyoflash Goes Tron With The Kisai 7

Posted: 26 Oct 2011 12:57 PM PDT

kisai_seven_white_led_wristwatch

Another day, another Tokyoflash watch. The Kisai 7 is a clever, fairly cool watch that looks like something Jeff Bridges picked out of his magisterial beard in the last Tron movie. Priced at $99 for the next 30 hours, you, too, can look like a Program just looking to get out of the CPU.

How do you read it?

To demonstrate, check out the image below of the blue watch. You can clearly see the inner ring has a dark section pointing to 9 and the outer ring is pointing straight up, so the time is 9 o’clock.

The lights above & below the circles indicate 1-4 minutes. Here they are half way across so that’s 2 minutes. We already know it’s 9 o’clock, but to be exact, it’s 9:02. Like all watches from Tokyoflash, Kisai Seven easy to read once you know how.

Originally called the 7RON, this watch was originally a concept piece but came to life after Tokyoflash lovers all began clamoring for the design. Scott Galloway pitched the design last year and after a year the company pulled the entire thing together, creating something that you can wear to the next ComicCon.

Don’t Count Kobo Out As The EReader Race Rumbles On

Posted: 26 Oct 2011 12:16 PM PDT

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Kobo is about to launch their new Vox ereader/tablet and I think it’s important to remember that the reader race isn’t just down to two contestants: this Canadian company, while comparatively small in the US, is performing quite admirably on the international stage, hitting 2.5 million users in the US and over 5 million total in the world.

The Vox is a fairly nondescript Android tablet running a slightly modified version of Android 2.3. It is compatible with most Android apps and ships with the Kobo app pre-installed. As it stands there’s little to be excited about except the price and the bright, readable screen that is purported to have excellent visibility in direct sunlight. At $199, the Kobo Vox is probably one of the most affordable “big name” Android tablets that may actually gain some traction this holiday.

Clearly the Vox is up against still competition against the $199 Kindle Fire but there is a certain breed of consumer that will enjoy the ostensible “openness” of the Kobo platform as well as the unfettered access to over a million free, public domain books out of the box.

Because it’s an Android tablet it is actually fighting against the Nook as well as any number of bargain basement tablets that could grab consumer’s attention. However, the Kobo app is one of the top downloads on both the Android and Apple app stores and they’re the de facto choice in Canada and Europe, two areas where B&N and Amazon have failed to make much of a dent.

You can think of Kobo as the Nokia of the ereader world while Amazon and B&N are Apple and Google respectively. While I won’t bet on Kobo in the long term – I think it will be a tough road to keep selling ereaders when facing the other two juggernauts – I’m happy to report that their latest product is not to be dismissed out of hand.

We’ll have a full review when this thing begins shipping on Friday but until then we had a brief hands-on and I’m happy to report that the Kobo Vox is an impressive – and inexpensive – ereader worth a second look.

Click to view slideshow.


Patience Is A Virtue: Motorola Releases The 32GB Xoom 4G LTE, Available From Verizon From $499

Posted: 26 Oct 2011 08:06 AM PDT

verizon xoom

Maybe somewhere out there, a diehard Motorola and Android fan has patiently been waiting for the LTE edition of the Xoom. He’s stuck it out, not wanting to buy the 3G Xoom and eventually having to send it back to Motorola for its LTE transplant. He’s been waiting for the complete package. Well, nearly eight months to the day after the Xoom first hit the market, Motorola finally introduced the Xoom 4G LTE and it’s available from Verizon.

It only comes in the 32GB flavor and carries a price of $669 or, with a two year Verizon contract, $499. But everything else is the same as the original. A 1GHz Tegra 2 powers the Honeycomb 3.2 operating system. But this time around, it packs the goods right out of the box to jump onto Verizon’s speedy LTE network.

This release fulfills the destiny of the Xoom. It was originally supposed to be the first Honeycomb LTE tablet but launched sans the necessary hardware. Motorola promised free upgrades but constantly pushed back the launch date simultaneously aggravating early adopters and allowing the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 to earn the title as the first LTE tab. Finally, last month, seven months after the Xoom was released, Motorola made good and started accepting Xooms for the LTE upgrade. Better later than never.


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Company: Motorola Mobility
Website: motorolamobility.com

Motorola is known around the world for innovation in communications and is focused on advancing the way the world connects. From broadband communications infrastructure, enterprise mobility and public safety solutions to mobile and wireline digital communication devices that provide compelling experiences, Motorola is leading the next wave of innovations that enable people, enterprises and governments to be more connected and more mobile. Motorola (NYSE: MOT) had sales of US $22 billion in 2009

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Video: Watch Cute Healthcare Robot RIBA II In Action

Posted: 26 Oct 2011 06:05 AM PDT

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RIBA II is the name of a cute caretaker robot from Japan, which we covered before but now have a professionally made video of. The two-armed robot was developed by Tokai Rubber Industries and RIKEN (a private research institute based out of Tokyo) and is supposed to make life easier for care facility personnel.

RIBA II is able to “gently” lift people (weighing up to 80kg) off the floor and onto a bed, freeing human caretakers of this hard task. His makers say they designed the material that patients get in touch with, especially the arms and hands, to be as soft as possible – thanks to the world’s first capacitance touch sensors made of rubber (see below).


A commercial version is scheduled to go on sale in 2015.

This video (provided by Diginfo TV, in English) shows RIBA II in action:

TechCrunch Ad Hoc Meet-Up In Hong Kong And Shenzhen

Posted: 26 Oct 2011 05:57 AM PDT

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As you probably know, Disrupt Beijing is happening next week and I’ll be heading south from Beijing after the event. I would love to hang out with folks in Shenzhen and Hong Kong. As it stands, I think we can put together a meet-up in Hong Kong on Wednesday Night (November 2nd) and another meet-up in Shenzhen on Friday night (November 4). I welcome recommendations for spots and I’d love to talk to start-ups and gadget folks in those cities.

If you’d like to RSVP, email me at john@techcrunch.com with the subject line “HONG KONG” or “SHENZHEN.” If you’d like to meet independently, please let me know – so far my calendar is wide open except for Friday during the day.

I’m looking forward to coming back to the tech capital of the world and I look forward to seeing you. I’ll send updates to Weibo and Twitter as well.



Daily Crunch: Fodder

Posted: 26 Oct 2011 01:00 AM PDT