Apple patents new LCD display for sunglasses’ fans

AppleInsider has recently found new Apple’s application, which reveals the company has developed new unique liquid-crystal display. The document entitled “Display that Emits Circularly-Polarized Light” was first filed by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in January 2011. It describes a liquid-crystal display in its essence, due to which the image is not distorted even when you look at the display through dark glasses of your sunshades.

The common problem of LCD displays is that they have electric fields vibrating in a sole direction, different from that located by sunglasses. Polarized filters of sunglasses block the light when you look at the display at certain angle, whereupon the image at the display of your iPhone or iPad is distorted. In most cases it may become darkened, partially or completely. If the person uses screens protected with extra filters, it becomes obviously impossible to make out any image on them.

A highlight of the new technology is the application of a special layer converting the polarity of the light from linear to the circular. That allows to reduce the image distortion on LCD screen viewed through light filters, such as sunglasses, to a minimum. Thus, you can easily read text on the screen of your portable device such as the iPhone or MacBook even if sun shines brightly outside? and you won't have to squint against the sun, as taking off sunglasses will become unnecessary.

The proposed invention is credited to Shawn R. Gettemy, Victor H.E. Yin, Cheng Chen, Wei Chen and John Z. Zhong.