If you’ve looked at buying a television the past several years, chances are you’re well aware of the terms: Plasma, DLP, LCD, and more recently, OLED. Well, there’s a new acronym in town: LPD.
Developed by the Silicon Valley-based Prysm, LPD is being formally unveiled today as the latest type of screen technology. LPD stands for Laser Phosphor Display, which likely means nothing to you, but the company is promising that it’s a tech that will allow them to create massive, crisp digital displays that consume some 75% less power than the other display technologies. The company claims these displays are also much cheaper to build, and will last longer.
So can they deliver on such promises? It will likely be a while before we as consumers can see, because at first, Prysm is targeting commercial vendors with the tech. They hope that arenas/stadiums, concerts, and big department stores will take advantage of their displays initially. But after that, assuming all goes well, this tech would ideally be available to consumers looking for large screens that consume little power. And following the hoopla of Avatar and some of the tech at CES, these screens are 3D compatible, we’re told.
Of course, the key to that is also pricing, but again, they’re still a ways away from figuring that out for consumers. In fact, all they’ll say on their site is vaguely worded statements such as, “Finally, LPD technology breaks free of the performance limitations of conventional displays by offering high resolution, superb image quality, high brightness and the widest viewing angle at the lowest cost of ownership while consuming the least resources.” That sounds like the best of all worlds. But seeing is believing, and we haven’t seen yet.
Prysm is a company that has actually been flying under the radar for about four years now in Silicon Valley. The privately held company has over 100 employees.
