LG has just shown off the world's first 84-inch Ultra Definition (UD) LCD interactive whiteboard, and it's truly something to behold. The technology is being geared towards schools, where teachers could use it as a new tool for teaching their students. Gone could be the days of nails on a chalkboard, slamming erasers together to clean them, and dried-up markers.
The panel measures a massive 1.9 x 1.1 meters (74.8 x 43.3 inches) – dimensions that are actually quite similar to those of traditional whiteboards. The brightness is 350 nit, which is 3.5 times brighter than that of current projector-type interactive whiteboards. This should make it much easier for students to see and interact with the whiteboard, even if they're sitting towards the back of the classroom. This also means that teachers no longer need to turn off the lights as they would with a projector-based whiteboard.
Another nice thing about a screen like this is that students no longer need to worry about blocking the projector with their silhouettes. Students can move about the classroom, without their heads blocking the view for classmates.
The screen's resolution is positively insane. At 3,840 x 2,160 (about 8.3 million) pixels, it's about eight times the resolution of current HD projectors used in many classrooms. It's also a much higher resolution than we are accustomed to from Full HD TVs, which come in at 1920 x 1080. The interactive part of the whiteboard comes from the touchscreen support, which allows teachers and students to annotate directly on the screen.
Upon request, the screen can be outfitted with Film Patterned Retarder (FPR) 3D technology. This brings wide viewing angles, and requires the use of special glasses. Obviously, if an entire classroom were to be outfitted with these, the glasses would have to be reasonably priced – LG is reportedly making sure that this is the case.
Source: LG
