Huh? What's he talking about?
Well, for those graphically impaired, there are "blacks," and then there are "blacks." No, this has nothing to do with racial issues, but rather the color black, and how it relates to viewing (automobile) instruments. Sharp has developed an LCD screen that can produce a very deep, rich black background, in which other colors (whites, reds, yellows, greens, etc.) will just jump off the screen because the contrast is so much greater.
I can relate to this quite easily, as there is a trick in 4-color (CMYK) printing in which you combine percentages of "C" (cyan), "M" (magenta) and "Y" (yellow) with the "K" (black) to get a much deeper black than if you just printed black by itself...
As a graphic designer (my other life) I've used this trick many times when I've wanted to have a very deep rich black for large solid black areas of a layout.
Sharp is essentially doing the same thing here. Whether they are using other colors to enhance the black, I don't know, but the end result is the same thing. Bottom line here is this deep rich black makes the readability of the instruments so much better. It has very little to do with making it look good, although it does that too; but instead, it's all about communicating information to the driver quicker and clearer, all good things when you are driving.
More info here.
Sharp is essentially doing the same thing here. Whether they are using other colors to enhance the black, I don't know, but the end result is the same thing. Bottom line here is this deep rich black makes the readability of the instruments so much better. It has very little to do with making it look good, although it does that too; but instead, it's all about communicating information to the driver quicker and clearer, all good things when you are driving.
More info here.
jerrywimer says:
04:03 AM, 10/13/06
That's awesome! That first image of guages has me wondering how long it'll be before we get something similar in place of the current analog guage package in our vehicles. Just imagine- an LCD image of analog guages would allow for an infinite range of driver customization (thinking back to an earlier blog discussing various IP color schemes in current cars).
ateixeira says:
10:33 AM, 10/13/06
A lot of NAV screens that wash out in sunlight could benefit from this.
estreka says:
01:06 PM, 10/15/06
My S2000 has a digital display. I could definately see benefits from such a technology.